writer see ma mehta and caroline heldman. >> john phillips and cnn's senior political analyst ron brownstein let's start with you again. a lot going on with the russian investigation. what do you see the significance of special counsel robert mueller's meeting with congressional leaders? one of the questions has been since he was appointed, how they would establish their lanes. so that nothing that the conscio congressional investigation does interferes with his investigation which is more quongsal. there is a logical division of responsibility in the sense that the intelligence committee is best suited to explore the underlying questions of russian interference in the election and the special counsel is best suited to deal all of the criminal questions over possible collusion and or obstruction of justice. so that makes sense. in practice it's sometimes difficult to do this in the past when you think of other investigations. but i would assume that's what the principal matter on the agenda would be for them. >> and john, the investigations moving full steam ahead and mueller expanding his i

let's bring in analyst ron brownstein and michael shear and senior policy correspondent from fox media sarah kliff. ron brownstein, do you think there's a vote, do you think they can pass it as soon as this or next week? >> you never make money betting against mitch mcconnell. this is very difficult because i think they're pullishing to the absolute maximum the two coalitions. on one hand you have a bill with a trillion dollars in tax cuts, 60% of which goes to the top 10%, the high earners who are the core of their financial coalition. on the other hand, you have a republican voter base that is increasingly centered on blue collar and older whites. if you look at the interactive map that the keiser family foundation has put up about what this will do to premiums in some of the blue collar counties around the country, you're talking about premiums doubling for 6 o-year-olds at modest income. that's before you can get to the cuts. and also states struggling with the opioid epidemic, they are pushing to the max and it's unclear to me whether they can get there -- i talked to a democratic

rebecca burg, cnn political analyst and national political reporter for real clear politics, wells ron brownstein, senior editor for "the atlantic." first of all ron, to you, in the "washington post" report this morning, they're saying in early august the c.i.a. told president obama that president putin specifically himself directed the election cyberhacking. your reaction to that report? >> well, you know i think we've had intimations of this before. this is a remarkably detailed report. and i think it just goes to show how uncertain the obama administration was about how to respond. certainly the president, it's not true that the president did nothing, there are indications before he talked directly to vladimir putin. they made their displeasure known in other ways. they were focused i think primarily on the question of safe guarding the actual voting. that would seem to be the top priority throughout this. and there's the other kind of cloud hanging over all of this. was their fear of being seen as interfering in the election. think the pivotal moment probably in this whole story is when he th

we have ron brownstein and laura. good to see all of you. ron your take away from yesterday. >> i thought it was a very clarifying day because it made two things abundantly clear which were summarized in the first two rorts. first the former fbi director in person underoath saying what had previously only been attributed to associates or news reports of memos that the president engaged in a pattern of conduct that over the past 24 hours many legal experts former watergate prosecutors law profess source and others just identify become a plausible case of obstruction of justice and move that debate significantly forward and then the other point is legally important is that there are essentially no congressional republicans or virtually no congressional republicans that are willing to interpret it that way and thus what that says is the only thing that could force their hand to act is the independent council investigation and secondarily the congressional republicans are making a huge electoral bet because as i said before the biggest risk to th

. >>> cnn political panelist john avlon, cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein and white house correspondent from bloomberg news, margaret talev. >> i know south carolina was very close, shouldn't have been that close. i know georgia's plus nine republican and been held by republicans for a long time. but the democrats need to win places like this, and they didn't. what do you see as the lesson for that party and its leadership? >> it's very frustrating i think for democrats and it's going to create a lot of recriminations, particularly georgia six. you see the debate between the left and the center about whether ossoff is too moderate, to bland. it's hard to imagine a harder-edged message would have worked in this district. the most honest thing for democrats here is a reminder that tribal politics still work. what republicans were able to do in this republican-leaning dwrikt tom price, the inkurm bent had never loss more than 60% of the vote. more about partisan loyalty and essentially in the up-or-down referendum on whether you want republicans or democrats in control, they

let me bring back in ron brownstein and renee marsh joining me now. s like they're milling about. they're about 15 plus minutes late or even more so. let me begin where kind of we ended that last bit, ron. i was just kind of looking over and reminding myself, this was an area where democrats said they could work with donald trump. democrats said infrastructure, a trill y trillion dollars towards infrastructure, you've got it, we're on board. let's discuss it. why does it seem unlikely that when it comes to, shocker, the details it's going to be kumbaya? >> the first reason is it's not a trillion dollars. the president is talking about a much smaller infusion of federal money and reliance on the private sector, states and local governments to fund the actual projects. in fact, chuck schumer has tweeted that in essence what the president is talking about in detail is more privatization. obviously the movement of the air traffic control system into a semi public corporation is kind of an example of that. but the idea that rather than a big public works pr

but we want to get back to running our great country. >> okay, ron brownstein. no collusion, no obstruction, he's a leaker. >> there you go. there's a message. if this is as it appears now, comey's word against president trump's word, what happens? >> first, the first important thing, as john carl pointed out, james comey made his comments under oath, big difference between what he is saying and the president said in a press conference. i thought it was significant the president was going out preemptively saying yes, i will testify. we had two legal experts here. ken starr subpoenaed bill clinton to testify in august, 1998 when independent counsel. white house initially resisted the subpoena, questioned whether it was possible to subpoena a sitting president. ultimately, they agreed to testify. as far as i know, the issue was never adjudicated whether you can force the president to testify. certainly going to be harder now politically for him not to testify, and ultimately whatever the president says now, what counts is what he says under oath. if you go back to

let's get the bottom line with ron brownstein.ght there might be something gone, now it's defini definite. >> we are seeing the ultimate expression of the tribal politics in washington as this plays out, the idea of standing for transcendence justice or behavior is being destroyed. bob english said over the weekend the former republican congressman if you put this set of facts on a hillary clinton presidency, she comes in, the fbi director says he's reopening a investigation into the email, she says i hope you can let it go and fires her, there's no question republicans in the house would be looking at the beginning of an impeachment inquiry. instead a circling of the wagons and something i think is going to be in the hands of the voters eventually about whether this is the oversight they want or whether they think this is inappropriate. >> it is inconbelievable, ron, if you play what if hillary did this game to change the names and put hillary clinton into it. it is an inconceivable scenario, many republicans saying no collusion,

the panel, ron brownstein is a cnn analyst and editor for the atlantic.lyst and white house correspondent. alice is here, a commentator and a communications director for ted cruz's campaign. all right, friends. let us begin. ron, what is your best guess, i'm putting you on the spot right now. what is your best guess on what the sentiment is going to be when senators come out of their weekly lunch today? >> misery. you know, look, they are caught between a rock and a very hard place. on one hand, they promised for seven years to repeal and replace the affordable care act. they are left with a bill, more than any single bill i have covered in washington going back to the early 1980s, imposes the heaviest cost on the party's own voters. that is the core reason why this is so difficult. the biggest losers in this bill are older and lower middle income adults. in many states that were critical for donald trump's victories, they were predominantly white. if you are talking west virginia, kentucky, ohio, michigan, iowa, wisconsin, all those places, the big loser

we have david gregory and errol louis and ron brownstein.gregory, the president is frustrated with the russia investigation. he doesn't like all of the daily threads. he thinks there is nothing to see here. now rod rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, seems to send a message to americans and journalists. americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous officials particularly when they do not identify the country or branch of government. americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. the department of justice has a long established policy to neither confirm nor deny. anonymous sources are frustrating to them. there are leaks. they don't think anybody should stake stories and truth on these. >> i don't think the deputy attorney general should be spending his time telling american what is to believe about stories attributed to anonymous sources when a lot of journalism is based on that. people can get in trouble for telling the truth anonymously. throughout our history. how about in

. >> ron brownstein, you noted there are clear sides that don't seem to be budging here. in some ways, the president can say this. this really has one path to conclusion. >> look, i think the special counsel investigation right now is the only game in town. the most important thing that happened last week was james comey laid out a pattern of behavior while not all experts, former prosecutors like bharara have said the basis for the beginning of the investigation of obstruction of justice. on the other hand, you saw the unanimous or entirely unanimous rejection of the idea from congressional republicans who did not challenge what comey said. saying he was remembering it incorrectly or misrepresenting it. even if the president said that comey alleged, it was okay. not a violation of the law. the only way that changes if mueller presents them with evidence forced them to act. what presents them is 1973 and the office of legal counsel in the justice department. they don't have the force of the court decision, but the justice department opinion that the sitting president cann

. >>> let's bring in our panel, cnn's senior political analyst, ron brownstein. cnn political analyst april ryan. and associate editor and columnist at real clear politics, a.b. stoddard. so, professor brownstein, when you look at the numbers leer, what is the tale of the tape in these democrat losses in south carolina and, of course, georgia? >> i think if you look across the board, president trump picked four republicans from pretty republican districts for his cabinet and republicans held all of those seats. so there is an element here of holdi holding. on one hand i think republicans particularly saw in georgia one encouraging sign. they polled republican leaning voters who were ambivalent about president trump by making this less of a referendum on him and more on who do you want to see as speaker. on the other hand, you look across the board at all of these special elections, democrats ranch better than they did just a year ago in 2016. in georgia 6, karen handel wins by 4 1/2 points. that says when you get to places less inherently tilted toward the republ

ron brownstein, matthew, and norman. that little bomb comey dropped that there was a third undisclosed meeting with the russian ambassador and jeff sessions, what are the implications if indeed sessions testifies oh yeah, about that meeting, let me tell you a little bit more about it. >> i'm trying to remember. i don't think comey specifically g said a third meeting. he said there were other reasons he would have to rekiecuse. if there is a third meeting it fitz in fits into a broader pattern. from jeff sessions already at least once that had been undisclosed and were only disclosed subsequently after initial affirmations to the contrary. if there is another meeting that he did not zis clodisclose to t committee, you already have figures who are raising serious questions. i do think you will hear a growing c growing chorus of democrats demanding his resignation if there is another meeting. a reminder that both fronts, the collusion question from the campaign and the possible obstruction question from after the election t

let's get the bottom line with cnn's political analyst ron brownstein.see it, professor? >> look, i think inevitably, donald trump is the reason we are talking about this district and this race. tom price, who gave up the seat to become health and human services secretary, has never won less than 62% of the vote in this district. mitt romney and john mccain both won it by about 20 points in the 2008 and 2012 presidential election. the reason it is competitive at all is because donald trump's most significant underperformance relative to other republicans is his weakness among the kind of college-educated white voters, suburban white collar, white voters, who are in this district and districts like it. this district has more college-educated white voters than any other republican house seat in the country. while ossoff was strikingly on message during your interview and obviously is trying to appeal to republicans to kind of minimize the direct attacks on the president, he is the reason we are having this conversation and why this race is even close at al

they point out -- i heard this from ron brownstein. star pushed forward and congress used in impeachment. legal minds don't think that unless there are tapes that can corroborate what comey said, can show that president trump has not been honest, they don't think that he would really push forward in the same way. >> as for jared kushner being interviewed by senate staff, do we know when that will be and whether it would be under onlat? >> we know the imprecise time. it could be the middle of this month. could be the beginning of next month. he is going to be talking behind closed doors. we're not going to see it. then there's a question of whether it's under oath. we do know there will be mutually agreed upon terms between the committee and jared kushner's lawyers. we don't know exactly what those are going to be. this is something that, of course, will be fascinating. a number of issues, kushner having contacts with a putin associate, the head of the state-owned bank, russian bank. most importantly i would say, this issue of him tryin

what is going on behind closed doors between senator santorum and ron brownstein.. how is this health care situation going to shake out? >> this is a deliberate strategy. it isn't by magic. this is how he can get to the 50-51 votes he needs to pass this bill. the best way to do it is not have a death by 1,000 cuts, every outside interest group and interested party can get in there and make complaints about it. now, of course, at some point, when this is legislative and scored by the congressional budget office to find out what is in it, what it costs and how many people lose coverage, then the american people are going to have a chance to look at it. mitch mcconnell is hoping to limit that to get votes. that's the political strategy behind it. it left the democrats with what can they do to push back and shine a light on that. you just reported this one way they are going to start pushing back, which is try to grind senate business to a halt. that's something democratic based voters have been pressing democratic leaders in the senate in washington to do. >> so, if i

. >> let's continue the discussion with ron brownstein, senior political analyst, laura coates, cnn legalthy neftali. here's the standard rod rosenstein set for himself when it comes to recusal, this from an interview earlier this month. this is a quote, i will recuse if anything i did winds up being relevant to mueller's investigation. mueller, the "post" is reporting is looking into potential obstruction of justice. is this a question of when and not if, and if so, why not now? >> i think it would be premature for him to recuse himself at this point but it may in fact ultimately end up being imminent because when he wrote the memo to the president about why to fire or why he should fire james comey, i think he unwittingly inserted himself into the deliberative process that was already under way and undergoing about the decision to terminate comey. in doing so, i think he thrust himself into the land of recusal. however, the president's own statement that he independently had come to the conclusion that he would, in fact, fire comey ir respective of whatever anyone else said puts the urg

let's bring in professor ron brownste brownstein. senator fien stein calling in investigation -- do you think he may be responding to something we didn't hear, something in closed doors? >> i think what you heard in public testimony was plenty to prompt that. you have two separate issues under investigation. the underlining conduct with whether there was collusion between anyone in the trump administration and the russian intelligence during the 2016 campaign to disrupt the campaign and hurt the hillary clinton campaign. now the second issue of when the the president or anyone around him tried to obstruct the investigation into an aspect of that. in particular whether michael flynn made false statements to the fbi. what the senator's letter underscores is it's really kind of appear appropriate feel for the intelligence committee to be the sole place on capitol hill looking at this. their expertise is counter intelligence, the idea that they'll be the vehicle looking at whether there was on instruction of justice seems stretched. on t

cnn political analyst ron bro brownstein, a.b. stoddard and cnn political director david challen. we're waiting on the cbo score. the health and human services secretary, tom price and kellyanne conway were out there, making big claims about why this bill was the way to go. let's play tom price. >> the plan we have, we would not have individuals fall through the cracks. we would not lose coverage for anybody that wants for themselves and their family. we want to make certain that health care is available to all americans. >> how, ron, do you take money out of the system and still have an equal amount or even greater covered? >> you know, in my career i've been covering washington since the early 1980s. i cannot remember a single statement by a cabinet officer that is more misleading than that. cbo analysis is clear, 23 million people will be uninsured with the house bill than under current law. it is possible that the senate bill would remove insurance from slightly fewer people in the ten-year window that the cbo analyzes than the house bill but more people over the long term. th

scott bolden, and ron brown brownstein. presumably well will find out if there are tapes. you would think.wn brownstein. presumably well will find out if there are tapes. you would think. koenk c congress come compel the president to reveal them. >> there is one person who is definitely going to find out and that is robert mueller the special counsel. there is no question that if there are tapes, and we don't know that they exist iks he w, need them for his investigation and he can certainly subpoena them. >> but a lot of people think that there is probably not tapes. then is part of this thinking carefully legally when he is not -- when president trump is not answering this or is this just on the next episode stay tuned? >> the whole episode has been so unusual in the sense that it began as so many things do with a tweet. it goes back to the original tweet which some people have now interpreted as a threat to james comey and have argued that it is an attempt to tamper with a witness would i sby saying he h hope there are not tapes. that is where this all goes back to. eve