ron brownstein is back and jackie kucinich as well. if you had the president's ear right now, ron brownstein, and you said, all right, you have to say "x" when you shake their hands, what would it be? >> i think they really want to hear the reaffirmation of the american commitment to nato. i mean, i think it's probably a bridge too far to expect the president to be on the same page as the european leaders >> the . >> the pope gave him a copy of the cyclical on climate change, a not-so-subtle message of what the president wants, so a lot of people tugging at the whez in a lot of different directions. we're watching president trump and the secretary-general walk through these new headquarters here. the significance, if you will. set the stage for us of a new american president arriving at the headquarters of this organization. >> well, this is the organization that's been around for 68 years. it's been, as pres have said, the cornerstone of american foreign policy for 68 years. it's been really the basis on which we have engaged europe o

we have analyst ron brownstein and maggie haberman and april ryan.ith all of the last minute arm twisting, now the battle begins for the senate. now what happens? >> the senate indicated it is paying no mind to what the house passed yesterday. they are starting over. they have been holding a number of meetings the last couple weeks led by senator ted cruz to get a bill that is acceptable. they are very unhappy with what has come before. when you are essentially starting from scratch after the process over the last month and a half in the house, this is not reconciliation. this is not the normal process we are used to. this is two separate tracks on health care. it is a reminder why washington has expectations. watching the president take the victory lap. this is a president who loves winning and important for the white house. it is all it was. psychic victory. >> a win in quotes. that is what it is. the politics are less relevant, ron brownstein, in the senate. it is more policy driven. just because the absolute numbers. for every ted cruz, you have

that is simply reckless. >> ron brownstein. it does not seem there's a constructive legal case to make he here. it's not illegal if the president does it. poppy does it, secretary of state does it, it would be illegal. so you get into what kind of wrong is it. alan dershowitz, attorney and legal scholar says this is the worst charge ever leveled against a sitting president. do you agree and why? >> i don't know if it's the worst charge leveled against a sitting president, i think some of the things president nixon was accused of are of comparable gravity here. we're talking significant gravity. i'm not going to quibble with phil whose knowledge of how intelligence is handled is far superior to mine. i think there's an additional debate here beyond the question of the source, the level of granularity the president discussed it as david sanger said would allow you to reverse, engineer and figure out sources and methods even if he didn't disclose them. look, this is extremely serious. it goes to, i think, a core question that has

we'll get the bottom line from ron brownstein next.ple confuse nice and kind but they're different. it's nice to remove artificial ingredients. kind never had to. we've used real ingredients, whole nuts, and natural flavors from the very beginning. give kind a try. >>> we focus this morning on the new spending bill that is set to prevent a government shutdown. breaking down the details it looks like big win for democrats, but is it? let's get the bottom line with cnn's senior political analyst and senior editor "the atlantic" ron brownstein. there are less are of the things we thought trump wanted and the republicans wanted but is this the price of getting a success? >> well yes, look, it's the reality of needing 60 votes in the senate, but it is a win for democrats of the kind of a particular kind and the only kind they'll likely have in the coming months where they essentially the win is slowing down the advance of the trump agenda, not so much advancing their own. i think of it similar to the clean power plan. president trump is beg

let's talk more about this with ron brownstein, cnn senior political analyst and senior editor for the communications director for ted cruz. ron, you first. you said that this really is pretty stunning. is it also worrisome? >> look, it's unusual for world leaders to talk so candidly and directly about the kind of reaction to the actions of other world leaders and when she said over the last few days there's no question what she was talking about. she was talking about the meetings that donald trump and europe, both the eu and nato over the previous 48 hours. the president is a disruptive force and the idea -- and for many of the supporters, that's exactly what they like. but the idea that he was being domesticated by traditional foreign policy, a traditional embrace of the alliances that we build after world war ii because it was in our interest to encourage the spread of stability and that has faded. this is putting the traditional republican internationalist wing i think on notice. they are at a moment where the president is envisioning a very different relationship with europe and

ron brownstein and john brennan. we know we'll hear from james comey.re are a lot of people, it seems, willing to talk that create problems for this white house, and they keep on talking. >> look, i thought that was surprisingly revealing and substantive testimony for an open session, and it was significant, above all, for what you noted. the former cia director said there was sufficient evidence of contacts between his phrase, u.s. persons and russian intelligence that it warranted passing it on to the fbi for further investigation. similar to what former fbi director james comey has said that there was sufficient grounds for investigation and all of this directly contravenes the repeated arguments of the president particularly on twitter that this is all fake news or a witch hunt or democratic sour grapes over the election. i think it is much harder for any republican and you saw the republicans on the committee mostly trying to act as defense attorneys rather than, you know, looking for kind of unveiling facts. it makes it harder for anyone to argue

we have senior analyst ron brownstein and jason johnston and sarah westwood. great to have all of you. ron, the pieces of the puzzle are coming together this morning and there are a lot of pieces that went into whatever this prompted president trump to make the decision about comey this week. what do you see? >> look, i think the more evidence we have, the more clear it was the only thing that is relevant here is the president fired the senior law enforcement official leading the investigation into the conduct of his campaign in 2016 and whether it colluded the russians and everything else is noise. you have to see this as part of a pattern. it goes along with the attacks on the fake news and so-called judges who rule against him on members of congress. this is a president who simply is systemically undermining any institution to check or challenge him. we all know that now. all of the members of congress know that now with this decision. this question is how does the political system respond. does it have the will to defend the checks and balances to strain th

we also have with us senior political analyst ron brownstein and then at some point we'll also go to the northern portion of france because that was the stronghold of the la pen support. that's where we find isa suarez. ron, let me go to you. la pen represented that populist movement. with her defeat now and with macron's words there, committing to an inclusive life there in france, does that mean that puts a real dent in that populist movement that has been traveling globally? >> as she noted before, the wave so far this year has crested in europe europe, in austria in, netherlands, now in france. the la pen type party, all of which have fallen short. and afd has lost a great deal of support in polling. but i think this election just underscores how politics across the west is being reoriented around a new fault line. you see in paris a coalition of transformation in which you have a co lalition of voters, white collar, who are essentially comfortable with a more globalized integrated diverse world. then you have on all fronts whether it was donald trump here in the u.s. or brexit in

. >> all right, let's bring in ron brownstein, live from l.a. let's talk about the victory in montana, if we can. you know, the early voting here i wonder what role early voting may have played and if some folks just didn't have a chance to change their mind here because you know, they already vot voted. >> sure, roughly two thirds of the vote may have been cast early. you get the sense, though, that gianforte still would have won, i think on election day although i guess we'll have to count this. i would look at this. i think there are two interesting lessons out of this. first of all the caveat, historically, christine, there has not been a consistent link between the results and what happened in the full election, there has not been a clear pattern. two things worth noting. first we have had three special elections in solid republican districts where president trump has chosen house members for his cabinet and in each case, the democrats have run significantly better than they did in the same district in 2016, so they ran 16 points better in

we have jeffrey toobin and ron brownstein and editor a.b. stoddard. great to have all of you. jeffrey, one of the people most closely connected to the president is now being focused on by the federal investigators. >> to state the obvious, it is not good. i don't think we should overstate how bad it is. it is going to be a tremendous distraction to him. particularly the fact that they are looking into his financial affairs which are complicated. you know, examining what contacts he had financially with the banks or individuals associated with russia and then having to explain that. you know, it will take up a lot of time and space in his brain. >> the white house says they have not been contacted by the fbi. jared hasn't been reached out to by the fbi. how is it distracting? >> it is in your head. think about what it is like to be under investigation by the fbi and having them looking at your bank records and financial records and just because he hasn't been contacted doesn't mean he is not under investigation. in fact, you tend as an investigator to look last at the person yo

let me get ron brownstein on that. >> that is an escalation, even from where we started. >> yeah. >> it is one thing to ask these intelligence officials to prejudge the result of the investigation, you know, move on, there's no problem here, it is a whole other level to say specifically that you are asking them to intervene with the fbi to encourage them to stop the investigation. and as jeffrey smith noted, that is exactly what was in the so-called smoking gun tape that led to richard nixon's resignation in 1974, when it was finally released. the idea that he would try to use the cia to pressure the fbi into dropping the watergate investigation. now, i'm not sayingthatweare there or that we have facts of that magnitude, but that is the scale that you're talking about. i mean, i think that is significantly more ominous or dangerous for the administration than even the original kind of conversation we were having about whether they were pressuring these officials to kind of give a vote of confidence and to prejudge the

ron brownstein is cnn's senior political analyst, paris dennard, commentator and former white house staffer under george w. bush and karen finney, former senior adviser for the hillary clinton campaign. ron, first to you. we just heard more of the benjamin wittes interview. but i'm struck by the fact that this friend of james comey would be talking without the approval of james comey. the fact that we are now hearing this from the comey camp, as it were, what message does it send? >> it sends the message that they are not going to go away quietly, which has obviously been more loudly sent by the release of the memo originally. and i think that the behavior that former director comey is kind of rekoilg against does fit with a pattern, because one thing we have seen from president trump is that he pushes against, if not ignores completely, both the legal and custom bounds on the arbitrary exercise of presidential power. he really doesn't see an end to where his authority extends. when he talks about so-called judges, when he talks about the fake news media, when he asks comey in effect to pub

let's get the latest with ron brownstein.the urgency and president's preemptive tweeting? >> any think it's about providing talking points. i think president trump has been less interesting i think than any president i have covered in kind of winning the argument with the broad country. s he is mostly interested in providing a set of marching orders or guidance to his conservative base and particular to the eco system to kind of provide them an argument. you know, there's evidence that it's working. the percentage of people who believe he was wiretapped by president obama. this is continuous. the idea that whatever happened in the obama administration in terms of a clearance for general flynn is relevant to whether they officially vetted him is kind of like -- you know, it doesn't connect but yet it is a talking point. it is a response and it provides those who want to defend him a way to kind of have a purchase on this story. >> help us set our expectations for today. what might we learn from sally yates? >> i think you'll l

. >> ron brownstein, i appreciate having your voices.age, we expect the president to be speaking soon. when he does, we'll bring it to you live. >>> a lot of stranded passengers, british air ways assisted outage causing some major problems this weekend. >>> a luring headache if you are flying at the department of homeland security, consider expanding electronic ban. what the new regulations can mean for your trouble plans. witl you can banish them without harming plants nearby. so draw the line. give the stick one click, touch the leaves and the gel stays put killing garden weeds to the root. draw the line with roundup precision gel®. manait's a series of is nsmart choices. and when you replace one meal or snack a day with glucerna made with carbsteady to help minimize blood sugar spikes you can really feel it. glucerna. everyday progress. i count on my dell small for tech advice. with one phone call, i get products that suit my needs and i get back to business. ♪ ♪ i'm proud to make dog chow in (vodavenport, iowa.an. dog chow's been a p

let me bring it to the conversation now we've got with us cnn political analyst ron brownstein. >> goodorning. >> good morning to you, ron. the point we were picking up there with andre, he says that republicans in the house want to do this in a fiscally responsible way, but there are no updated numbers from the effort last month from a cbo report republicans didn't wait for it. >> right. it is really almost unprecedented i think to vote on a bill of this magnitude without having a cbo score. i mean, look, what you've got in this bill are two fundamental transfers of kind of resources. on the one hand you have a big tax cut by repealing the obamacare surcharges on the top earners offset by an enormous reduction in medicaid spending that would be $880 billion over the decade. 14 million fewer people will be on medicaid and i think that will be the crux of the issue in the senate because there have been a number of republican states that have expanded medicaid and it has reached precisely what has become the core of the new republican coalition. the other change, the other shift in the bi

we bring in senior political analyst ron brownstein, david gregory and jackie kusinich. david gregory most important topic for the day is? >> how both the political class and other leadership, be it judicial or not, are going to respond to what trump has done, not just the firing of comey but then the add-on comments and threats he's made demanding loyalty and all the rest. as we've been saying all morning, this is a crisis the president has created by abusing his power, by creating an atmosphere in which we don't know who we can trust in the white house, at a time when there's an investigation going on, there's facts to be gathered, and there's a system to protect, and there's real questions this week about when and whether republican leaders are going to stand up to the president, who has got an agenda to try to get passed, and say look your behavior has got to stop, and we have to get things back on track here. >> just to be clear, the reason that there are no republican leaders on this show this morning is because they didn't want to come on. "new day" asked rank and

. >> ron brownstein, a new poll, as you know, from nbc news and "the wall street journal" shows americansrwhelmingly prefer a special prosecutor taking the lead on this investigation rather than simply leaving it to congress. how is the wows going to withstand that kind of pressure from the american public? >> i think what they have shown consistently from really, you know, from nugration day forward is they are governing with an eye on their base, whether that's policy, tone, rhetoric. as long as they feel their base is with them they are willing to advance positions that they recognize the majority of the public owe pose, for example, the -- the replacement to the affordable care act which faces overwhelming opposition in polls even out today from the nbc/"wall street journal." they are willing to hang tough. the bigger question is what mark alluded to, how long congressional republicans are willing to circle the wagons around president trump on this. their dominant calculation is they are all in this together, if he's weakened their chances are weakened but on the other hand they face

ron brownstein, jeffrey toobin, tim o'brien, a.b. stoddard, david fun, phil mudd.u are going to get smarter, your iq will go up just from watching "new day" this morning. >> we can't get any smarter! we're all set. >> well, right. not you guys. >> and i just heard john berman's there, so you have the bermanator! that is something. >> can you believe this show? >> speaking of raising the intelligence bar, yes. >> that says nothing about chris cuomo being on vacation. you're going to get smarter because chris cuomo's on vacation. >> those were your words, not ours. we didn't say that. didn't say that out loud. >> i'm sure you're not going to be in big, big trouble christine. >> all right. nice to see you guys. >> thanks, guys. see you in a bit. >> and the breaking news there is it is friday. it is friday at "new day" and "early start." first it was volkswagen and fiat chrysler, now another cheater on diesel emissions. that's "cnn money stream" next. finding time to get things done isn't easy. but we've got the digital tools to help. now with xfinity's my account, you

. >> all right, christiane amanpour, ron brownstein, nic robertson, thank you very much for being with us. again, our special coverage of these meetings, historic nato meetings with a very stern message from the president continues with brianna keilar right now. >>> hello, there. i'm brianna keilar in for kate bolduan, and you are watching live pictures coming to us from brussels, belgium, where president trump is having his first big meeting with nato leaders. areas of agreement? there is tension here. these leaders are looking for common ground. and we just witnessed really some extraordinary remarks from president trump there at nato headquarters at what is the unveiling of a 9/11 memorial, and he really took these leaders to task. i want to bring in a couple folks who can help me break all of this down. we have cnn military and diplomatic analyst retired rear admiral john kirby, also with me, cnn global affairs analyst and former deputy secretary of state tony blinken. y you, john, i should mention worked at the pentagon and state department. help me talk about, really dissect thes