we may see phil mattingly throughout the rest of the hour. the president will take some questions while he's up there. sharing some reporting and insights, ileana johnson with politico. it is a rare visit, number one. number two, the timing is just very important with where we are on the election year. and where we are with the question of is congress going to do much of anything between now and the election? traditionally, and republicans especially, given the wind in their face this year, they want to pass whatever will keep the government open. they want to confirm judges, and then they want to go home and campaign. when the president walks in the room, we know judges. beyond that, what will he say, i need you to do this? >> i think the president has almost entirely turned his attention to foreign policy, because he knows the prospects of accomplishing anything big is limited, so i think he's going to press on confirming gina haspel. he needs a cia director in order to make this summit happen with north korea and to do some of the other th

phil mattingly on capitol hill., david, seems to be a huge gamble for the republican moderates. >> it is a gamble in the sense that they're bucking the leadership and might be a price to pay for doing so if thank you don't get what they want but what they see, wolf, a bigger gamble with the voters back home. this is what we call like an 80/20 issue. the american people made the voice clear on daca and wanting a continuation of the program, protection for daca, perhaps a pathway to citizenship. to line up the 20 republicans that signed up with this against the map of the midterms and vulnerable republicans or republicans retired and don't fear the consequences of bucking leadership, you have a similar list. these are the republicans that are going to define for paul ryan, for kevin mccarthy, whether or not they stay in the majority or not. they're the most vulnerable and signing on to this because they believe not only does the issue work for them but they need to tell voters they got something done. >> you think tru

. >> let's start with cnn's phil mattingly live on capitol hill.es she will be confirmed with a bipartisan vote, but you know the math up there and how narrow it is in the senate. does john mccain's statement shift indict nthe dynamic at al? >> i don't think it shifts indict nthe dynamic but it's certainly frozen. nobody speaks with more authority on this, somebody who was in prison from 1957, 1963. based on the torture he was subjected to while based in hanoi. you talk about jeff flake, the americ alabama senator who spoke to voters last week. what john mccain has to say carries weight, is important. you mentioned senator cornyn. they are still confident the votes will be there. now secretary of state mike pompeo, you have a lot of democrats who want to come on board. the expectation is joe donnelly and maybe doug jones. senator mark warner. they may all come aboard eventually. but everyone kind of stops and reads the statement when senator mccain speaks on this issue. he was there when this policy went into place in the early 2000s. he remains a

i want to go to cnn phil mattingly on capitol hill. and phil, the senators doesn't discuss either of these, one of the denigrations of one of their colleagues dying. >> resigned to reality. that is the rational one senator gave me before the meeting on why he didn't think the mccain issue would come up at all, the reality being the white house and president wouldn't apologize and therefore it wasn't worth bringing it up. now it is worth noting, mitch mcconnell did say there was a need for public policy but whether it was on john mccain or zte, there was a -- it was we ran out of time and didn't get to it. >> the person who said that should apologize and apologize publicly. >> anyone ask him about it. >> no, we just had a couple of questions. >> but it was mostly about trade with china, that we're going to work with them on north korea and not let them rip us off and he kept saying that over and over again. >> nobody questioned him on zte. why not? >> he just covered a whole range of subjects and it was -- was there for well over an hour

fill ma phil mattingly is on capitol hill.esting job today. >> reporter: no question about it. this is clearlyibrated distraction. look, this is exactly what you expected to happen when speaker paul ryan announced that he was going to retire. why a lot of donors were uneasy about it because they knew what it would start. despite the united front and the speaker saying kevin mccarthy had his endorsement, independent will t behind the scenes things happen. it is into the rarity that the farm bill went down. not a rarity that the house freedom caucus would sink a bill. that seems to happen on a weekly basis. but the problem is that it compounds when you have groups trying to figure out how to position themselves for a potential leadership race and you have members who are uneasy about the entire process, same members looking towards november. and you talk about immigration specifically when it comes to that. obviously you have already 20 moderate republicans who are bucking leadership trying to push this petition to force a daca

>> i want to bring in cnn's phil mattingly on capitol hill. phil, are any of these lawmakers revealing what was said behind closed doors and are any of them expressing publicly what they have expressed prooitly ivately terms of how surprised they were the president's lawyer on the russia probe attended the starts of both briefings? >> reporter: yeah. this is the most we have heard from just about anybody in the meetings including the second one that just concluded and our colleague spoke to senator wa warner and said never seen a gang of eight meeting with a presence of the white house. those individuals left before the substance of it. unusual times. so, pretty much, jake, what you were saying, maybe less colorful and i've heard from aides and sources saying at one point in one of the meetings lawmakers didn't know who emmett flood was until he introduced himself and given no heads up he would be in the meetings themselves and a complete surprise. now, as you noted he didn't stay for the classified portion and an interesting element, jake, i'm

. >> with us to share the reporting and insights this sunday phil mattingly and katherine lucy of the the associated press. the president's story about the stormy daniels hush money payment is changing even though he will insist it isn't. this just last night from the president's new lead lawyer and chaos maker. >> even if it was for campaign purposes if it was to save his family, to save embarrassment it is not a campaign donation. even if it was a campaign donation the president reimbursed it fully and the fact is there is no way this is a campaign finance violation of any kind. it was an ex penditure. >> the feds will get the last words on that and other transactions bike michael cohen. questions about violations of campaign laws could be complicated but this is not. this hour last sunday the president's position was that he knew nothing about the settlement or the payment to the porn actress. this sunday the president knew about the payment and more than reimbursed michael cohen and fixer for taking care of it. giuliani saying the president knew about the payment. the "new york ti

. >> with us this sunday to share the reporting and the insights cnn's phil mattingly. we begin with hopeful words from the president of the united states and leaders of north and south korea. president trump welcoming home an american who had been imprisoned for two years. as he did that he was upbeat about talks aimed at reviving the singapore summit. >> we are doing very well in terms of the summit with north korea. looks like it's going along very well. as you know there are meetings going on as we speak in a certain location which i won't name. it's not so far away from here. i think there is a lot of good will. i think people want to see if we can get the meeting and get something done. >> those optimistic words striking because it was president trump who days ago cancelled the summit but north korea's conciliatory action was a surprise. the leaders of north korea and south korea holding a meeting and kim again insisted he is prepared to give up the nuclear program. >> translator: as a continuation he confirmed his commitment for de-nuclearization emphasizing he w

with me to share the reporting and their insights, karen dumurjeon, phil mattingly, caitlyn collins.ave the advance team in singapore. more importantly, no offense to that team, you have the substance team meeting with the north koreans. this was off just 72 hours ago. president moon of south korea wants it. kim jong-un clearly wants it. president trump clearly wants it. are we going to have a meeting to have a meeting, or do we think they'll resolve the substance? >> i mean, look -- in some ways, what's happening now is a more normal process. you normally have substantive meetings at the lower levels before you decide whether or not to have a summit. that's more normal. what isn't normal is the speed with which they're trying to make this happen. i mean, other summits at this level have taken place after months if not years of negotiations, of discussions between, you know, the sort of technical experts to try to figure out can you actually make this happen, and the diplomatic experts to decide where are the two sides, and you try to have all of that mapped out before the leaders sp

as the vote went down phil mattingly reports that while scalise continued to work on whipping memberseaned on a railing and looked on. at one point he made a motion of wiping hisands as if to make clear he is done with the process for the day. the failure raises questions about his ability to control his conference and credibility as speaker. senior republican source told rachel that this is a problem when you have a lame duck speaker who announces he is leaving eight months in advance. he can make calls to urge them to vote for something but who will care? who will care? one of the things you got paul ryan wiping his hands of this process. it seems like some of his members are wiping their hands on paul ryan in this instance. >> i think some people are starting to get antsy. they would like to see new leadership and they are ready to move on. paul ryan has had a really tough couple of weeks. it began with the chaplain flap. he fired a catholic priest who was basically the minister for the members. you have moderates who are sick for waiting for a bipartisan daca fix. and then the fai

colonel, mike pompeo testifying on the hill right now, secretary of state, just asked according to phil mattinglythe room, just asked if the shift in tone from kim has something to do with internal strife or problems with his leddership? he answered by saying, quote, i don't think he's a weak leader. in fact, he's tell straited dem enormous capacity to lead. >> he's trying to le toing to lr open. it is clear that the north koreans were nervous about going to do this in singapore, american allied state, a heart of capitalism, number one. number with, i think the north koreans never signed on to the concept that this would not be step for step. you heard from kim jong-un and others consistently that there would not be unilateral disarmament. in other words, the united states was going to have to give something up as well. we don't know anything. we don't know what secretary pompeo said in the privacy of the room with kim jong-un. we have no indication that the united states was willing to do things of a significant nature that would take away our ability to hit north korea with nuclear weapons or o