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Trump: I Am Being Investigated for Firing Comey; Sentiment on Both Sides: Dial Down The Rhetoric; Health Care Crunch Time For The Senate; All Eyes On Georgia's Special Election. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired June 18, 2017 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[08:00:05] NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN ANCHOR: Trump lashes out at the Justice Department as the investigation expands.
Plus, his attorney general, in the hot seat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: And the suggestion that I participated in any collusion is an appalling and a detestable lie.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: A moment of unity after a tragedy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R), KENTUCKY: At the end of the day we're all Americans. I think everybody needs to remember that because we're on this thing together.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: He can root for the Republicans. I can root for the Democrats, but we could still be friends.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: Will it last?
Plus, trying to keep his campaign promises on health care in foreign policy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am cancelling the last administration's completely one sided deal with Cuba.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now.
Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS, I am Nia-Malika Henderson filling in for John King.
To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thanks for sharing your Sunday.
The Russia investigation is causing a rift inside the Justice Department, with tensions surrounding Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Justice officials told CNN that Rosenstein could have to recuse himself from the investigation partly because of his role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey.
President Trump didn't hold back his feelings on the Russia investigation or on Rosenstein. At 7:53 a.m. Friday, this tweet "After seven months of investigations and committee hearings about my collusion with the Russians, nobody has been able to show any proof. Sad."
About an hour or later, this tweet are also directed at Rosenstein, "I am being investigated for firing the FBI director by the man who told me to fire the FBI director, witch hunt."
The reaction from Democrats fast and fierce.
Senator Diane Feinstein saying "The message of the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn't apply to him, and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired. That's undemocratic on its face and a blatant violation on the president's oath of office.
Joining me now to share their reporting and their insights, CNN's Phil Mattingly, Abby Philip of "The Washington Post", Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post, and CNN's Jeff Zeleny.
And fresh off the presses, speaking of the president's tweets, Jeff, we have one just this morning at about 6:30 he's tweeting again, "The make America great again agenda is doing very well despite the distractions of the witch hunt. Many new jobs, high business enthusiasm, massive regulation cuts 36 new legislative bill signed great new Supreme Court Justice and infrastructure, healthcare, and tax-cut in the works."
I mean, we've seen something of the president's strategy, the White House strategy and Republicans strategy in terms of dealing with Russia and that cloud that's hanging over this presidency. How do Trump's tweets fit into that larger strategy?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, he's clearly trying to discredit this investigation by calling it a witch hunt, by calling it phony, other things. But the reality is it's very real. He can call it fake news, an investigation, a phony investigation but his White House realizes it's real. Republicans certainly realize it's real.
So the message he sent out this morning is a slightly optimistic view of where things are. I mean, if you talk to Republicans on Capitol Hill or, you know, or to anyplace, things are not going very well. The agenda were five months in --
HENDERSON: Right.
ZELENY: -- and Republicans control the government for the first time in ten years and things were essentially stalled.
I was talking with a tax reform lobbyist, a tax lobbyist. And he said that, you know, the level of optimism has gone down week by week by week. Now, virtually no one believes that this will happen this year. And if it doesn't happen this year, it's very hard as we all know to get anything done in an election year. We'll see what happens.
But I mean the reality is Russia has consumed everything --
HENDERSON: Right.
ZELENY: -- and the president is still talking about it.
HENDERSON: And, Abby, in some ways at least one reading of his tweets about this investigation is that he is admitting that he is under investigation, something that he has said over and over again that he wasn't under investigation. Is that what he's actually doing in these tweets admitting that?
ABBY PHILLIP, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, it depends on who you ask. The White House is saying that he's not admitting it, that he's really just reading "The Washington Post" and watching CNN, and he's seeing everybody talking about it, so he's commenting on the story.
But obviously that's not what you do when you are -- first of all the president of the United States. You don't want to be in a position confirming things that you are also arguing or may be untrue or unverifiable.
[08:05:04] And so that the tweet was clearly misguided that has caught his aides and his lawyers by surprise, and they had to then turn around and concoct an explanation for them and this is what they came up with. You know, every single day that the president wakes up and sends out a tweet about a witch hunt and about Russia is a day that they're not talking about infrastructure week and about apprenticeship week and next think about --
HENDERSON: That was this past, apprenticeship week. Yes.
PHILLIP: Past week, apprenticeship week was apparently going swimmingly, but you wouldn't know it if you looked at the president's Twitter feed. So, this morning he was close. He also had his --
HENDERSON: Yes. It's kind of a double-barreled message there.
PHILLIP: He almost had a tweet that was about his agenda, but he slipped in that witch hunt there. And I think, you know, you have some aides that's really shaking their heads. I don't think many of them think that there is going to be much they can do to change it.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So that was the interesting thing about this morning, 140 of the 280 characters that came out were actually on point.
HENDERSON: You counted, yes. MATTINGLY: They were actually what people wanted to see. And I think this is the biggest thing that I hear repeatedly and, Jeff, kind of hit on this as well. Republicans who want to focus on the agenda, Republicans who are infuriated that we're all talking about Russia. The administration infuriated, everybody's talking about Russia. The president is the one who continues to talk about Russia.
The president starts every single day talking about this issue bringing it back to the forefront adding news to the table, seemingly confirming things that nobody else had confirmed up to the point. He's the one that's bringing it back to this. It's not a witch hunt, it's not people -- it's responding to the president's tweets, the president's on official statements.
I think that's where the frustration comes from. If he could just do blunt tweets about his policy agenda, people would be beyond thrilled of that.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, THE WASHINGTON POST: And he wouldn't be Trump I'm afraid.
(CROSSTALK)
DEMIRJIAN: Think about the person that was campaigning, did he talk that much about this details of his plans, you know, and never as quickly as the other candidate did. And every time a negative threat came whether it was a person or a thing, he branded it. That's what he's doing now. It's the witch hunt, Russia equals witch hunt.
HENDERSON: Right. And part of that branding now has of Rosenstein who is on the Hill this past Tuesday and he was talking about Mueller, who some people at least there's talk in Washington, this idea that his job might be at stake. Here is what Rod Rosenstein had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROD ROSENSTEIN, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: Director Mueller is going to have a full degree of independence that he needs to conduct that investigation appropriately.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: If President Trump ordered you to fire the special counsel, what would you do?
ROSENSTEIN: Senator, I'm not going to follow any orders unless I believe those are lawful and appropriate orders.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: And Collins there, really I think, you know, place where most Republicans are. Even Ben Carson saying let the special counsel, Bob Mueller, do his job.
DEMIRJIAN: Right. And I mean that this is what Republicans have been saying in general about the special counsel's probe. They believe that as far as Russian collision allegations go, that the probe will exonerate the president. So just let it go, let it happen. And the irony of all of these is the fact that the president couldn't is what has basically put this in the camp of now, obstruction of justice and that's frankly why we have Rosenstein and why we're discussing potential recusals for Rosenstein. He had nothing to do with the Russian collision as far as we know, anything that we've seen.
But his memo has been Trump's excuse for -- well, that's why I fired Comey, kidding, that's not why I fire Comey, I was going to do it. Actually maybe it would have been, again, this week that he's gone back and forth. And that makes him a witness. I mean, whether or not he actually knew anything. His testimony for what was going on behind the scenes now matters.
And so that question that Collins asked that got him to say, basically, that I don't see a cause for firing Mueller right now. That has what establishes Rosenstein as the firewall between Trump and the guy who's is causing him most problem.
HENDERSON: And we saw Sessions, also this past week another witness he was in some ways frustrating I think for some Democrats, the White House in some way to look favorably on his testimony and this is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SESSIONS: And the suggestion that I participated in any collusion that I was aware of any collusion with the Russian government to hurt this country which I have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process is an appalling and a detestable lie.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: A really dramatic testimony there, Jeff, didn't shed a lot of light in terms of what his conversations were with the president about the firing of James Comey and whether it had anything to do with Russia.
ZELENY: Exactly, and that's why the White House was very pleased by that --
HENDERSON: Right.
ZELENY: -- because it's not trying to any light on it at all really. He was defiant and indignant there and certainly upset about that. He really did not offer any new information about what is the matter at hand here, the president's own role in this. But the reality here of all these messages that president has been setting a witch hunt, et cetera, it's more strategy than a spontaneous untold and he wants to win the political fight on this, as he's always done.
The difference here is though every time he does anything like this it probably hurts the legal fight.
HENDERSON: Right. ZELENY: But he's viewing this as the short term gain he wants to in the political fight here. So, he's basically sending up his talking points everyday it's a witch hunt and his supporters believe him, but the reality here is it's going to be, you know, a challenge going forward as this goes to a legal fight, which is a new area for him.
[08:10:10] DEMIRJIAN: But the one thing that's important to remember is that even if it's a legal fight, ultimately, this does not end up in the court of law making the final judgment. The court of law is concrete.
HENDERSON: Right.
DEMIRJIAN: So he has to win the political fight too and the legal fights, so in that way he's actually right in terms of --
ZELENY: It's all connected, right.
DEMIRJIAN: Yes. Exactly.
HENDERSON: Well, I think --
DEMIRJIAN: No matter what Mueller's recommendation.
PHILLIP: That's true. But I think that this entire fiasco is imperiling Republicans. I mean the political fight is all about who's controlling the House of Representatives and the Senate in 2018 and 2020. That's ultimately what it becomes.
I don't think very many people expect a Republican Congress to impeach their own president, but if there is a Democratic Congress you bet we're having a different conversation.
So, Trump needs to be very careful that he is not putting Republicans who are going up for re-election in a tough spot politically by making this Russia investigation essentially a criminal cloud hanging over this White House, that anybody associated with them gets tainted with it.
HENDERSON: And, Phil, they're certainly filling that on the Hill, Republicans.
MATTINGLY: No question about it. Look, particularly if you look at on the House set of things, they're very cognizant, they are keenly aware of the possibility of running for re-election with a president that is a 36 percent approval rating. And most of them or at least 217 of them voted for a healthcare bill that has approval rating in a very, very low double digits. And that's why you see a lot of frustration and they just wish you would kind of go away.
And it's not because they are against him. A lot of them support him certainly on the agenda items on taxes on healthcare, a lot of them are very much still aligned with him. His judicial picks have been out of this world when you talking Republican senators. But those who recognize that they are in Sweeney districts or districts that could get caught up in a way are staring at Twitter right now and are starting with they see on a daily basis, and just saying please stop.
HENDERSON: Please stop, yes. And they'll never stay. I'll put your phone down.
MATTINGLY: Yes. Give us a chance in November --
HENDERSON: Yes.
MATTINGLY: -- with the money, with the opportunities, with our agenda. Give us a chance. Please don't stand in our way. And I think there's a lot of concern right now that that's exactly what's happening.
HENDERSON: Yes. And even from Camp David which is where he is all this weekend, wanting to tweet from the woods.
Up next, shaken by a gunman's attack, lawmakers call for a return to civility. Can there be a new tone in Congress?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:16:19] HENDERSON: Congressmen Steve Scalise continues to show signs of improvement and his condition has been upgraded to serious instead of critical. He and three others were shot Wednesday morning at a baseball practice.
Police shot and killed the gunman, 66-year-old James Hodgkinson from Belleville, Illinois. We now know that he was carrying a list of Republican lawmakers' names, although Scalise's name wasn't on it. The shooting, plus the attacker's politically charged social media presence filled with angry, anti-Republican rants has lawmakers on both sides of the aisle saying it's time to tone down the harsh rhetoric.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCONNELL: What we want everybody to know we've always had a robust discussion of the issues in this country throughout our history, but we don't dislike each other. We work together all the time.
SCHUMER: There's a lot of contention, obviously, the politics has become polarized, but it doesn't have to stand in the way of personal relationships or working together, and we try to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: Karoun, on the one hand, they seem to be talking about substance, right, working together, but also stylistically, I mean, this idea that things will be different going forward, are we too pessimistic to think that it's unlikely? I mean, what's your sense? What are you hearing on Capitol Hill?
DEMIRJIAN: Well, I mean, everybody is speaking on Capitol Hill as if they want to change things going forward. Just as an aside I would say the president struck a tone, too. Everybody was saying, maybe this is going to be a shift going forward and we know that that was not the case because he started tweeting angrily again, although I suppose there's fewer references directly to Democrats than there have been the last time.
But members of Congress kind of have to make a choice because they ease into very, very sharp banter that's not going to go away entirely. But they do ease into this line of being very, very close to the line of personal attacks as they start to criticize policy and because they're emotional things.
When you're talking about health care, preexisting conditions, people that are dying, you know, people who have family members that experienced various things, that can be very, very visceral and very, very hard to hold yourself back from the line.
But I think this is going to be a point at which we try to see -- you know, where the -- I was saying earlier this week that, you know, is it the person or the politician that wins out in each of these struggles, because the politician would say, you know, capitalize on each of these moments that present themselves.
But the person says, wait a second, wait a second. I remember this episode which was, could have been an attack on me, too. Because, you know, had it not been for Scalise's bodyguards, you're thinking every rank and file member of Congress that joins other rank and file members of Congress in a public setting now has to wonder is somebody going to have a gun. So, it feels real.
HENDERSON: Right.
DEMIRJIAN: And anybody friends with anybody on that field for them it is a real kind of, you know, come to Jesus moment in a way, that they're just saying, OK, things really need to change because I care about these people. The question underlying that, though, is how many of those relationships exist?
HENDERSON: Yes.
DEMIRJIAN: We've been talking about Washington being broken for a while and part of that is the fact everybody goes home on the weekends. They don't actually have their kids hang out together all that much. They don't have all those other bonds they talk about existing.
HENDERSON: Yes. And we saw some of that this week, Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan. Here they are talking about grand kids.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), WISCONSIN: I think we need to find more opportunities for to us work together. We actually know each other well and many of our members do, but not enough to do.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D), CALIFORNIA: Yes.
RYAN: We need to find more opportunities for Republicans and Democrats to break bread. I mean, literally, just go have meals with one another, travel with each other, do things with one another.
We know the people on our committees, our leadership the people we work with, but there are not enough relationship building exercises between Republicans and Democrats, and we got more work to do on that.
PELOSI: I thought you were going to brag about how much my grandchildren are your big fans.
RYAN: That's right. Yes, I heard your grand kids actually like me. Go figure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: Phil, relationship building, lunches, maybe trust falls at some point. What do you think we're going to see?
[08:20:08] MATTINGLY: Look, it's tough to overstate how rattled everybody was this week, members, staff, reporters, everybody works. It's a community, right? Everybody knows one another. Everybody actually has a decent amount of respect for one another.
But one of the biggest kind of departures here, one of the biggest fractures is that people don't know one another well, right? People don't go on CODELs, the congressional trips, as much anymore. People all live at home because they're afraid to be told they went Washington. People are fund-raising every single day.
The dynamics of how politics currently work don't exactly engender the ability to form relationships with individuals. The big question that I found a lot of members that I was speaking to kind of grappling with right now is what wins out, kind of rhetoric or relationships, right? The rhetoric's been rewarded, period, over the course of the last decade. The people with the strongest rhetoric have won elections over and over and over.
HENDERSON: Donald Trump the biggest example of that. Yes.
MATTINGLY: The man sitting in the Oval Office is a really great example of it. So, what people are trying to grapple with right now is there's no question, after what happened on Wednesday, everybody is going to talk happy talk, talk about relationships, talk -- try to figure out a way to change things.
But at what point do they have to make kind of that decision of, am I going to ratchet everything back at the risk of potentially losing in November or am I going to go back to what I'm used to. I don't think anybody has an answer to that. I can tell you that most people would prefer the latter than the former at the current moment.
HENDERSON: Right.
MATTINGLY: But when consultants and polls and money and all that type of stuff comes in, that's when the question actually begins.
HENDERSON: All right. Mark Sanford, who is a congressman out of South Carolina, really talked about Donald Trump and sort of the Trump effect and what kind of responsibility the president might bear.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARK SANFORD (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: We have gotten to a point in terms of breakdown of civility in our country that it's a problem, and that everybody is to blame and the blame can go on the Republican side, go on the Democratic side. But when the president says to somebody in the audience, I wish I could hit you in the face, if not, why don't you do it and I'll pay your legal fees, we ought to call it for what it is, that's a problem.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: Abby, what do you make of that?
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I think there's a lot of truth to that. I mean, 24 hours after this awful tragedy happened, the president went on Twitter and he accused the people of investigating him of being essentially bad people. And I think that kind of sets the tone. You set the tone from the top.
He's I think internalized that his voters reward him for going as far as close to the line as possible for speaking his mind, for not being politically correct. But at what point does political correctness actually contribute to a deterioration of civility in the country, not just in Washington, I'm talking just in general.
So, I don't think the president recognizes that there's any connection between his own rhetoric and this environment. I think he talks about the sacrifice Steve Scalise made for his colleagues and for the country, but you have to take that and do something with it. You have to move it forward. And I don't think we've seen him do that. I don't think he recognizes that there's any connection.
HENDERSON: He did have a unifying message shortly after the shooting happened. He also had this message that was broadcast at the baseball game.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: By playing tonight, you are showing the world that we will not be intimidated by threats, acts of violence, or assaults on our democracy. The game will go on.
In Washington, we have our disagreements, but we all agree that we are here to serve this nation we love, and the people who call it home. That's the source of unity. And more than ever, we must embrace it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: Jeff, there was that. There was also a fundraising e- mail, the first line of which was, Democrats have absolutely nothing to offer the country. Different from the tone he struck there.
ZELENY: Sure it's different from the tone. And I think we have to separate the politics in this. Of course, Democrats and Republicans are always going to have differences on issues. I do think that this was a leadership moment for the president. It's the first time we've seen him sort of in this moment in a role that so many presidents have to do far too often.
And I thought that he actually stepped up fairly well the first day in the messages going forward. My question is what's next? Is he going to use this as a teachable moment? Is he going to sort of bridge the gap?
We have an extraordinary situation here where one president is -- you know, has the ability here, the president has the ability through his relationships. I thought he might reach out to President Obama, I thought there might be some type of a thing there but he didn't.
We'll see what happens going forward here, but this is on the president as well. So, we'll see how he uses this moment.
HENDERSON: We'll see. Indeed.
Held up in the halls of Capitol Hill. The Senate majority leader had hoped for health care vote before the July 4th recess. Why that timing may be pretty tough.
[08:25:03] But first, politicians, they tend to say the darndest things, with Australia's prime minister doing the Donald.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MALCOLM TURNBULL, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: The Donald and I, we are winning and winning in the polls. We are winning so much. We are winning like we have never won before. We are winning in the polls. We are, yes, we are. Not the fake polls. Not the fake polls. They're the ones we're not winning in. We're winning in the real polls.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:30:07] HENDERSON: President Trump is spending this Father's Day away from the White House visiting Camp David for the very first time. First Lady Melania Trump and 11-year-old son Barron are with him.
Now while Trump is taking in the woodsy digs, a long to do list awaits him back in Washington. First on that list, health care.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The House of Representatives has passed on to the Senate and the Senate's getting ready to do something. Hopefully it will get done, where we will come up with a solution and a really good one to health care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: Lawmakers are up against the clock. Congress only has 10 legislative days left before the July 4th recess. What's adding to that time crunch? CNN has learned that Senate Democrats may try to shut down all Senate business to pressure Republicans to reveal details of the Senate version of the bill.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is staying hush-hush about actually what's in the Senate version of the bill, and even some members of his own party have been left in the dark. That's making some GOPers worry more about the time crunch.
Republican leaders have been sending bits and pieces of the bill to the Congressional Budget Office to be reviewed but it would be a very tough turnaround to get the final legislation scored in that short timeframe.
Phil, you've been hanging out on the hill talking to Republican lawmakers on this. Where do things stand now this bill?
MATTINGLY: They're not there yet and I think there's no question about that. But I think they're close and I don't know that they're going to have a lot of options going forward. Look, you mentioned the timeline. Ten legislative days. It's very clear. Senate leaders in the Republican Party want to vote before July 4th. And there's a lot of reasons for that.
They have a huge list of agenda items that they want to get to and there's also recognition that look, while this process doesn't look good publicly, behind the scenes they've been having meeting after meeting after meeting with all 52 members of their conference. They know what the issues are, whether it's Medicaid expansion, Obamacare regulations, structure of the tax credit, abortion. They have not changed. The issues have not changed. The players have not changed.
They recognize that at some point you're going to have to actually move forward and do something. I think the big question now is twofold. One, can you actually get a score done, can you get something back? And two, is there any way to actually thread this needle and get 50 votes? Because if you look at the issues that are still outstanding right now it is extraordinarily difficult to get that coalition together that you need to get. People are going after compromise in a major way and at least up to this point we haven't seen it.
HENDERSON: And one of those of people, Senator Lisa Murkowski. Here is what she had to say about what's happening with the Senate bill so far.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R), ALASKA: Yes, I've got a problem with it. If I'm not going to see a bill before we have a vote on it, that's just not a good way to handle something that is as significant and important as health care.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENDERSON: And Kouran, obviously Murkowski in Alaska, she cares about planned parenthood. She cares about the Medicaid expansion as well. What do you hear coming from her and is that something that you're hearing from other senators who are in those Medicaid states?
DEMIRJIAN: The Medicaid expansion states you saw a number of Republican governors join this bipartisan letter this week where they were saying look, you can't pass the bill the way it is. Especially the House bill, that this is a terrible model. It wouldn't work in our state. Pay attention to the -- you know, the Medicaid provisions as well.
You also have -- you know, Murkowski is a senator from a rural state. The rural states have a special interest in this because they do rely on these federally funded programs so much more than others do. But I think there's just -- I mean, the reason that's being given, that she just gave there, you can't just give a spill.
There really is an argument to be made about hypocrisy right now because the Republicans complained with Democrats when Obamacare passed which took a lot longer, frankly, on the calendar than they've given themselves for the Republican version of repeal and replace, was that it was the line, like you're going to have to pass it to see what's in it, right? That was the thing that kept playing out over and over again.
And now they're being, you know, very, very clandestine about what they're doing such that their own members can't even explain it when reporters ask them. And that's politically problematic. I mean, if it fails, maybe there was a thought that there would be a messaging argument against Senate Democrats for making it difficult to not working with them but they lose some of that if Democrats say you didn't even let us know what was in it in the first place. Your own people didn't even know.
HENDERSON: Yes.
DEMIRJIAN: And that was your whole complaint with us.
HENDERSON: And Democrats very much going on the offense here. On Monday they're going to launch an ad, an ad campaign in four states, including in Alaska, and here's a look at some of that ad.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Collins, when this happens, she isn't thinking about the health care bill in Congress. She isn't thinking that it will force her to choose between filling his prescriptions or paying their mortgages. And she shouldn't have to, but you should, Senator Collins.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[08:35:10] HENDERSON: And Jeff, what is the White House role in this? The president obviously had a big Rose Garden ceremony when it came out of the House version of the bill, a bill that he has since called mean. ZELENY: He did, and I think if the shooting hadn't happened this week that would have been a much more significant moment. But he essentially threw the House bill and the House members under the bus there.
He said it was a mean bill. He watches public opinion very carefully. He knows that the health care bill is deeply unpopular. The question, what does he want to do about it? So he said the Senate bill should be more generous. What does that mean necessarily?
He didn't explain. And the challenge here for the White House is that the president has not been that involved in the Senate bill and that is just fine with the Senate. They do not really want him involved or the White House involved but the challenge here for him is to reconcile all of this.
I mean the mean factor of this is something that, you know, is going to -- probably going to be a huge issue for him because once this bill passes the Senate, if it passes the Senate.
HENDERSON: Right.
ZELENY: A big if yet, it has to of course go back to the House and that will take White House leadership. That's the moment the president and the White House will have step in and sort of bridge that gap.
HENDERSON: Right.
PHILLIP: What is amazing to me about this whole process is that you actually have Congress really not wanting to talk about boring policy details, and as a result, ceding the sort of public opinion to other stories like Russia, for example, and that's really remarkable. And then you have moments like this where the president just decides to talk about things that he is not very plugged in on this.
I mean, everybody that I talk to says that he's not -- his hands are not in the details on this bill at all, and for him to just sort of in some ways reprimand Republicans for passing a bill that he twisted their arm and forced them to get to is really remarkable. Really plugged in Republican told me that that moment put a real shock in the system because you have a lot of Democrats in the Senate looking at that and saying, will the president throw us under the bus if we take a tough vote for him?
Will he look at public opinion, look at T.V., look at the polls, and say, hey, this is actually kind of unpopular, why did we pass this bill? A lot of Republicans don't want to do that.
HENDERSON: Yes. A lot of uncertainty about that bill.
Coming up, it's the House race with the biggest price tag ever. The final arguments hit the air waves in Georgia's Sixth District. We'll look at why the race could say a lot about the political climate for the country.
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[08:40:48] HENDERSON: It's a long time conservative stronghold, but Democrats have their eyes on Georgia's Sixth Congressional District in what has become the most expensive House race in history.
Just this past week, a new ad from Democrat Jon Ossoff taking on his critics on his national security credentials.
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JON OSSOFF, GEORGIA CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: And let's put this to rest once and for all. I want to see ISIS destroyed. As an investigative filmmaker I helped to expose atrocities committed by ISIS against women and girls. They're evil. And we have to stop them. That's why I'll work to make sure our military and intelligence community have every tool they need to fight terrorism.
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HENDERSON: The ad was partly in response to this from the National Republican Congressional Committee.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ISIS is infiltrating America and using Syrians to do it. The FBI warned we can't safely screen every Syrian, yet Jon Ossoff's liberal party bosses brought 10,000 Syrian refugees to America. With our safety at risk, Jon Ossoff is just too risky.
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HENDERSON: Republicans want to hold onto this district, Democrats wants to flip it. And Tuesday's runoff election will give both parties a small glimpse at a possible playbook for how to run in the Trump era.
Abby, you covered Democrats in 2016 and in some ways this district and this race has some of the features of the 2016 race in terms of Hillary Clinton. What do you think Democrats are looking for and why are they spending so heavily in this race?
PHILLIP: Well, I think the key here in this district is going to be the sort of education divide that's always present in politics, especially in light of the November election. This district is a little bit more affluent. It's moving toward the more college educated side.
You have -- it is a Republican district but those Republicans are -- they have college degrees, they are sort of working, I'm sorry, white- collar workers as opposed to some working class high school educated folks. And so that actually makes the dynamics a little bit different.
It means that you're not going to see the same thing that you saw with Donald Trump. Some of those Republicans are much more skeptical of him. I think a lot of them want to give him the benefit of the doubt, but they're skeptical and they're willing to turn to flip in a congressional seat line.
HENDERSON: Right. Yes. And he won this district about one percentage point, and you were talking about the demographics and the socioeconomics of this district, and we've got a graphic up. The residents with bachelor's degrees are more in this district, 58 percent, you compare that to Kansas, the Fourth District there, about 28 percent, and the Montana at large district it was about 30 percent. Those two races Democrats obviously came up short in those.
And this idea, one of the things that Ossoff want to do is basically Democrats come together and then peel off some of those Republican Romney voters.
Karoun, what do you think Republicans are looking for in this race, which is tight as a tick I'm told at this point anywhere from one percentage point will probably decide the final race?
DEMIRJIAN: Right. I mean I think it's to hold back what could be a swelling tide if Ossoff wins.
HENDERSON: Yes.
DEMIRJIAN: I mean, if he wins it's a signal to the Democrat that this is doable. That you can flip these districts that might be traditionally Republican, but they're not traditionally that Trump Republican. And thus it gives them a playbook for going forward. Doesn't give them a playbook that will win them the House, unclear because so far they've been making gains, even in Montana, you know, better showing than in the past but not quite enough to have it be a win. Right?
HENDERSON: Right.
DEMIRJIAN: So if they can win this, it's definitely going to be wind at their backs to keep going and it's going to be very, very invigorating for the Democrats. Also the other question there was, if they lose, they have to take a look at themselves because it's so odd that you have these two candidates, you know, being everything riding on these two candidate in this particular district.
HENDERSON: Right.
DEMIRJIAN: Neither of them is particularly rehearsed in politics.
HENDERSON: Karen Handel may be a little bit more rehearsed.
DEMIRJIAN: No, no. You're right. That's true.
HENDERSON: Right.
DEMIRJIAN: But just in general the fact that, you know, you're having ISIS commercials in the last few days, it's like, what are we talking about?
[08:45:00] HENDERSON: Yes. Yes. And he was -- Sonny Perdue was campaigning with Karen Handel. He of course is the Agriculture secretary and former governor of Georgia. Here is what he had to say to Republicans.
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SONNY PERDUE, AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: I know some of you out there, some of you, some Republicans may even be turned off by our president. And I don't think you are. I'm not, because let me tell you, let me tell you, I know it's hard. And let me just share, I was in Miami yesterday with him. The president keeps his promises.
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HENDERSON: Jeff, that message seems to be something like come on home to the Republican Party even if you don't want to? I'm not sure.
ZELENY: And that's extraordinary there.
HENDERSON: Yes, I'm being -- yes.
ZELENY: We're five months into the presidency, and for the president to not be a valuable asset is pretty interesting, and that is a sign of things to come going forward. A lot of Republicans will not want to be sort of at his side campaigning, but I'm really struck with that. That's the first time I saw that.
HENDERSON: Yes.
ZELENY: And he was like, OK, maybe you don't like him, but I think the president here desperately would love to be down there involved in the fray of this. He's not wanted, quite frankly, and that is, you know, something that probably stings.
HENDERSON: And we'll see, Phil, what lessons Republicans draw from this on Tuesday.
MATTINGLY: Yes. And I think one of the most interesting takeaways going to be if Jon Ossoff wins on Capitol Hill, Republicans are going to freak out.
HENDERSON: Yes.
MATTINGLY: And I don't think --
HENDERSON: We'll see -- yes.
MATTINGLY: -- doing anything on special election, saying why the range, what it actually means, is always a dangerous thing.
HENDERSON: But everyone will do it.
MATTINGLY: But lawmakers absolutely would.
HENDERSON: Yes, they will.
Our reporters share from their notebooks next to give you a look at tomorrow's headlines today including Trump's help wanted woes.
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[08:51:08] HENDERSON: Let's close by asking our reporters to share a little tidbit from their notebooks and help keep you out ahead of the big political news coming up.
Phil, I'm going to start with you.
MATTINGLY: So senators have been giving a lot of space on the Republican side of the aisle and trying to figure out their differences on health care, obviously, and they're enormous. We've talked about that. That ends this week.
I'm told that at some point during this week, leadership will come down and say it's time to make a deal, the negotiations are over. You are now time -- it is now time to compromise. Figure something out because we have to move forward.
We've all known this moment is coming. Now we know when it's coming. Expect it by the middle of this week and then we'll see what happens from there.
HENDERSON: Lots of negotiation over coming up.
MATTINGLY: Time to make a deal.
HENDERSON: Abby?
PHILLIP: Well, my colleague Lisa Rain and I have a story in today's paper about some nervousness among Republicans about the slow pace of which the White House is filling political posts. Many of them are saying there is no one there to implement the Trump agenda, and all that talk of deconstructing the administrative state has really gone out the window.
This White House does in fact want to fill many of these positions but there is some nervousness among the candidates about coming into a White House under siege by a number of investigations, by a president who doesn't listen to some of his aides, and so all of that is contributing to a little bit of a supply and demand problem for this White House in terms of staffing the government.
HENDERSON: We'll see how that goes. Karoun?
DEMIRJIAN: This week is a big test in the greater probe around Trump that's coming up in Congress, because the House Intelligence Committee has asked him to produce these tapes by the end of the week. And it's a test of the efficacy of the congressional investigation versus the credibility of the president. Because if he produces them and what's in them could either corroborate his story or Comey's story. But if he doesn't, can Congress really do anything about that?
Can they just yell and scream and beat their chests? Can they subpoena what they're not sure that something exists? And the question is where do they go from there? Because this has been a push-pull in several different rounds of this, and we're going to see how this happens on this issue of the tapes thing. And then of course there's a question of if they're not there, they're not produced, how many times can the president tweet about something in air quotes, you know, wire tapping, now tapes.
HENDERSON: Yes.
DEMIRJIAN: And people keep defending him as this just being a slip of the Twitter finger and not, you know, poor judgment in terms of trying to divert attention away.
HENDERSON: Yes. And he has said that whatever the outcome of the tapes we'll be disappointed.
DEMIRJIAN: Right.
HENDERSON: So we'll see what happens. Yes, what does that mean? Jeff?
ZELENY: Well, this week the president is going west of the Mississippi for the first time since he's been in office which is kind of unusual, if you think about it. I mean, what, five months in here, he's going to Iowa on Wednesday to Cedar Rapids.
And his advisers hope he travels more. They are trying to get him to leave this bubble of Washington, they're trying to get him out of here, but for some reason he is not as inclined to do so. We're not exactly sure why that is. But he is going to Iowa on Wednesday.
The last week I was with him in, you know, Wisconsin and its amazing when you look at the local news coverage that actually is on the issues he's talking about. So we'll see if this week marks the beginning of a turning point of more time outside of the White House.
I don't think it will because he is inclined to stay here for some reason, but on a Wednesday in Iowa, he'll be there for the first time. Of course that's one of the states he turned from blue to red.
HENDERSON: That's right. And we'll see if this is a start of a trend.
And I'll close with Democrats. Senator Kamala Harris of California did herself and likely her party some good over this last weeks, creating viral moments with her tough and pointed questioning of administration officials. She upped her following on social media, got shout-outs on late-night T.V., "The View" and several black media outlets, and women's outlets as well.
That kind of outside-the-beltway buzz means Harris is breaking through and could be a big help to Democrats in 2018 as they look for fresh star power and as they look for someone who can bridge the party divides.
[08:55:02] She has helped fundraise already for Claire McCaskill, Jon Tester and Elizabeth Warren, and I'm told she plans to do more of that coming in the future and she'll also focus on one of her signature issues, criminal justice reform, in the coming weeks. That's it for INSIDE POLITICS. Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning and a very Happy Father's Day to you and John King, he'll be back in the anchor chair tomorrow at noon.
Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper.
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