Alabama, im told steve bannon will give a fire breathing Campaign Speech alongside moore. Bannon who got the president to side with him and endorse moore is not letting leader Mitch Mcconnell off the hook. The president s Legal Defense on russia is under scrutiny as new questions about obstruction loom over the investigation and will the government keep the lights on. Congress is now gearing up for yet another shut down showdown. We should all be working to avoid one. I must say i dont believe my republican friends, leader mcconnell and speaker ryan want a government shut down. The only one at the moment who flirted with a shut down is President Trump. Just a few weeks ago, republicans here in washington were moving heaven and earth to distance themselves from their candidate for senate in alabama after roy moore was accused by multiple women of Sexual Misconduct and one said he molested her when she was 14 years old. They stopped sending money and the president was uncharacterally quiet about it and the Senate Majority leader said this. I think he should step aside. Do you believe the allegations to be true . I believe the women, yes. What a difference weeks makes. Now Mitch Mcconnell is saying the voters should decide. The rnc reversed, putting money back into alabama and the president fully endorsed moore whom he called yesterday and said go get em. We will get to why this is happening in a minute, but contrast that with how the democrats handled allegations against one of their own. Congressman john conyers. Despite arguing to stand up and fight Sexual Harassment against women were slow to drop the hammer on conyers. We are strengthened by due process. Just because someone is accused, was it one accusation or two . John conyers is an icon in our country. Today under pressure to stay consistent, they convinced conyers to resign. I am retiring today. I want everyone to know how much i appreciate the support. My legacy cant be compromised or diminished in any way by what we are going through now. This too shall pass. To be fair, there are big differences here. Roy moore was never someone the gop wanted in the race in the first place and john conyers has a long career and a civil rights legacy. The tale of these two situations and the reversals are worth discussing. We will start with the reporters and here to share the insights. Mary Katherine Hamm from the federalist and the daily beast and olivier knox from yahoo news. Welcome one and all. I will start with you on this whole question first and foremost about the republicans going all in now. Saying we have to get back in there and get roy moore elected. They are doing it reluctantly, but they are doing it. Its a classic rnc move. This looks worse than having stuck with him the whole time. They will make it as nakedly political as possible. The accusations are gross and there are multiple accusations on the record. It lines up and physical evidence that he was in these places and giving high school girls. There is a lot here. But the voters on the ground, they think this is what they are responding to are saying we dont care. The interview with nancy pelosi, there are other reasons too. The icon comment is this kind of sexual predator chicken if you are saying bad guys get to stay and we are unilaterally disarming. Its a bad way of doing business. Thats where we are. One of the impressively depressing things about the Republican Party and the white house and President Trump endorsing roy moore against roy jones is how predictable it was. Now its just a week after the Sexual Assault and misconduct allegations started coming out against candidate moore. You can see not just the president himself, but the white house messaging. That focuses on how awful they thought doug jones was. The fact that the president said i endorse this fighter named roy moore and hes a great guy and people should vote for him, it was almost like it was preordained and prewritten. The amount of time it took for the party to come back home to roy moore, despite the child molestation allegations was quicker than it took to come home to donald trump in october 2016 when he was facing his own on rush of Sexual Assault and harassment. Jeff, the reality is as you were both alluding to, the way that republicans tend to deal with things is the way they should deal with things. They listen to the voters. At the end of the day, this is what the voters in alabama want which is why they will help him. Thats only half the story, right . No question. Its a question of are they leading or following . They are following the lead of the voters. The Republican Party is following the president. The president is the leader of the Republican Party. This decision to get back in, i talked to a few officials there. Its unsettling for them. They also worry about the ramifications of 2018. The National RepublicanSenatorial Committee is not getting back in as of now. They have another week to do so. They are not getting back in. The question here is, is there fallout from this . If roy moore was likely to win, the president would not do it. If they sense he is winning and sense its just to go with this and the hypocrisy coming up and because the democratic situation and the people in the media have given the president fuel and license to do exactly what they are doing. He feels no shame or apology about it. He believes what he is doing is right and likened it to his own situation here. We will see what the fallout is in months or years to come. Maybe there wont be any. You mentioned in 2018, thats a big thing we are looking at. This is a special election, but it is next year and all of the house members and republicans on the ballot and particularly in the senate you have the real dynamic of the bannon wing of the party trying hart to unseat incumbents. They believe they had success in a couple of retirements, but tonight i am theeold that that the argument steve bannon will make when he appears with roy moore in alabama. You are sort of with us now, but you are not off the hook. He is going to argue that the deplorables, the voters in alabama won on this and they are pulling everybody that way. What are the implications some. Its sfwog watch steve bannon and Mitch Mcconnell for republican promises made and never kept. That has been an interesting dynamic in the race. Those i talked to think roy moore is toxic for their brand. They expect him in ads everywhere. He heard Mitch Mcconnell saying can we stop running these candidates . If he does prevail, one of the main arguments which is these candidates cant win. That will be enough. I top the get conyers in particular. A remarkable interview that our own colleague, poppy harlow, did for roy moore. It brought up not once but a couple of times that president obama poppy is eight months pregnant. Heres a question that should be asked, if you care about child abuse you should be talking about the fact that judge roy moore stands for protection not only of the Second Amendment rights to protect ourselves and the rights of babies like your eightmonth baby you are carrying now, doug jones said you can take the life of that baby. Lets leave my child out of this. Lets leave my child out of this. Its the children of alabama we are talking about. They understand if we are talking about whats at stake here. Obviously the argument they are making in doing it seems with some success in alabama, if you send doug jones, you are going to have a pro choice democrat there. These allegations aside, they claim they are not true against moore. He is a pro life republican. I had it done to me when i am discussing marijuana policy. I can have a thought outside of the fact that i am a mother. It doesnt for dads. I sympathize there. This guy is accused and he did not know these women. He is lying about this and there are many voters on the ground and trump versus clinton saying this is a bad and hard choice to make. There are many people who care deeply about pro life policies. They look at a doug jones and say you couldnt give us someone more moderate. It is alabama. They certainly exist in alabama. Had the democrats thought they might have a shot at this earlier, things would have gone differently. It is a hard calculation for the people to make. It wouldnt be hard to make because i would abstain. Let me ask about john conyers who is retiring today. That means he is resigning. What does it mean for the democratic brand and whether they can continue to claim the moral high ground. Does this get them closer to that or do they have a problem given that al franken is out there with allegations he admitted. Not just for the brand and health of the democrats, but the republicans too. There at least several other shoes to drop whether on the democratic or republican side. The republican side is doing with regards to roy moore. There is a lot more work to do. They exist in a lot of Industries Including capitol hill. Including and especially capitol hill. We still dont know the details of who received settlements. The reality is going into 2018. Im not sure this will be much of an issue. Bothed sides are not free and clear. The bigger question for roy moore when he comes, Mitch Mcconnell regardless of this, he loses in this. If roy moore wins, he will have a member who is likely to not agree on things. Thats one of the reasons they didnt want him in the first place. This is one more headache for republicans this year. Politic is probably distinguishing itself as moore problematic in punishing itself. They said what do we top the do . The leadership is short. Except for the fact that call me naive, but these people who americans elect to be in power are supposed to be held to a higher standard and in fact they are being held to a lower standard it turns out than people in hollywood. They make the rules for themselves. Yes. Thats another discussion. Up next, what does 7 million buy . Two indictments and two guilty pleas. That story is next. Uganda, what are you up to . Thats a real silverback gorilla. Im freaking out 3x points on travel and restaurants. Sapphire reserve, from chase. Make more of whats yours. If yor crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough, it may be time for a change. Ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. Entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. Infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. Entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. Pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. This condition has not been reported with entyvio. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flulike symptoms or sores. Liver problems can occur with entyvio. If your uc or crohns treatment isnt working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. Entyvio. Relief and remission within reach. Welcome back. New information on how Robert Mueller is putting your tax dollars to work. The Justice Department said the special counsel spent nearly 7 million so far in the russia election meddling probe. The pay off is two indictments and a pair of guilty pleas that have the president s legal team testing a strategy straight from the Richard Nixon playbook. One of the president s lawyers said the president cant obstruct justice because he is the president. Today the Trump Legal Team is reconsidering the wisdom of that argument. Ty cobb told the Washington Post that the theory was only a theory and not an official legal strategy, saying its interesting as a technical legal issue. Thats according to ty cobb. The president s lawyers intend to present a factbased defense and not a mere Legal Defense. You go to the white house every day. What do you make of this . Lets start with the difficulty in explaining. It started with the president s tweet on saturday suggesting he fired Michael Flynn because he knew that Michael Flynn lied to the fbi and since then we have seen a series of attempts at an explanation of that and also a decision and discussion of whether it even matters because hes the president. One of the things that is clearly going on as you read through that is a muddled message. That may be a strategy to try and raise questions and blur or obscure what is happening here. There are also disagreements among lawyers. There are quiet whispers is it time for new lawyers. We heard that how many times . A lot. This raises the point that everyone is not necessarily on the same page or are they trying to try their arguments in public . Have a trial balloon if you will. The last two or three days has given pause to the fact that this is not consuming everyone in the west wing. It largely is. Including the Vice President s office as well. We are doing some reporting on that as well. If he is largely and his knowledge of this is also coming under sharper review here. This is one thing that i assume republicans will seize on the price tag of this. This happened before, but this is well under way. In terms of this being all consuming when it comes to the trump white house, that includes the space in the front, middle, and back of Donald Trumps own line. As we reported a few days ago, the president of the United States has suspected for weeks now that Michael Flynn did. This was a big blow because not only did the president respect Michael Flynn, but he had personal affinity for the guy. They tried last friday by referring to general flynn as a former Obama Administration official. This is not someone that lasted about five seconds. Four and a half. This is not something they can write off or pretend was a second tier figure like Paul Manafort who of course was a top tier figure. This is someone who knows a lot from the campaign and the transition and his time as a National Security adviser. One of the most powerful people in the country if not the world. We talked about the price tag, so far 7 million. If you compare to ken starr, its probably peanuts and they are just getting started. There is starting to and you are starting to see more of a push against Robert Mueller. The wall street journal editorial page which has not been pro President Trump at all. Just the opposite. This is this morning. Mr. Mueller is too conflicted to investigate the fbi and should favor someone more credible. They should continue and perhaps with someone who doesnt think they can answer questions about their role in the 2016 election. This is almost more important than the muddled legal strategy. This is the political strategy and laying the ground work for the president to push mueller out entirely. You never know what he is going to say on twitter or also the fact that his lawyers are characters. You are seeing it a lot more. This is the to watch. I they are pushing the doj to get rid of mueller. They talked about the senior fbi official who was asked to step down by mueller. That matters. He was asked to step down because of antitrump sentiment. There are two theories, parts of true and one there is a giant global experience. This is all a giant hoax. Trump insists that and it was an attack from inside the community on him. There are pieces of evidence for that part of the case. The story of this guy being involved in hillarys statement that cleared hillary and the interview of flynn and this is problematic. The question here, republicans go along with pushing mueller out . Several senators tried to discuss legislation and things. Still working on it. Just because the page has been mixed on President Trump, im not sure that people follow along with that. If the president and we think he is entertaining the idea, he never closed that door. That would change everything in the wake of all of this. In terms of the potential sacking of Robert Mueller, its not jufst sacking. They have been urging him for months not to go ahead with anything like that because of the political firestorm and potential armageddon that can follow. Even someone like steve bannon, they talk on the phone and he no longer works with the west wing. He never said order the firing of the guy. President trump is getting ready to touch a third rail of diplomacy. The location of the u. S. Embassy in israel. Will he go against the wishes of some u. S. Allies or please his base . Thats next. Back on her feet. Dy of the houe and help her feel more strength and energy in just two weeks. Yaaay the complete balanced nutrition of ensure with 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. Ensure. Always be you. Booking a flight doesnt have to be expensive. Just go to priceline. Its the best place to book a flight a few days before my trip and still save up to 40 . Just tap and go. For the best savings on flights, go to priceline. Ever President Trump is giving a heads up to the leader of the Palestinian Authority that he intends to move the embassy in israel from tel aviv to jerusalem. This despite calls to halt the plans. A spokesman for the president said he warned President Trump dangers are afoot and the leaders are adamant it would be in violation of international law. The source told cnn the white house is expected to announce plans tomorrow to recognize je rus elemen ruse elements and its a Campaign Promise he hopes to show he is keeping. We will move the American Embassy to the capital of jerusalem. That was candidate trump. Its worth pointing out that this promise has been fulfilled by no u. S. President s even though many of them have made that same promise. Cnns ian lee is watching from jerusalem and joining me live. What are they saying over there . People are bracing for this announcement. We need to note that the had the hasnt said it yet, but people are act being like he is or is about to. They say we will help put the pressure on President Trump. We are also hearing from the king who warned of the dangers of any decision without a comprehensive peace deal. He went on to say that he stressed that the adoption of this decision will have serious ramifications and implications on the security and stability of the mideast. This is something we heard not just from the jordanians, but the saudis and the egyptians and other leaders are who are worried of what this could mean for stability and security. We know that they warned him about making such a unilateral move. Israeli officials advocated for this for a long 250i78. They welcomed a potential decision. You have dhn and what is your sense that i intended. They are close, but separate. They have the mandate. Thats why this is on the table now. The deadline was yesterday. The second issue is where he is shifting the policy. Jerusalem is the capital of israel. He is telling the leaders he intends to move the embassy. Unless we get a date certain, nothing has changed. The recognition is significant. Will he or senior officials talk about what it means for the future of the capital . Thats the thing to watch here. Is he going to announce the groundbreaking or commissioning a study to determine where and when they can ground break . I note that our reporting and the fact that the white house notified allies before they notified seniors. This has been the law of the land since the Clinton Administration and that speaks to the to the point where it is law and never kept. Obviously the world is reacting negatively to this. This is facing the question and the time frame for doing this. I traveled with him earlier to the region there and was expected to possibly say it and he didnt. The time frame gets an earful from a lot of people. Its worth underscoring that the reason we are talking about this and the reason this is a thing is in terms of the conflict, on that note, Aaron David Miller who was a democrat talked about the notion of doing this in the absence of a broader strategy. We dont know what the administrations process is. In the absence of a coherent one, they appear to be a one off. A combination of trumps frustration over having to use the waiver again. Not getting his commitment and that last part is probably the most deadon. I think thats true. We dont often know what the strategy is. This case much like north korea, there is an argument to be made what we have been doing for 40 years has not born a lot of fruit. We lost a lot of double speak when we talk about the issue. This is the capital of israel and i think the words do matter. There are security concerns and the question is, is it right when at least recognizing what this is. Even if so much on the part of the Trump Administration is bluster or posturing, it throws a wrench into the idea that candidate trump in the 2016 race was so invested in that. He was the ultimate deal maker and he was going to be able that he and his son in law would bring peace to the mideast in a way that no other period was going to be able to do before. If he wants to care about that which im not sure the president of the United States has, its a weird thing to throw out. Real quick. This is a test of how whether or not the Trump Administration is correct. The realities of the tell us with iran and the saudis will table whatever they have. On the recognition issue in favor of working closer with the trumps against iran. What about the other countries who have not . Up next, showdown shut down 2017 edition. What is an annual game with syrias consequences. Ok, you ju youre being audited. Now what . Well, after your first reaction, consider your choices. Go it alone, against the irs and its massive resources. Hire a law firm, where youre not a priority. Call your cpa, who can be required to testify against you. Or, call the tax law firm of moskowitz, llp. I went from being a cpa to a tax attorney because our clients needed more. Call us, and let us put our 30 years of tax experience to work for you. Our clients needed more. Call us, and let us if yor crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough, it may be time for a change. Ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. Entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. Infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. Entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. Pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. This condition has not been reported with entyvio. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flulike symptoms or sores. Liver problems can occur with entyvio. If your uc or crohns treatment isnt working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. Entyvio. Relief and remission within reach. President trump is at the white house meeting with senate republicans. The press pool was brought in and we will get tape of remarks made in a few moments. While we wait, lets bring it around the table. The president is sitting next to jeff flake. It knocked the president upside down any way he could. He will be giving more speeches. This is not the first time we have seen them doing this in events like this. Lets go to President Trump right now. Getting the tax cut bill to conference and last night was smooth and i call it the mixer. The conference where everyone gets together and they pick the good things and get rid of the things they dont like. Its fantastic for the middle class and for jobs and companies wanting to bring back massive amounts of money. Its tremendous for jobs and the middle class. The more people learn about it, the more popular it becomes. The end result is even better. We could have gone for a vote and we decided to put it into the conference and come out with something where everything is perfecto. Thats what we are going to do. This group of wonderful republican senators is here to discuss. They will be talking about trade and nafta. Whats going on with the nafta negotiations. We have tremendous losses with mexico. Covered by nafta, we lost approximately 71 billion with trade deficit. Canada was 17 billion. Virtually every country in the world we have deficits with. That will be changing, but it will be changing fast. We brought back over 300 bill cr worth of contracts. We have bob and gary here. We are already starting to see the election coming up. They will be talking about trade and health care and other subjects. The taxes we are so thrilled with. It is so popular and something will be coming out quickly as opposed to longterm. We are all on the same change. There is a great spirit in the Republican Party like a lot of people said they have never seen anything before. People have never seen anything like this unity. This will happen very fast. I want to thank you all for being here and lets have a great lunch and talk about trade and make great trade deals instead of the horrible trade deals we got stuck with. Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I think he is going to do very well. We dont have a liberal democrat in alabama. Believe me. We want strong borders and stopping crime. We want to have the things that we represent and we dont want a liberal democrat that is controlled by nancy pelosi and controlled by chuck schumer. We dont want that for alabama. Thank you. Thank you very much. And you are watching President Trump moments give remarks as he is meeting with a group of senate republicans. First of all to bring it back around the table, i love that he called the senate and house conference a mixer that is better than a conference report, but i missed mixer in school house rock. Sounds way more fun. Its not like the republicans are across from each other. We will make the house bill in with the senate bill. Its a decent brand. It is a lot more userfriendly than the way that people like to talk about trade. They care a lot about trade and not just importing, but more importantly exporting. Back to basics for President Trump. This issue of trade is the one, one of the many that helped him lure some of the traditional democrats to vote for him. Thats the case. An element of the ongoing element of nafta and thats not going as well for the meeting. The trade representative. They import parts. It looks like a back to basics thing. There is a big economic policy. Thats the success or failure of the renegotiations. He feels less and less enthusiastic about waging a major war during the campaign. He at least sounded and he was all in on it. The more President Trump is around his own administration, the more he realizes that launching potentially colossal trade war is a lot harder and requires a deeper Attention Span than he is prepared for. That is very important and a lot of red state republican who is come from the farming states have deep concerns and the voters do as well. The soy beans and the beef and the saddle. One of the reason they have been opposed to this. Thats something to overlook and this is something that divides party as well as political. Spoken like a former top republican. They are saying moore will do well because we dont need a liberal democrat in the senate who is not good on crime. I should mention that we dont know a lot about him we know a lot about him, but he is not talked about a lot. He successfully prosecuted members of the kkk for the infamous birmingham bombing in the 60s. Two things he wanted to talk about here was trade. The only thing he took a question on and responded to was moore. He crossed the rubicon and is happy to talk about this probably because he senses a win and he is correct. The other thing i thought was interesting is he said there is a great spirit in the Republican Party and more united than anyone has ever seen. That is not true. Thats a continuing cog civ disenance we have. Up next, people camping out for days at the Supreme Court for a seat at todays blockbuster case. Can a bakery refuse to bake a cake for a samesex wed something of. This is the most fascinating thing that the Supreme Court will take up this session. The question of when they made their landmark decision about samesex marriage, immediately for a lot of conservatives who were opposed to this, what about religious liberty. We will see the discussion about that and eventually the decision. There are a couple of First Amendment rights at issue. The argument that many make on the religious liberty side is exactly how much of your free speech and art and religious beliefs have to be compromised for a specific ceremony that violates your beliefs. Many of the businesses that have lost in court several times now have served gay people, but stopped at the line of saying im not going to create a cake for this ceremony. As a question of society, are we going to allow that kind of thing so that devout catholics or jews or muslims can be involved without being sued out of existence. This is one of the reasons that the biggest success or accomplishments of the Trump Administration is his Supreme Court thing. This is all the marbles and why voters in we may not support roy moore, but this is why they do it in the Supreme Court. It is more important to many than anyone else. Something else i want to point out. This is no small thing. The unbelievable warp speed of the way that people in america view gay marriage. 1996 which was not that long ago. 27 said they supported gay marriage. 68 opposed. Go forward to 2017 now, its almost the reverse. 64 support gay marriage and 34 oppose. This is such a big reason, i believe, that donald trump is president. Because of the warm speed shift in culture that a lot of people in this country think has gone too fast and they feel left behind and ignored. The numbers went forward and one of the things they were arguing is they used ballot measures against gay measures. That worked to bring a lot of other voters that may not otherwise have come out. Your point is well taken on balance. Certain limelements of social change and that helped power them. Five seconds. Ill pass. We will tell you what he was going to say. Thank you very much for joining us on inside politics. Wolf blitzer is up after a quick break. Made in america and handcrafted in wisconsin. Our exclusive hypoallergenic down and special breathing technology senses your body to never be too hot or too cold, so you are guaranteed the best sleep ever. Starting at only 99 including shipping and a lifetime guarantee. For your best friend our new dog beds are just as dreamy and made with the same quality and advanced technology. This offer is for a limited time, so visit thecompanystore. Com today. Alright, i brought in high protein to help get us moving. And help you feel more strength and energy in just two weeks ill take that. Yeeeeeah ensure high protein. With 16 grams of protein and 4 grams of sugar. Ensure. Always be you. At tmobile, when you holiday together, great things come in twos. Right now when you buy any of this seasons hot new Samsung Galaxy phones, you get a second one free to gift. Thats one samsung for you. One to give. Tmobile. Holiday twogether. Im wolf blitzer. Its 9 00 p. M. In moscow and from wherever you are watching, thanks very much for joining us. Is the president of the United States above the law . His team of lawyers sending conflicting messages about their strategy. Vi vice as President Trump is facing accusations that he obstructed justice. Why the rnc is flocking to the Embattled Senate candidate. Bracing for violence, allies warning the white house of the fallout of the president s potential decision