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Trump Rallies Base Six Months from Midterms; Kim Promised to Close Nuclear Testing Facility; Trump's Nominee for V.A. Secretary Forced to Withdraw; GOP Intel Committee Report Finds no Collusion. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired April 29, 2018 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[08:00:19] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Hello -- Michigan.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Retracing his 2016 path promising to defy midterm history.
TRUMP: This November every American will face a choice.
I think we're going to do great in the Senate and I think we're going to do great in the House.
KING: Plus, speaking of history, the two Koreas promised peace and no nukes.
And the President roasts his critics.
TRUMP: We get a kick every once in a while out the fact that I'll be watching people that failed so badly over the last 25 years, explaining to me how to make a deal with North Korea. I get a big, big kick out of that.
KING: And more cabinet chaos. The President vows revenge after White House doctor, Ronny Jackson drops his bid to be V.A. Secretary.
SENATOR JON TESTER (D), MONTANA: He hands out prescriptions like candy. In fact, in the White House they call him the Candy Man.
KING: INSIDE POLITICS -- the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now.
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KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King.
To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing your Sunday.
New details from that historic summit between North and South Korea. Kim Jong-un is said to have promised to close a nuclear testing facility to say he would never use nuclear weapons. As he prepares for a big summit with Kim, President Trump weighs in on who he thinks should get the credit for this new opening.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: One of the fake news groups this morning, they were saying what do you think President Trump had to do with it? I'll tell you what, how about everything?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That was on the road last night in Michigan six months now to the midterm elections.
Top Republicans want the President on a tight script. What they got last night is a list of political grievances and the President's big worry if Republicans lose the House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have to keep the House because if you listen to Maxine Waters she goes around saying we will impeach him. We will impeach him. The people said but he hasn't done anything wrong. That doesn't matter. We will impeach the President.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And the President takes no blame for the collapse of his choice to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs. There was a bipartisan revolt but the President blamed one Democratic senator who happens to be on the ballot this year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Senator Jon Tester of a really great place, Montana, he took a gentleman who is a truly high quality human being and what they said about him, what they said about this great American doctor, what Jon Tester did to this man is a disgrace.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: A lot to discuss this Sunday. With us to share their reporting and their insights: Karoun Demirjian of "The Washington Post"; CNN's Jeff Zeleny; Perry Bacon of FiveThirtyEight; and "Politico's" Rachael Bade.
The President as you saw was on the road last night, again skipping a big Washington dinner where he was supposed to be the guest of honor. Washington Township, Michigan instead for the President. You might call that the political version of teaball (ph).
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You may have heard I was invited to another event tonight -- the White House correspondents' dinner. But I would much rather be in Washington, Michigan than in Washington D.C. right now -- that I can tell you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now the midterm elections are six months from Tuesday. Republicans worry they might lose the House and maybe the Senate too. The President is by far the biggest factor. Yes, he rallies his base but he's also toxic in the suburbs and with several key voting blocs.
The GOP leadership wants a tight script and there were last night a few flashes of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: A vote for a Democrat in November is a vote for open borders and crime. It's very simple. It's also a vote for much higher taxes. It's also a vote for be careful of your Second Amendment, ok. Be careful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: But the Trumpian detours from the teleprompter were too many to count. The President eager to skip the script and air his grievances.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[08:04:48] TRUMP: Are you watching that mess that's going on right now with the caravan coming up? The only collusion is the Democrats colluded with the Russians and the Democrats colluded with lots of other people. They are very, very dishonest people.
Fake news. Comey is a liar and a leaker. And if our Justice Department was doing the right thing, they'd be a lot tougher right now on those people.
They build the cars in Mexico. They sell them across the border, no tax. We lose the jobs, we lose the taxes, we lose everything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The incoming during the President's rally last night from Republicans -- my e-mail last night was fascinating in a sense that there were times he went after Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic incumbent in Michigan is on the ballot. He talked up the taxes. He did the crime and the border. Republicans are like "stay there" and then he goes off on this other stuff. I think it's interesting.
Let's start. And I'm actually sad we have to. There was a dinner last night here in Washington. The President has decided, for political strategy purposes, to go on the road two years in a row during this dinner.
I get it. Smart politics on the President's part. But did -- did the media play into the President's hand with the dinner last night where the comedian was -- some say crossed the line. The attacks on Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, in my view I was not there, you were Jeff Zeleny -- way too personal. There's a way to do this and there's a way not to do this. What happened?
JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Look, there was a comedian at the dinner last evening. I thought the jokes were one- sided, not necessarily funny. But she was invited by the White House Correspondents Association. So, you know, I think that this dinner has had a lot of bad moments.
I was thinking back last evening as I was watching this cringe-worthy performance in some respects going after the appearance of Sarah Sanders which I thought was inappropriate and not funny. You know, the weapons of mass destruction video from the Bush administration where people were climbing around the floor of the Oval Office looking for the WMD, also not funny.
So it's not the first time there've been awkward moments. But look, I think the President wins. He goes out to Washington, a township of Michigan far away from this. The press has done a lot of incredible work this year here at CNN. Of courts "Washington Post" and the "New York Times", other places. A lot of that was I think overtaken by a skit that wasn't very funny.
And we sometimes celebrate ourselves too much, I think. The reality is it's an important job and last night, I don't think we lived up to that.
KING: Incredibly important moment in the sense that we do need to stand up to this president who attacks us. We do need to stand up to this White House which often shades, if not just twists and bends the truth. But there's a way to do it and there's a way not to do it.
And you invite people at your table -- you invite people at your table. It's supposed to be a circuit breaker dinner. It's supposed to be a circuit breaker dinner where we know this is tense throughout the year. We're going to invite you in this room -- you have to find the right balance.
KAROUN DEMIRJIAN, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, "WASHINGTON POST": It's also -- I mean if you endorse a comedian, even if you're not vetting the jokes or effectively endorsing what they say and he was effectively speaking for the press at a very, very tense moment.
And also I mean there's the optics of it, right because this is -- fine, the circuit breaker between reporter and subject, ok cool. But it's not that. If you're a reporter on the subject and you're inviting all of America into the living room where you're having that circuit breaker chat, you know.
And the optics of it do not translate necessarily that well. And if you are somebody who is already planning to be skeptical of whether the media is, you know, unbiased or not, it's difficult to have a disclaimer that says wait a second, this is just an outtake, this isn't really us. Because you see what you see.
And when you have the President on the other screen, you know, talking the way he's talking and not letting up, you know, he's not doing a circuit breaker speech. There you go. KING: Some people love these things. I stopped going to prom a long time ago. I think it jumped the shark a long time ago. But here the President trying to take advantage of it this morning. "While Washington, Michigan was a big success, Washington D.C. just didn't work. Everyone is talking about the fact that the White House Correspondents' Dinner was a big bust, big boring bust. So-called comedian really bombed."
Look, people will have different views on this but the President -- this is one of the reasons he is president. He runs against the establishment, runs against the elites -- smart politics from the President, right out of the box on Twitter this morning.
RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes. This is absolutely 100 percent -- as we talked about in the green room -- was a gift to him.
Chris Wallace received a journalism award, I think, maybe four months ago or so. And I remember him saying to the media, the message was do not get sucked in into this narrative the President has been trying to peddle for a long time which is that "It's me versus the press and the press is out to get me."
A lot of times, you know, we are attacked. Our stories are attacked. They are called fake news. And the reflex is to defend yourself and maybe make jokes at the White House. But if you do that, you undermined your own credibility and it's just a bad look for us. We have to be -- we can't get down that --
PERRY BACON, POLITICAL WRITER, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT: I don't agree with what has been said so far here, (INAUDIBLE). A comedian said some things -- ok, you know, a comedian jokes around. I don't believe the comedian is speaking for the reporters at all. In a lot of ways, the President has been attacking the press for three years. If those jokes were not made last night he would continue to attack the press
The idea that if we had a more neutral for media, if Jay Leno had been there that he would not attack the President I think is nonsense.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: That's a very important point. That's not the point I was talking about. I just think that there's a balance to it.
DEMIRJIAN: Right.
[08:10:01] KING: There's a balance to it and the President will continue to attack us. And to that point it's our job to stand up.
And here's one of the points right here. The President last night was bragging about how he was out of the swamp. He was away from the fake news media that hates him. It's not a fake news media and it doesn't hate you. It has to cover you with accountability, as we will like when you do this.
The President said he's outside of the swamp, right -- the swamp is a terrible thing. He calls up on stage his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and his former deputy campaign manager David Bossie -- I think we can show you the pictures here.
These are two guys who trade access to people in Washington because they make money off their access to the President. That's the swamp. That's the swamp. He took the swamp with him.
ZELENY: I mean the swamp has not been drained, it's been filling. I mean just look at the cabinet members who have, you know, undergone all these issues here.
So look, he wins rhetorically. I think what is probably not productive is the discussion about, you know, at dinner last evening that has very little consequence. The reality is there are a lot of things going on in the country here. We probably disagree on some of these matters but the president wins last night rhetorically, no question.
KING: A disagreement is always healthy in any conversation especially at this table. I just want to -- the President was on the road last night for an important thing. He's trying to test what he can and cannot do.
He's trying to convince Republicans you want me out there. A lot of Republicans are very nervous about that. He is out there last night.
Here's his approval rating. Six months to the midterm election, the President is right about 40 percent. And that's been a static line for a long time if you look at it. That's not good. You know, a lot of Republicans -- he's been lower, that's not good. Historically that's not good.
And the generic ballot -- Republicans are looking at this, and Democrats too scratching their heads. Back in January the Democrats had a 17-point advantage at who do you want to run Congress, Democrats or Republicans. Now, it's about eight points. If it's at eight points the House is a wrestling match. If it's at 17 points or above 12 or 14 points the Democrats win.
BACON: These numbers I'm watching really closely. Two things are going on. The first I think is natural which is Republicans are coming back home which is going to happen. That was always going to happen.
With a little dip among the Democratic number and that's that I'm serious abut. And a bigger undecided number -- it's not clear. It looks like a lot of voters do not want to vote for Trump's party but are not sure of the Democrats either. And they've got to close that deal in the next six months.
KING: And it's a fascinating conversation about his role in this. That's why last night was so interesting. The President on the road, if you were watching something else, you want to go back and find that tape. It's always fascinating to watch.
Up next, history in the Korean Peninsula, President Trump wants a good chunk of the credit. It falls on him now to turn promises of peace into a deal that actually delivers peace.
First, politicians say the darnedest things or do the darnedest things with -- you might call this dude diplomacy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We do have a very special relationship. In fact I'll get that little piece of dandruff off. We have to make him perfect. He is perfect.
So it is really -- it is really great to be with you. And you're a special friend. Thank you.
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
TRUMP: I like him a lot.
MACRON: Thank you.
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[08:13:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Welcome back.
Some fascinating new details today about the history made in Korea's demilitarized zone this past week. The leaders of the North and the South sharing handshakes, smiles, a meal, planting a tree to symbolize, now carved in stone their commitment to peace and prosperity.
The South Korean government says Kim Jong-un promised to close the nuclear testing facility and to soon invite inspectors to verify his actions. He also was quoted by the South as saying he is not the type of person to ever launch a nuclear weapon.
Now, the critical details were left for the planned U.S.-North Korea summit. Can President Trump and Kim agree, for example, on the definition of denuclearization? Will President Trump be open to any sanctions relief of economic aid to grease the diplomacy? A long list of thorny questions and a deep reservoir, deep, of understandable skepticism but the President says he believes Kim is serious about peace and he relishes recalling how his critics said talks of "locked and loaded" and "fire and fury" would lead to war.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We get a kick every once in a while out of the fact that I'll be watching people that fail so badly over the last 25 years explaining to me how to make a deal with North Korea. I get a big, big kick out of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: His guest Friday at that event, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel is among the many who find the President's shoot from the lip style unnerving. But the President believes his disruptive say is working whether the question is how to tame North Korea or whether it would be reckless to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I can tell you this. They will not be doing nuclear weapons -- that I can tell you. Ok. They're not going to be doing nuclear weapons. You can bank on it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: It is remarkable -- A, the history on the Korean Peninsula, the potential for it, it's a historic war, it's historic meetings. The questions can deliver. But the timing and the collision of the planned North Korea summit -- U.S.-North Korea summit with the President's big decision two weeks from now about Iran.
DEMIRJIAN: Yes. I mean -- the world could very much change in May. Or maybe we could -- it's just under (INAUDIBLE) and nothing will be any different. But yes, you've got two major crux (ph) points. You walk away from the Iran deal, it not only puts that in doubt about what Iran's ambitions will be and how well you can constrain them.
And also many Democrats are saying it makes our word not good. Because if we make a deal and we pull out a deal, why is North Korea seeing that, agree in early June or whenever exactly we're supposed to be meeting with them that we're going to actually stand by whatever paper we sign.
And yes, the President said he is interested in a lot more than just than a piece of paper but eventually all of these things get written down on paper that you agree to.
And there are still questions about North Korea. Look, I mean there's reports that, you know, we don't know exactly what's going on in other potential sites that were around the country. Everybody wants the big win here, whether it's Kim Jong-un or it's the Trump administration when they point to things that like look, we're making progress. They're shutting things down.
And so there's an incentive to kind of focus on the glittery things and maybe not on some of the other details. And the more stuff that's going on -- Iran, North Korea, other parts of the Middle East falling apart potentially at the same time -- the harder it's going to be to really focus on exactly what is behind those handshakes. And that's what matters.
KING: A giant challenge for the President, also a big challenge for his brand-new Secretary of State who today is in Saudi Arabia talking tough again about Iran, essentially leaning forward into the idea that the President will on May 12 decide to walk away.
[08:20:06] He says there's still time for the Europeans to come up with some additional fixes, as he calls it. But time's running short there.
Mike Pompeo there -- now listen to Mike Pompeo here. The President, remember sent him but he was the CIA director at the time, now secretary of state, to North Korea. He had a face-to face meeting with Kim Jong-un. Here he tells ABC, "I actually found him to be quite serious."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE POMPEO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I had a clear mission statement from President Trump. When I left there, Kim Jong-un understood the mission exactly as I've described it today. And he agreed that he was prepared to talk about that and to lay out a map that would help us achieve that objective. Only time will tell if we can get that done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Again, every ounce of skepticism is warranted and then some extra. But you have Mike Pompeo who was initially believed to be in favor of regime change, saying you have to separate Kim from his nuclear weapons. Coming out of this meeting and saying I explained very clearly what our mission was which included denuclearization, verification. Only then do you get carrots. The stick approach first. And he says found him to at least now be serious.
ZELENY: I mean if you take everything into stock here from rocket man really only six months ago to now -- this is extraordinary. And watching the President this week when I was sitting in the East Room for the news conference you get the sense that he loves this challenge. He loves his role in this. He said this is something I hope I'm able to do for the world.
Now the stakes are significantly higher if that meeting happens. And now it looks like the meeting probably will happen. A couple of months, I was very skeptical of the fact that the President wanted to have a meeting. But now we believe that Singapore and Mongolia are two likely spots -- one of the two here. The stakes are incredibly high but it is something that this President wants to accomplish.
He said he wants to get rid of nukes. That is his bottom line for what is the end game here. We'll see if that happens. But he is focused on this. I think it's something that you have to give the President, you know, some praise for. We'll see how it ends up.
KING: He was saying last night he thinks he deserves all the credit -- he was part joking but part not --
ZELENY: Not all the credit.
KING: But he gets some of the credit. There'll be a big debate about how to split the credit part here. But one of the interesting things is the details. I mean can you trust Kim Jong-un. What does denuclearization mean? Are you going to give him any sanctions relief during whatever transition period there is.
All tough decisions but to your point about do you want to win, listen to the President last night. Look, the President has laid out what he wants here. But it's also clear he wants to prove to the world, I'm not Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, of North Korea -- the denuke, denuke -- but we'll see how it goes. And again, whatever happens, happens. Look, I may go in, it may not work out. I leave. I am not going to be a John Kerry who makes that horrible Iran deal -- horrible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
This was the biggest news of the week, I thought was when Macron said the Iran, Trump is waiving it -- he was very unambiguous about it. So I think we're coming to May -- I think the Iran deal is done.
I do think Trump is smart to leave himself some openings. In reality you actually don't want to go in and say we are going to make a deal no matter what because we actually -- the devil is in the details actually in this case. It is absolutely true.
I have a hard time seeing the North Koreans giving away -- giving up a nuclear program. I assume Trump's staff and Trump does too. I think he's right to say this summit may be a lot, it may be nothing. I think he would be smart to lower expectations.
KING: But he thinks the tough guy routine got North Korea to the table though which is why he seems to think the tough guy routine should work with Iran.
DEMIRJIAN: But he's not --
BADE: Yes. It wasn't the tough guy -- it was the sanctions, right. I mean North Korea is really hurting from the economic sanctions, not just from the United States but the entire United Nations -- tons of countries putting sanctions on them really hurting their economy right now. That brought them to the table.
I want to just go back to denuclearization. I mean the South -- South Korean leaders have said that privately North Korea said we are potentially open to denuclearizing. But saying that you're going to stop, you know, working on nuclear weapons and potentially close these facilities that you've been using for the past couple of years to really build this massive arsenal is a lot different than actually giving up these capabilities. And I'm not sure that he is willing to do this.
KING: We'll see where the negotiations will go.
We've got to stop the conversation there for this.
Up next, Ronny Jackson is out as the V.A pick because the White House did a lousy job vetting him. But the President wants to blame the fall on one Democratic senator up for reelection this year.
[08:24:32] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This is a high-quality individual like they would love in Montana. And Tester started throwing out things that he's heard. Well, I know things about Tester that I could say too. If I said them he would never be elected again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The President complaining about innuendo last night then using some there against Montana Senator John Tester trying to turn his latest embarrassing personnel failure into a political weapon. Dr. Ronny Jackson withdrew as the President's pick to be the Veterans Affairs secretary after the White House was frankly caught flat-footed by allegations of professional misconduct.
A quick reminder of how we got here. First it was David Shulkin. He was the V.A. secretary, came over from the Obama administration. He thinks he got railroaded but he was forced to leave. The President fired him because of spending and judgment issues involving $4,000 of taxpayer money to bring his wife on a European business. And Shulkin disputes this but it was found that he misled ethics investigators.
So then the President moved on to the White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson. There were a lot of questions that he has no management experience to run this big different. Then whistleblowers came forward, accused him of mishandling prescription medications while running the White House medical unit.
[08:30:04] He was also accused of some drunken behavior on some overseas presidential trips. Now this, the President says, is not true.
Just a reminder of the stakes here: we have been a month now, a little more, without a Veterans Affairs secretary. More than nine million American veterans depend on the V.A.; 385,000 people employed by this department and nearly $200 billion budget. So it's a big job. It needs to be filled.
The President says his choice, Dr. Jackson was railroaded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Ronny Jackson, Admiral doctor, is one of the finest men that I have met over the last long period of time -- high-quality. High- quality family, I just met them. And I explained what happened. I explained that Washington can be a very mean place.
He is an American hero and I think he has been treated very unfairly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Treated unfairly, including by the President and the White House staff in the sense that it's your job. If this stuff is all untrue, it was the White House job to find out. There were people out there who are going to say these things and be prepared for when it came forward.
But to the President's point about Senator Tester -- he is the ranking Democrat on the committee. But when he went forward and was more public about the specifics than the Republicans he had the blessings of top Republicans to do that, correct?
BADE: That's right. And that's why you're seeing some Republicans right now say he didn't do anything wrong. If President Trump wants to make this a campaign issue, he has an issue. He has his own problem and that is that Republicans in the Senate who are also going to be, you know, trying to keep the majority don't want to attack Tester over this.
Johnny Isakson, who is the top Republican on the V.A. panel, he was working hand in hand with Tester on these things. And these are absolutely things that Republicans wanted to look at.
Jerry Moran, who is another Republican that was actually one of the folks out there adamantly defending Jackson and saying these allegations were false and that, you know, he didn't believed them and he believed Jackson. He said he didn't have a problem with what Tester did.
And so I think the President is going to have an issue. If he really wants to make this a campaign matter Republicans are going to have to fall in line and they're not falling in line.
ZELENY: The bottom line on this, this is another example of the President acting impulsive, nominating someone who is likely not qualified for the position and then the White House not doing anything to support him and prop him up or doing very little about it.
I talked to a close ally, a friend of Dr. Jackson's before all this happened a week ago and said that he felt alone. He was not being prepared well by the White House staff for these confirmation hearings. And then everything blew up.
So you go the sense there was a bit of a smear campaign going on against Dr. Jackson because someone, a group of people, veterans groups and others, wanted to stop the nomination. They did not believe he was qualified to lead this agency. The White House did nothing to stop it.
The President has blamed a lot of people. He has not accepted the blame for what he did to Dr. Jackson here. Going forward it shows that the administration is so short staffed in some respects, they don't have the full sort of capacity to support some of these nominees.
DEMIRJIAN: Yes. And you know, if Jackson is just in a vacuum, that's one thing but he doesn't, right. With having Pruitt on the hill this week, too; this is like there have been several people before that where you've got questions about does the White House have a serious vetting problem here.
And then also even for the people that are doing well, there've been complaints from senators that, you know, if you have lower level staffers guiding these people around, what you're suppose to do is have a (INAUDIBLE). You're supposed to have people that are well seasoned to have contacts on the Hill to kind of grease the -- to pave the way. And they are not doing that.
So it's either inexperience or willful lack of learning from past mistakes given how many of Trump's appointees higher level appointees have had similar problems or problems generally for stuff that comes out as they start to --
(CROSSTALK)
KING: You mention the problem. We'll just show you on the screen and this is merely a partial list. Trump administration people who are appointed or in the pipeline to be appointed to key jobs then had to be withdrawn because of issues coming up -- finance questions, other issues in the vetting, the allegation of domestic violence in one case here.
This is not new in the sense of that it's an amateur hour at the White House.
BACON: Also Trump is blaming Tester but as far as I know, the Republicans control the Senate. If they wanted to vote for him, they can have a vote. He could be confirmed.
So you look at that list one thing it tells you is the Republicans on the Senate particularly, do not often oppose Trump in public but they regularly force him to withdraw his nominees and argue they are not qualified in this case or they're not the right person in this case.
And this is a way of pushing back. The real, you know, villain if Trump was honest is Mitch McConnell. If he wanted to confirm Jackson, he would have done so. Mr. McConnell is very effective at confirming but he chose not to do so because there were questions among Republicans about Jackson's qualifications.
KING: That's a great point. And Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, was up on Capitol Hill this week. And it was essentially his trial. There's a lot of questions about his ethics, his judgments, his spending. He had a hearing and the White House view essentially is let's see if he can get through it. Does this answer from Scott Pruitt pass the test, the one test that matters to presidents?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT PRUITT, ADMINISTRATIOR, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY: Facts are fact, and fiction is fiction. And a lie doesn't become truth just because it appears in the front page of a newspaper.
Those who would attack the EPA and attack me are doing so because they want to attack and derail the president's agenda and undermine this administration's priorities. I'm simply not going to let that happen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[08:35:05] KING: Smart?
ZELENY: We'll see. If the White House has -- I thought he actually did better than expected. The White House says Republicans were pretty gentle -- right. That's true.
The White House has been pretty tepid on if they support him or not. But so far the President has. He is hearing from a lot of donors and other people who believe in what he is doing at the EPA. A lot of oil and gas executives, et cetera are fine with Scott Pruitt there.
We'll see though if the President is sick of the headlines. I think he probably earned himself more time in that job with that hearing this week.
KING: All right. A quick break then back for this.
Angry at his Justice Department but happy with a new House Republican report -- the big new developments in the Russian meddling investigation -- that's next.
[08:35:45] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Welcome back.
The House Intelligence Committee investigation of Russia election meddling collapsed into a partisan divide months ago but to the President the report released Friday by the Committee's Republican majority should be in his view the last word.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We were honored. It was a great report. No collusion, which I knew anyway. No coordination, no nothing. It's a witch hunt. That's all it is. There was no collusion with Russia. You can believe this one.
She probably can't believe it, who can? But the report was very powerful, very strong. There was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With all due respect the special counsel investigation will deliver the last word. Robert Mueller taking weeks and months to explore key questions like that 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer who now admits she works with the Kremlin. You might think that new admission by Natalia Veselnitskaya would be of interest to congressional investigators, not House Republicans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is it troubling to you anyway that she was a Russian informant and had a meeting with senior level Trump campaign officials in 2016?
REP. MIKE CONWAWAY, (R-TX), HOUSE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: No. Because that's how she presented herself and There's no evidence that she acted on that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that require any further investigation from the committee do you think?
CONAWAY: Not from my perspective.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Your Pontius Pilate moment of the House Republicans just washing their hands of the whole thing.
DEMIRJIAN: It's interesting that he actually says that in that interview too, though because that report actually does put some eyebrow-raising at least on that meeting. They don't say that it's evidence of collusion but they say that it was very ill advised to take that meeting and that they shouldn't have done it. So the fact that Conaway now, he was running that probe is saying, yes, no, I'm not troubled by it at all shows how hard they're spinning this at this point.
I mean -- and not to edit the President but the report said there is no evidence of collusion, not actually no collusion. It doesn't address witch hunt.
But this is what we are saying here. This is the first word -- it's trying to set the political scales to tip in the President's favor for now. And it is not even going to be closed in a while.
KING: Please.
BADE: I was going to say -- two major problems with the House findings. And the first one is this is totally derailed into a partisan, you know, mudsling, right. Republicans are actually -- they are the President's foot soldiers on that committee and they want to clear him or say they clear him of any wrongdoing.
Democrats obviously completely disagree. But more than that is the fact that this whole investigation has a ton of gaps. And it's sort of half-baked. If you had Trey Gowdy sitting here right now he helped write the report, chairs the House Oversight Committee, top Republican he would tell you that congress can't really do an investigation like this because they can't compel testimony.
And the truth is that a bunch of White House folks came to -- met with investigators and they didn't answer a lot of questions. They couldn't make anyone do anything. So they have a lot of gaps.
KING: And it's not -- they just did not do a thorough job. Whether they can or can't has always been -- it's not a thorough job and it's an election year document -- they just want to be done with this. They won't talk about it anymore in the election. We're done with it.
Add this last night. So remember, this was a Trump Tower meeting 2016. Donald Trump Jr. organized, Paul Manafort the campaign chairman is there, Jared Kushner the President's son-in-law in there. In the middle is this Russian lawyer who now says she's a Russian informant. She originally denied that to congressional investigators. Now she says I work with the Kremlin. I'm an informant. The President last night -- listen to his theory about why suddenly she says she works for Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: In fact have you heard about the lawyer? For a year a woman lawyer she was like oh, I know nothing. Now all of a sudden, she supposedly is involved with government. You know why? If she did that because Putin and the group said, you know, this Trump is killing us. What don't you say that you're involved with government so that we can go and make their life in the United States even more chaotic?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The President who consistently underplayed or denied any Russian meddling is now saying there's Russian meddling and it's to get me.
BACON: Nobody is tougher on Russia. I am. His critical issues are really hard to take seriously. But I do think this report on Friday is part of a broader effort. The Republicans in the House particularly are really doing a strong job of investigating the investigation more than investigating Trump. And I think that it's helping him right now.
He talked earlier about the idea that, you know, "Maxine Waters wants to impeach me." And that's true for Maxine Waters. I'm not sure if it is for the whole Democratic caucus. But it is very important right now if the House changes power in terms of investigation and how these committees will be totally different it will be a huge problem for Trump.
KING: It's a great point. I think about this House Republican report is saying Republicans -- discredit the investigation. Don't worry about the President.
[08:44:56] DEMIRJIAN: The problem is the long term consequences of that potentially if people start to completely distrust all of the law enforcement, federal law enforcement agencies. And that's kind of -- we've all kind of taken it on the chin and gotten a direct punch in this thing.
And so I mean look, the President's theory about what the Russians could be doing is actually fairly apt, tweeting (ph) on what the Russians do. They switch up the game. They say the game's not working in their favor.
The only problem is there's an incentive2 for the President to say that right now. It would probably be a little bit more plausible if somebody else were putting that out there, not him.
ZELENY: So as we sit here at the end of the week still don't know if the President is going to sit down with Bob Mueller. That's something else that's been happening. Rudy Giuliani, his new lawyer is trying to revive that possibly here.
So for all the talk of the Russian house or the house investigation being over we still don't know what the President is doing. But you can bet he is watching every moment of this. The fact the he would explain this to a crowd in Michigan --
(CROSSTALK)
KING: So to that point --
ZELENY: He is obsessed.
KING: -- to that point, how will the President explain this? His friends at the "National Enquirer", this is the cover. This is the cover of the "National Enquirer". It says number one -- you can't see it under our banner -- I want you to drop that for me. That the President passed a polygraph test about collusion -- that says it right there. Said he did that at Roswell and Martians were present.
But also, the top story there, they are taking after Michael Cohen. Is the "National Enquirer" which we know the publisher is the President's friend, sending a message to Michael Cohen -- be careful here?
DEMIRJIAN: I mean possibly or maybe it is time for Michael Cohen also to lose his privileged status in the President's inner circle. I mean nobody seems to survive the other side of the loyalty that the President expects with this administration. When the going gets tough and the President feels they're coming on him --
KING: Everything you need to know about where we've been the last 15 months that I have to worry about the "National Enquirer" on a Sunday morning.
Our reporters share from their notebooks next, including the Republican Senate candidates in Indiana competing to hug and hug and hug the President.
[08:46:44] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KING: Let's head one last time around the INSIDE POLITICS table, and ask our great reporters to dig into their notebooks, share a little something to get you out ahead of the political news just around the corner -- Karoun.
DEMIRJIAN: Well, it seems the battle is brewing between the administration and Congress right now over CIA director nominee Gina Haspel. She is the next big high-profile name to have to get confirmed by the Senate. We're looking at May 9th for that confirmation date.
Now, I've -- I'm taking a closer look at this right now because the numbers right now if Democrats don't back her are not in her favor. She can't necessarily get through and so it's going to be a very tight touch and go game. The CIA is declassifying certain things that seem to be favorable to her nomination, other things that don't, not so much and so you've got a lot of tension brewing right now between senators and the administration.
The reason that I'm looking at this extra closely now though is because you saw how hard the administration campaigned for Mike Pompeo -- pushed for Mike Pompeo for what was effectively a show vote in the committee level to make sure he got through that.
It suggests they they're going to go really, really hard now to try to turn some of these people that are on the line leaning towards no on Haspel to try to get her through. Or if that's not possible, we may actually see, you know, the administration having to back peddle on one of its highest profile people.
And right now the signs are that they're going to try to go full steam ahead. And that's going to create some real clashes in the days ahead.
KING: A lot of drama on the Hill. We'll keep an eye on that one.
DEMIRJIAN: Always. Always.
KING: Jeff.
ZELENY: In Washington it seems that Republicans often are running away from the President. In Indiana, not true. They are running toward the President. This is the final full week of the Senate Republican primary there and the three Republican candidates are in a fight to see who can out-Trump themselves, who likes him more, who can support his policies more.
So far the President has stayed out of this. His aides say he will stay out of primary fights probably. But will he? We'll see. If he is drawn into this by television coverage, that could be fascinating. But the final debate is tomorrow evening, Indiana. So this is a sense of where Republicans hope they can win that Senate seat of course, held by Joe Donnelly, a Democrat.
But by out-Trumping each other in the primary what happens in the general? So keep an eye on Indiana this week.
KING: I'm going to go to Indiana this week.
ZELENY: Excellent.
KING: I'm looking forward to it.
Perry.
BACON: Teachers in Indiana and Arizona are going to be striking on Monday. It would be the third straight day of them striking. It will build on strikes you've seen in West Virginia and also in Kentucky as well. And this is a broader issue we are seeing all over the country now particularly in red states and also even in Colorado and some blue states where teachers are demanding higher pay, more public investment education and the fight is really about a lot of states have cut taxes a lot in these last five or six years.
And now -- and teachers are now saying it's cut too much. There needs to be more money invested for public education, more on teacher pay. And that's a big dispute. I think we're going to see more and more of these strikes around the country. And I think it's a big part of the -- we're seeing activism in a lot of ways and teachers are really joining that now and they're really pushing in a lot of big states.
KING: An important lesson -- it's not just a conversation in Washington driving people back home. Much more important, the local stuff.
Rachael.
BADE: The verdict is in and the consensus on Capitol Hill from lawmakers from both sides of the aisle --- the majority -- is that Speaker Paul Ryan really botched the firing of the Catholic chaplain this week. Basically Ryan had been hearing a lot of complaints from a small faction of the Republican conference that is more evangelical. They wanted a chaplain to minister to them who was married and who had kids and who can sort of speak to that walk of life as they said.
But this actually ended up turning -- some people took this as a very anti-Catholic move on the part of Ryan. He himself is Catholic. One member, a Republican, even said like this is now Catholics versus evangelicals in the conference. It's very awkward.
Looking forward I think the question is going to be does Pope Francis weigh in? And Francis has shown that he is not afraid to, you know, get out there and talk about controversial issues. I wouldn't be surprised if we hear from the Vatican on this.
KING: Well, you better hope the one they wouldn't fight about is faith but I guess that's asking too much. This is Washington.
With the midterms now six months from Tuesday, you can still find wildly divergent assessments from seasoned Republicans about the state of play. One experienced strategist answered to me quote, "30-plus" when I asked how many house seats the GOP would lose. Another though said that big number is certainly a possibility but this strategist has a scenario in which the losses are kept in the high teens which would narrowly keep the House in Republican hands.
[08:55:05] Now, the Senate math also a dig debate -- Tennessee and Arizona seats now held by Republicans are a source of growing worry for some Republican strategist. On the flip side new Republican polling has Republicans in a much better mood about the North Dakota Senate race and Rick Scott's early moves now that he is officially running for Senate in Florida have Republicans feeling much better about their chances there.
Six months might seem like a long time, it's not. Strap in, the fun's about to begin.
That's it for INSIDE POLITICS. Again, thanks for sharing your Sunday morning.
"STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper is next including a conversation with the Ohio Governor John Kasich.
Have a great Sunday.
[08:55:40] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
