Transcripts For CNNW Inside Politics 20190220

Challenge the border Emergency Declaration and Bernie Sanders makes an immediate splash in the 2020 race. A giant first day fundraising hall. Now a twitter battle with the president. A Bigger Campaign challenge . Defending his selfstyled label as a democratic socialist. What do you think is the perfect motto for him to run on . Venezuela or cuba . I think fdr is the best model. They called fdr a socialist for creating Social Security and they called lyndon b. Johnson a socialist for medicare. We want to empower people and not empower wall street. Well begin right there with president ial politics with new and clear evidence Bernie Sanders is not a oneshot wonder. Vermont senator is at a tweet war with President Trump today and hoping it only adds to his very rich opening act of the 2020 campaign. By rich we mean nearly 6 million. Thats the eyepopping number the Sanders Campaign says it raised in the 24 hours after sanders officially launched his 2020 run yesterday morning. Thats a take that will get the attention of the rival democratic campaign. Sanders is on the president s radar for a different reason. Trump reelection strategy is anchored on painting all of the democrats as too liberal, socialist is the president s preferred term and sanders, of course, proudly describes himself as a democratic socialist. Here is the president s tweet recycling his 2016 nickname. Crazy bernie has just entered the race. I wish him well. Sanders all too happy to return fire. Quote, whats crazy is we have a president thats a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe and a fraud. We will not only defeat trump, but transform the economic political life of this country. A link to the Sanders Campaign page in hopes he can raise even more money. With me this day to share the reporting and their insight molly ball with time, cnns phil mattingly, the Washington Post and arid john with bloomberg. Big day for bernie. Some people thought crowded field this time, and wouldnt be a big deal this time. We all know how this ends, but if youre Bernie Sanders its going well. He obviously wanted to do a sort of shock and awe show of force to open because i think a lot of his rife will as were discounting bernies chances this time around thinking that a lot of the momentum that he got last time was produced more by his position in the race as the alternative to Hillary Clinton, but this really shows that Bernie Sanders does have a very loyal and active fan base that still wants it to be him, doesnt want a standin bernie standers type, doesnt want another, you know, progressive who just isnt bernie, and ironically, right . Because Bernie Sanders has always been about his ideas and hes not about personality and hes not about a particular political figure and yet for his followers it really isnt about which democrat embodies these progressive ideals and its specifically Bernie Sanders. I was just going to say because, to be clear, the democratic field now has covered bernie for a long period of time has gravitated toward his approximately see proposals which were considered out of the mainstream and pushed aside by clinton supporters and something thats not electable if youre backing that and now those are the proposals that the vast majority of the democrats in the field are taking and the fact that the o. G. Can still raise all of the money here and its not just the top line figure and we all know we had a massive email list and the thing i was struck by more than the 600,000 in recurring donations per month based on the way people are signing up. This base is not going anywhere soon. I dont think there was ever a question whether or not Bernie Sanders would have money and the money to compete, but it is clear he will have the most money and the most money to compete whether or not he will break through given the people who are sharing and coopting his ideas remain the question, but to your point. This is for any candidate to start any campaign. Who gets nervous by that . Is it Elizabeth Warren who is closest to him in terms of ideas and trying to take the progressive wing of the party or kamala harris, i had a great roll out. I raised a million and a half. Thats a lot of cash. All of those candidates running as progressives who are saying i support medicare and a new deal. His supporters will say welcome to the party. Ive been saying that we need to do this for decades and thats why i think Bernie Sanders still has this strong base of supporters. If you look at the fundraising numbers i think it works out to 27 which was sort of his average donation rallying cry. His supporters are with him because hes been on this for a long time. 27. You remember it all too well, right . 27. 27. Hey, it worked with all those emails saying 27, but it worked. In terms of getting in a tweet war with the president. Some candidates would pull back from that. Bernie sanders seems to think, fine. You come after me, call me crazy bernie, lets do this. This is something that the white house is very much willing to engage in, as well because they want to brand the entire field of democrats as socialists and we heard that language from the president over the past few weeks and from his ecosphere on capitol hill and the media and anyone who has a d next to their name as a socialist and Bernie Sanders who wears that label of democratic socialist and hes seeing the fire coming from the white house and saying they want to brand not only his policies of socialism and also all of the democrats policies of socialism and hes willing to fight back against the president and one poll that came out last year showed that thats where its want as toxic as it used to be and democrats view socialism as more favorable than capitalism according to this poll that came out. And that will be one of the fascinating questions and some of the other candidates get a little nervous. If you look back historically, president ial politics in the United States of america. Hes quite comfortable with this, he was a socialist and now hes an independent and hes running for the democratic nomination and he doesnt mind the label and if you throw it on him, he has a good retort. When i talk about democratic socialism, somebody wants to call me a radical . Okay, here it is. I believe that people are inherently entitled to health care. I believe people are entitled to get the best education they can. I believe that people are entitled to live in a clean environment. People are entitled to have decent paying jobs. Thats what i believe. Hes comfortable with it. There is a flip side. You ask some of the other candidates and you get this. To compete in New Hampshire in the democratic primary, do you need to move toward the democratic socialist part of the party . The people in New Hampshire will tell me whats required to compete in New Hampshire, but i will tell you im not a democratic socialist. Part of the fascination of the Sanders Campaign is the guy said hes a socialist. In the real sense i dont know what that means. Thats my point. The word has lost its meaning. If we want to beat trump, we should not put up the candidate who embraces socialism. Its going to be a fascinating debate. There will be eight or ten or maybe 12 sanders rivals and hes comfortable in his skin and thats what hes called himself forever and his supporters are very quick and if you saw chuck on fox news, its like lbj, but the other candidates cringe. Should they . Is that the right reaction . Its also kind of an opportunity for them, right . Even when Elizabeth Warren can go out there and say i am a capitalist. It gives them a chance to differentiate themselves as what they view as the left wing of the party even if theyre advocating pretty much the same policies just by disassociating themselves with that label. The question is do democratic primary voters find that label so inherently appealing that theyre not looking for the candidates who are differentiating themselves in the left wing . Theyre looking for the left flank, and thats the position bernie seems to be in right now is with a very powerful appeal to a strong and active part of the party base. Is it the whole party base . Do you hear democratic strategists and a lot of them will question whether hes got a ceiling particularly in a multiway democratic primary, his appeal though very, very strong is Still Limited to that narrow swath of voters, but were going to have to see. Its certainly wider than a lot of people expected in 2016. That is part of my big question, the sense that bernie himself and all politicians say this and for those gambling in the casino. Its about the idea and not about them. This will be a test of how much. You talk to a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters and they do feel like he, not got robbed, but the primary process was unfair and there was proof that he polled better than donald trump and Hillary Clinton did. Bernie would have won comes into play and sanders has also said this is about continuing the political evolution that started in 2016 and that means not just getting through the primary and elevating these idea, but actually winning the general election. Can i say also, it seems also about authenticity that hes willing to embrace that label, that hes not afraid of the attacks that the republicans will throw at someone who calls themselves a socialist and thats powerfully appealing that he knows who he is. A, hes comfortable in his skin and b, hes been on the president ial track and sometimes experience helps. Well see how it goes. New episodes how the president allegedly attempted to stymie federal investigations. One hour pickup order . Got it. Ran out of ink and i have a big meeting today. And 2 boxes of twizzlers. Yeah, uh. For the team. The team . Gooo team. Order online pickup in an hour. And, now save up to 40 at the furniture event. At office depot officemax. You hardly ever play catch0 with the grandkidsalk . Event. Or show them how to give a good handshake anymore. Now look at me. Im all bent out of shape. vo tv if you have bent fingers and cant lay your hand flat, talk to your doctor. It may be dupuytrens contracture. gary see ya hand youre all about friendly service, and you rarely shake hands . Come on vo your hand is talking. Isnt it time you listened . There are nonsurgical options. Take the first step and learn more about dupuytrens at factsonhand. Com. 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Sharp new attacks from the president today on new reporting that again raises this question. Did the president try to obstruct justice . Dishonest, no basis, out of control and false, this is how the president in some tweets describes the nearly 5,000word New York Times report. Two years of president ial frustration with investigations and numerous efforts to battle them. The president s then acting attorney general Matt Whitaker asked him to the change the leadership of the investigation in new york that directly touches the president and could reach into the family business. It is part of the president s quote, more sustained, secretive assault on Law Enforcement, a covert companion to his public raging constantly against the special counsel. The times cautions theres no evidence that whitaker took any action to make the change the president reportedly wanted. Shimon prokupecz joins the conversation. To me fascinating in the sense that this is more recent in the tenure of Matthew Whitaker, now departed and the acting attorney general, the times is saying that a president who knows he is under investigation for potentially obstructing the mueller russia probe called Matthew Whitaker and said can you put jeff berman, the u. S. Attorney, in the Southern District of new york, back in the investigation from which he recused himself. The president meddling in an investigation even though he knows hes under investigation for meddling in the other investigation. It also comes way after the president has been told that its inappropriate for him to have this kind of contact with people at the doj and the fbi and not to talk about whats going on in the Southern District of new york. Whats very clear and what this reporting lays out for us is that he is very concerned about whats going on in the Southern District of new york. Theres been a lot of focus on the Mueller Investigation, but not a lot of focus the Southern District of new york where the Trump Organization certainly has the most liability and the most concern. Thats what i think this does. It also is interesting that he he wanted someone in that job in the Southern District of new york who would ultimately protect him. The fact that berman, Jeffrey Berman had recused himself from the cohen investigation concerned him and they knew what was going on there. That investigation is not ending about time soon. This could go on for a couple of years. The question that if he was asked to do anything wrong. Here are one of his answers. At no time has the white house asked for more have i provided any promises or commitments concerning the special counsels investigation or any other investigation. You could take that as Matthew Whitaker saying no, i didnt do anything or you can read it closely, provided any promises or commitments. It doesnt mean that the president called and vented and called and said is it possible, is there any way you can pick up the phone and make this happen. Thats different than saying, you know, do it. This is a very loyally statement. You saw him looking down reading what was written because this wasnt saying he was saying offthecuff. Very likely this was written in a way in a rhetorical slight of hand where it sounds like hes denying the president did anything improper and not necessarily denying what weve seen in the New York Times and the president was angry and he called and asked Matt Whitaker to take some action that people could interpret as obstruction of justice and that statement is a nondenial denial and well have to see if whitaker or anyone in the Justice Department comes out with any more forceful or more direct language saying the president did not say this because often weve seen deniles of stories than weve seen the stories turn out to be true. To that point, when we are witnessing in recent days is to turn on the television and find Andrew Mccabe who to your point one of the values of mccabe is hes proving a lot of journalism right. Things that were reported that the white house denied and labeled as fake news and labeled as reckless and labeled as Law Enforcement run amok and Andrew Mccabe is answering them. This is interesting with last night. He said he briefed key members of congress and they didnt say anything. The question is what dont we know . Listen to this. Are there other things that havent been made public at this point that contributed to the opening of the investigation into the president . Im not so sure that there are things that havent been made public. That, to me, looks like well, wait then. How much is there classified information about interactions with the russians . Is there Something Else behind it . What did you make of that . Theres a lot of intelligence. Human intelligence, i think there are intercepts and a lot of stuff that the Intelligence Community were dealing with that was shared with the fbi that they were working to try to corroborate. Theres a lot of information from the russians and talking to each other and perhaps indicating that they infiltrated the campaign or they thought they infiltrated the campaign and there are conversations about Paul Manafort with the russians that we know about, and other conversations, yeah, there is, and were fbi and the mueller team able to corroborate with that, and the other part of that is could this ever be revealed . It is considered sensitive intelligence and that has always been one of the things for the fbi in his investigation is how do you put some of this forth . How do you go forward and reveal some of this information. Even in Court Documents its very difficult to do that. We will see what happens when we get to the point of a Mueller Report and what if that becomes public. Shimon keeps thinking its going to be soon. Do you have a powerball number for me on that one . Another interesting thing and one of the more interesting things mccabe has said and Trump Supporters call this essentially an attempted coup, the deep state, rogue Law Enforcement and the president winning the election. Andrew mccabe says no, we had every reason to launch the investigation and we went up and told the top members of congress as were supposed to do on sensitive things and number of them objected and that would include allies with the president including devin nunes and this is trey gowdy, former republican, and knows the former Speaker Paul Ryan saying its not fair. The way hes doing this this way is devin and paul, theyre not supposed to discuss it and paul and devin cannot refute him. Is that right . Youre not supposed to discuss the things you discuss at meetings, but would it be out of bounds if Andrew Mccabe is not telling the truth. He said they briefed them and there were no objections. Cant they issue a statement saying i cant describe the meetings, but i was not in one that Andrew Mccabe described . They would feel if the confidentiality was breached to the point that they could at least you can do a vague denial saying there are statements out there that are inconsistent with what i said. That has not happened and the sound of crickets from some of those quarters i think is significant. It might not mean anything. It could be that, like gowdy says, that they would love to quibble with this, but their hands are just tied, but its not like we have suffered from a lack of information coming out of the out of those meetings and that committee. Devin nunes in particular who has not been shy about saying he thinks there was corruption in the fbi. One would think that if mccabes not telling the truth that nunes would find a way to say something. And he has broken plrotocol n the past. Talk about unmasking. We had memos released that the fbi did not want released that had information about, you know, internal methods that the fbi was using and devin nunes was very much a part of that process as republicans on that committee tried to run interference for the president. So the idea that theyre now following protocol and their mouths are tied because theyre not able to talk about this gang of eight meeting doesnt line up too well with what weve seen over the past with devin nunes and breaking protocol. Everyone could just be returning to norm, right . No one has an opinion on that . No, not a safe bet. Up next, plenty of team changes over at the Justice Department, but one very important thing hasnt changed. The boss down the street. Liberty mutual accident forgiveness means they wont hike your rates over one mistake. See, Liberty Mutual doesnt hold grudges. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise their rates because of their first accident. 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This is beyond wifi, this is xfi. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Xfinity, the future of awesome. Theres a new Leadership Team taking shape at the department of justice. William barr on the job as attorney general. Hes the permanent replacement for Jeff Sessions and the president says he will nominate jeff rerosen as the next Deputy Attorney general. Rosen will replace Rod Rosenstein. New team, same boss in the white house which raises the same question. Will barr and rosen face the same president ial scorn as sessions and rosenstein . The president went after Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein more than two dozen times on twitter alone. Tweets like this one from last summer. The witch hunt continues all because Jeff Sessions didnt tell me he was going to recuse himself. I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time wasted, money wasted and so many lives ruined and sessions knew better than most that there was no collusion. You now have by most accounts, two adults will be leading the Justice Department. Not that Jeff Sessions wasnt an adult or Rod Rosenstein wasnt an adult. The george h. W. Bush administration viewed this in town, that was bill barrs choice, a guy hes known for 20 years. How long, how long until the president realizes, wait, just like Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein they are not going to fire bob mueller. They are not going to shut things down. They are not likely, anyway, to listen to me when i ask them to do things . Thats two courses here, right . Door number one, barr does move in some way to quash or temper the Mueller Investigation whether its by firing mueller or doing Something Else. Now he was seen as doing well in his confirmation hearings and didnt make enough commitments to that end for democrats to vote for him. Door number two is, just like you say, he follows the letter of what he believes he should be doing. He does not quash the investigation or interfere with it in any way and that inevitably makes the president mad. I dont think theres any middle ground and i dont think hell go to the white house and sit the president down and somehow convince him that this is the way things ought to go. Its just very simple, i think, for the president if this investigation is going on and its going where its been going, he doesnt like it. And were talking about the Mueller Investigation, but theres also, as we were discussing in the previous conversation in the Southern District of new york which has an investigation into Michael Cohen that expanded into the hush money payments and the potential finance violations and looking at the Trump Organization and a separate organization into the Trump Committee and it would have the power to say shut it down and theres no indication that bill barr will do that and i asked the question, when comes the tweet. Its when the Mueller Report is filed and its sent to capitol hill and were still kind of waiting to see where the Justice Department goes. That would seem a natural point or tension that the president is frustrated about and its been its own private island that the attorney general has that much control over and therefore bill barr wont try to exert control over that, too. Those are the two points of tension. You made the point about the testimony. When you were talking to democrats and they were being candid including democrats who voted against bill barr and this was the best they could do in terms of the Justice Department. The Deputy Attorney general is not supposed to be anyone that they know who they are. I think Rod Rosensteins made that joke in the past and because bill barr will not be recused he will likely be the primary target of whatever the president is frustrated on and not jeffrey rosen. I think those are the two most likely triggers is when the president starts to get frustrated. Here is a democratic senator fighting the president all of the time. Since william barr has been attorney general before and no attorney general has been under a president who has such con temp for the rule of law and the judicial process and Law Enforcement generally. Buckle in because it will be a wild ride, mr. Barr, you aint seen nothing yet. Thats from a democratic senator. He has reasons to say that, because of how he treated them. The department has faced everincreasing scrutiny from other quarters as theyve shrunk from days to hours to nanoseconds and he goes on to say, blah, blah, work with integrity. That seems to be his way of saying i know before i got here, youve been taking harpoons all of the time. Im with you now. He realizes that the twitter feed can put the laser on the department for the past couple of years and it could end up demoralizing workers who have had to deal with the Justice Department. It was corrupt and there were these obama appointees and everyone who has been investigating me and my inaugural committee and my family and my organization and my campaign are all just part of the deep state just trying to come after me and harass me and you see the words president ial harassment and barr has the dual challenges of making sure he stays on President Trumps good side while making sure that the thousands of workers in the Justice Department do not see him as the president s, and hes working to protect the president from what are valid investigations into areas of president ial employees. And hes hanging around for another month to help with the transition. And this all feels like. Up next, some quick updates and important updates on the 2020 race and while senator Elizabeth Warren, get this, sharing a latenight spotlight with 50 cent. Youre a big 50 cent fan. Oh, absolutely. Are you more into tipsy or are you a classic inda club. In da club. Of course, you are. S disease, stelara® works differently. Studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. Stelara® may lower your ability to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. Some serious infections require hospitalization. Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or flulike symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. Alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion and vision problems. These may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. Some serious allergic reactions and lung inflammation can occur. 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John james who ran unsuccessfully as a republican candidate is pitching himself now for a prominent vacancy in the Trump Administration. The president is considering james for the post of United Nations ambassador and hes making clear, offer me the job, mr. President , and ill take it. Its an honor to be considered for the u. S. U. N. Mission. I believe that having should be with a business background who understands how to bring a lean management a form, reforms and Business Practices to make the u. N. Run better, also a combat veteran who understands the consequences of war. Sounds like you want the job. Of course, i do. The Government Ethics Office is rejecting wilbur Ross Financial disclosure form. The commerce secretary violated his ethics agreement by reportedly he sold stock in a bank when in fact he had not done so. He had thought the stocks were sold and once he realized his mistake he then did sell them. Kristen gillibrand will be in texas, and her first visit to texas since jumping into the 2020 race. The senator now responding to the now internet famous ranch girl. A College Senior named Hannah Kinney who brushed past her in iowa looking for dressing. I dont think the debate and the grassroots care about. [ laughter ] senator gillibrand says shes learned her lesson. Two important things and the caucus gohhers and never get between a midwesterner and their ranch and the next trip to iowa city. A challenger to President Trump, and governor larry hogan is a vocal candidate. When asked if he would jump in and challenge trump in 2020, Governor Hogan said this. Are you thinking about running in 2020 . I was just sworn in a month ago for my second term and i have a lot of work to do in maryland. Im getting approached from a lot of different people and the best way to put it is i havent thrown them out of my office. We want to talk about here the hogan threat, if there is one to President Trump or Phil Mattinglys pizza habits about the ranch. Ranch on pizza . Im right and thats all that matters and just because everybody at this table doesnt agree with me doesnt mean that im not right which is the only way you should ever approach anything in life. Look [ laughter ] the hogan thing is actually very interesting. You should look at the polling and when you talk to republicans and you watch the 2020 ramped up. There is a small number of disaffected republicans and it remains a small number and people look at the Approval Ratings like larry hogan noted in the interview and it doesnt look weak here and maybe there is an opportunity and ive yet to see the Clear Pathway for an opportunity and ive heard from many people who said theyve been reaching out to him and they want another option there, but the question is would it be to play spoiler or to win . There is already somebody there. There already is a republican challenger, so if youre just looking for a name to be on those ballots in the primaries just to prove that theres another option, there is somebody, hes got to think that he actually has a chance and to your point, the path is hypothetical at this point. The idea has got to be that the political calculous will change based on unforeseeable events. Are you trying to make a statement about the posttrump Republican Party . There are different ways to do it. They have to get in before we can answer that question. Up next, the Trump Administration picks a 1 billion fight with california. For the past five years, ive spoken with hundreds of families and visited seniorcare communities around the country. And ive got to tell you, todays seniorliving communities are better than ever. These days, there are amazing amenities, like movie theaters, exercise rooms and swimming pools, public cafes, bars, and bistros, even petcare services. 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Attorneys office did not object to this and they requested it because cohen has postsurgical physical therapy that he needs to undergo at the supervision from his doctor from that shoulder surgery which is why cohen has delayed testifying before some committees on capitol hill and he has to prepare for these testimonies for these committees, and he will testify before three committees by the end of the month. Cohen has already delayed these testimonies. He was supposed to see the House Oversight committee and the house intel committee. Those hearings have been postponed and delayed. Now cohen saying he needed this extra time. The prosecutors are not objecting to this. They say onetime 60day delay and the judge is giving him until may 6th before he has to report to prison, john. Cara scannel, appreciate that, and now well call capitol hill to see when will you schedule those hearings and appreciate that news there. Quick break. Thea president is in a new war of words with the governor of california. Is it about highspeed rail or is it really about the border . Tmobile will do the math for you. Right now, when you join tmobile, you get two lines of unlimited with two of the latest phones included for just one hundred bucks a month. A lot will happen in your life. Wrinkles just wont. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repairs dermproven retinol works so fast, it takes only one week to reveal younger looking skin. Neutrogena® means they wont hike your rates over one mistake. See, Liberty Mutual doesnt hold grudges. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise their rates because of their first accident. Switch and you could save 782 on home and auto insurance. Call for a free quote today. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Ir are. President trump stoke a fight with twitter with the california governor. The president says this is about spending on high speed rail. It is canceling a nearly 1 billion grant in federal funding for a highspeed rail system in california, that after good afternoonor gavin newsom announced hes scaling back the project because of cost overruns, the president quote, send the billions wasted. Now its a surprise decision to cut off funding to this infrastructure project. The governor said look at the timing, one day after california joined with other states to sue the Trump Administration for the border. Its no coincidence and hes getting back in the president s face. This is clear political retribution by President Trump and we wont sit ideally by. This is californias money and we are going fight for it. To the substance in a minute and the politics here, if youre the democratic governor, relatively new in office, picking the fight with the president is unpopular in your state, probably not bad politically, and if youre President Trump, youre not going to win california in 2020 and picking a fight, probably not so good for you either. This isnt the first time President Trump has gone after california for exactly that reason. If hes actually subjecting california to policies based on political retribution thats quite troubling, but it certainly isnt the first time that any republican politician has used california as a punching bag for, you know, the scary liberal governance that they stand against. A couple of issues here in the sense that newsom did scale back the project. Is that an opening for the federal government saying youll scale back the project and well give you less money . Theyve restricted and this is supposed to be a highspeed rail that goes from San Francisco to l. A. And now it appears its going from bakersfield to merced. Ne newsom said this will be a problem for california and you factor in the Green New Deal and here in washington, discussions about how do we change the way we travel . The republican argument has been this is expensive. You cant get the government involved and now we see in california which is supposed to be the leader of progressive policies, yes, highspeed rail was too expensive. It didnt work out. We had to scale it back. And so to your point, is it political retribution . The president probably not helping the cause of department of transportation lawyers who would like to argue we are doing this on the merits and you scale back the project and the cost overruns and we dont like that. The president tweeting, as i predicted, 16 states led by openborder democrats and the radical left filed the lawsuit and the 9th circuit and the state that wasted billions of dollars on their out of control fast train and no hope of completion, seems in charge. He would prefer it not be put together. There say threepage memo giving the rationale for why they were pulling 990someoddmillion. Youre supposed to let other people connect the dots for you and he goes ahead and tweets about it. First up, the initial grant that the department of transportation will end up in a court fight. Keep a close eye on the california delegation which is very large and has a lot in the house. There is a speaker of california and a couple of committee chairs. And now the republican leader. I dont know if it will be enough on this one, but they will get involved and they can make life very painful for the department of transportation if they want to. Theres already 2. 5 million thats in use and there were murmurings that what the president is trying to say here is they should obligate that money and how you would do that, im not sure what the mechanism would be, but if you want real money, pulling 1 million is a fight and pulling 1 million in use for a project that would be a massive fight that will be interesting to see. It is a tactic that the president is accused of using before and we should see it from july 2018 and this is when there was a big spending bill planned and the president was mad at Chuck Schumer and the democratic leader in the senate and wanted to build the gateway project for new york and new jersey and the president openly signed a deal and there was a back and forth about this, and did the president do this and theres some evidence in the past and this is the way hes done his business in the past. Im going to try to take your money. The president has done the same thing with puerto rico and he said theres democrats down there and the federal Government Shutdown and all of the government workers are just democrats and we can keep the government shut down for weeks at a time and this is something that the president is very vulnerable to this charge that he is using federal dollars and taxpayer dollars to attack people that he thinks dont vote for him or people that arent part of his base. And there is a flipside and california is about as blue as you get and the governor has not been shy about saying i dont like you, mr. President. Its been a tough two years. To those agents of anger determined to divide us instead of unite us, its time to pack it up and for you to pack it in. We will offer an alternative to the corruption and the incompetence in the white house. The answer to the white house, with all due respect, no more division, no more xenophobia, no more aetnaivism. We were just talking about the trump potential political calculation, hes got one, too. Its funny, i kept hearing in my head thinking of when obama was president and you heard a lot of the same things from the governor of texas, right . Saying this is going to be our political identity is were the opposite of what you see in washington and so, you know, with the parties flipped thats californias role now. Its also to some degree what republican attorneys general did during the Obama Administration with the lawsuits and youve seen Xavier Becerra involved with the border wall lawsuit and the travel ban and the border wall and on and on, and almost take the playbook from the attorneys general it can help you politically and it can can help you push back. The playbook is a good way to put it because it worked in some cases and you make a political point and it worked in court. Thapgs f thanks for joining us on inside politics. Brianna keilar starts right now. This is cnn breaking news. Im Brianna Keilar live from cnns Washington Headquarters and under way right now we begin with breaking news. We have the clearest indication yet that special Counsel Robert Mueller is nearly done with his almost twoyear investigation and that the endgame here is near. Sources say the Justice Department is preparing to announce as early as next week that attorney general bill barr has received muellers confidential report and soon after that announcement barr will review the findings and then submit his own summary to congress. We have crime and justice reporter shimon prokupecz, justice reporter laura jaret and evan perez with us. We know that the timing could change on this. Walk us through what, by regulation a