When we finally get a chance to repeal and replace they dont take advantage of it. Let obamacare fail. It will be a lot easier. I think were probably in that position where well just let obamacare fail. Were not going to own it. I am not going to own it. I can tell you the republicans are not going to own it. Trump made those comments after three republican senators came out and said they oppose the latest senate plan. Keep in mind, the house has voted more than 50 times to repeal obamacare, and the Senate Passed legislation in 2015 to repeal. But when faced with the tricky aspect of selling Health Care Reform to their own members and constituents, they came up short. Lets get to our reporters covering the new developments. Kasie hunt with us on capitol hill. Kristen welker at the white house and eli stokols and politico susan glasser. Kasie hunt, first to you at capitol hill. What is mcconnells sort of lastditch effort to salvage any sort of i cant even use the word win but to salvage anything out of this bust . Salvage something, yeah. It looks there was a very contentious lunch here this afternoon where there was a lot of disagreement and argument about whether or not they should have a vote on this repealonly plan. Mcconnell came out to the microphones. First he said, yes, were going to vote, then he said it was likely were going to vote, then he said this is where i think the majority of my members are. It seems like there was a lot of disagreement about whether they should all be forced to go on the record about whether obamacare should be straightup repealed. It seems like there are still developments ongoing here. They are scrambling to try to figure out what the plan would be, could be, are there other options. Lamar alexander, the chairman of the Health Committee, the Health Committee essentially saying that they are planning to hold hearings on how to fix the insurance market. That announcement came out a few minutes ago. Regardless of whether or not the vote is actually held. That, of course, lines up with what mcconnell said over the recess. If they fail to get the 50 votes they need to fix the individual obamacare markets. Thats as sure a sign as any that theyre moving in that direction. Right now it seems mcconnell wants to force the members to walk the plank and take the vote. The president telegraphing from the white house that they think theyll have to go in a different direction and let, as the president said, obamacare fail. Theyre in an incredibly difficult spot. Its been a very sort of how to put it, moody day on capitol hill. There has been its been a strange kind of experience watching this unfold, thinking there is no way many of these members will get on board with this. Sure enough, by noon, even before they went behind closed doors, we had the three votes. Very difficult place and day for Mitch Mcconnell right now. Kristen welker, i was stunned by the president s comments. Obviously, when you talk about health care, theres a political consideration, but i have never heard an american president reduce health care policymaking to just the crass political, bareknuckles aspect of it. The fact that obamacare is now more popular than the Senate Republican bill is in part his fault. He could have helped to make the senate bill more popular, but he trashed the house bill. He said the senate bill needed more heart, and now he just reduces the entire debate, which at its best is about policy, i suppose, it sounds like what mcconnell is doing at this point, getting people to get on the record, is about keeping score. What does the white house say behind closed doors about the president s comments this morning . Reporter i think white house officials are digging in. Theyre defensive. They want to try to make democrats own this, which has been really striking to kind of hear the verbal jiu jitsu. President trump is here in the white house, and republicans have control of both chambers. I think what is going to be complicated moving forward is something kasie was talking about, which is what does a plan b look like, nicolle . It seems like the white house and leader mcconnell, leaders on capitol hill, have two very different ideas about how this should move forward. The president very much dug in on this idea that he wants to see Obamacare Repealed now and then replaced later. The political reality is it doesnt seem like thats going to work, so you have Mitch Mcconnell really moving toward the possibility of actually trying to improve aspects of this and fix the individual marke markets. Duringy our Daily Press Briefing with Sarah Huckabee sanders a short time ago she was pressed on whether the president might try to do the opposite, push obamacare over a cliff so that, in fact, it does fail. He could potentially do that if he wanted to. She pushed back and said, look, its already failing. If you look at the raw numbers there are still millions of americans relying on obamacare. So i think thats where politically this gets very difficult. If not for the messaging, which you raise. And all of this may underscore the fact that this is a president who, by his own admission, is new to washington and ledge latigislating. Let me put up the president s tweet this morning. He says republicans should repeal failing obamacare now and work on a new Health Care Plan that starts from a clean slate. Dems will join in. I guess, to you first, kristen and back to you, kasie, do you sense any sort of faction at the white house that is for dems will join in plan b . Reporter there are a number of officials here who think that ul ultimately they can put pressure on democrats and ultimately force them to the table. That would require under the calculation the white house is making repealing obamacare with the twoyear sunset. Effectively people would be able to keep their coverage for two years and the white house calculation, a number of officials believe, would be to put the pressure on democrats to come to the table and to negotiate on a replacement package. When you talk to democrats and im sure kasie has had a number of conversations to this effect, they are not showing any inclination of wanting to go to the table under those circumstances. Their argument is, look, well sit down and try to improve obamacare now, but were not going to be a part of any type of repeal effort. From the calculus of democrats, why not let republicans own this and then bear the political brunt in 2018. Kasie, if donald trump cant make any republicans in the senate or the house afraid of him, why on earth would democrats in the senate or the house be afraid of him . Reporter well, look, i dont know that its a question of being afraid of him as much as there is, i think, a real imperative to try to fix this. Look, obamacare wasnt popular until the republicans gained control of both the white house and the congress and started trying to repeal it. Democrats had an awful lot of trouble with this law. There is a lot of political upside for red state democrats who can go in and say, look, i wanted to fix this. I told you i was going to fix this. They ran away from president obama in especially the midterm years. I dont think that there is necessarily, for a joe manchin, say of west virginia, a problem in being seen working with president trump. Now, for Chuck Schumer its an entirely different set of calculations because he is the leader of the national party, the base, as you know, has zero appetite whatsoever for working with president trump. So i think thats the tension you may start to see play out if in fact this is what happened in the end. Eli stokols. I want to ask you about dopes. Donald trump tweeting about dopes saying talking about dopes at dinner last night. He may have tweeted about it too. I love it. Talking about loyalty as well. Saying he was let down by all the democrats and a few republicans. Most republicans were loyal, terrific and worked really hard. What to whom were they loyal by trumps analysis . Because i think Susan Collins constituents would find her incredibly loyal to them and their concerns about cuts in medicaid. Who didnt pass the loyalty test and who fell into the dopes category . I am guessing one person in dopes or not loyal is dean heller given the political report this week that the white house and the president himself have talked to folks in arizona about possibly primarying heller because he didnt get on board with this bill. Obviously the president calling, saying that were going to look like dopes if we dont pass this about 12 hours before he publicly says to the cameras at the white house, this isnt on us. I dont own this, republicans dont own this. You can get tied up in those knots if you listen to the republican private pronouncements and the words from the president. If you look at what his actions and what he did to push this bill forward. At the end of last Years Campaign he was doing five or six rallies a day around the clock on this campaign to pass an Obamacare Repeal effort. Did he ever leave the white house . He threw a party when the house passed its Obamacare Repeal bill, but over the last couple of weeks, as Mitch Mcconnell was trying to sort of, you know, put together 50 votes, trump, yeah, he invited a few folks to dinner, but he never really went out there. He didnt go to any of the states he won, like ohio and west virginia, to try to pressure those senators in those places who were skeptical about voting for this senate bill. He never really grasped the policy. He seemed sort of content to just sign anything that would come to his desk. If you listen to his words, he basically acknowledges this isnt really his deal. This is Mitch Mcconnells deal. He said im waiting for mitch to send something to my desk. Could have been anything, probably. He was ready to sign it. And the words over the last 24, 48 hours it was never were trying to do this as republicans. It was they. I am waiting on the senate. I am surprised they couldnt get it done. Mitch couldnt get it done. I am surprised. Trump strategically distanced himself from this. Eli, do the people who called the meeting don junior coordinated with the British Music publicist to get dirt on Hillary Clinton feel like dopes when today we learn about yet another person at the meeting . Their story being undermined by the hour. And we now know more about what we dont know. And it appears that there are more secrets theyre keeping than truths they are telling about this meeting. I think a lot of the people who took that meeting have to feel in hindsight like dopes themselves. It was obviously not worth whatever they thought they would get out of it. When don junior goes on tv and says this is all of it and more comes out. Whether its significant or not, there is more investigating to be done about what may have come out of the meeting that we dont know about. It does not seem like the folks who were in the room around this administration have been fully forthcoming about this and its creating more legal headaches and a darker cloud hanging over the white house. Susan glasser, you know more about ike kaveladze. I was never a candidate to be a russian spy, clearly, than i do. Tell me the significance of him being in the meeting. It feels like minute by minute we are finding out more information about the meeting. It was the nixon presidency that gave us the phrase the modified limited hangout. It does feel like we werent exactly getting the full story from donald trump jr. Last week. The eighth man. Even his lawyer, it seems, has already given a statement that is hard to believe. Kaveladzes lawyer says he was a consultant to the trump kont tact who wanted the meeting to happen. The statement from the lawyer given to some Media Outlets was he was there and prepared to be a translator at the meeting. He showed up and found that Natalia Veselnitskaya had her own translator. When you find out even a little bit more of his background, you find out that back in 2000, the General Accounting Office did a report and linked, you know, this same guy, mr. Kaveladze and his company to basically setting up hundreds of passthrough accounts for russian Shell Companies here in the united states. The total amount the gao found that had been laundered through his company and another company was 1. 4 billion. There were no charges ever filed that anyone has yet found, but this is definitely the same person, thats been confirmed by his attorney. I dont think you send somebody at that level who is setting up hundreds of Shell Companies for russian firms in the united states. He is not showing up at that meeting as a simple translator. Susan, what would he be doing . What kinds of things do people like this do . I have to say, i just we cant get ahead of the information. One thing that we also learned today as part of this is that not only was this meeting already on special counsel Robert Muellers radar screen but that, in fact, the special Prosecutors Office had already reached out to mr. Kaveladze to formally request an interview with him as part of the investigation. So we know officially now that this meeting is part of the investigation that Robert Mueller is undertaking. And i think that, obviously, this is a significant meeting. We dont know yet what we dont know. And i am amazed that trump people have turned this into a weeklong story just to even reveal who was at the meeting. Why not, if youre making disclosures about it, go ahead and say who was at the meeting. Instead, every single day practically there is an oh, one more person. We forgot. Its amazing. And they maintain that there was nothing wrong with the meeting, so its sort of weird that they wont just acknowledge everyone who was there. Kasie hunt, kristen welker, eli stokols and susan glasser, thank you so much for spending time with me. Coming up, the man who was with donald trump on the very same day, the very same city that donald trump jr. , Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were meeting at trump tower with russians who promised highlevel and Sensitive Information as part of the russian governments support for donald trump joins me live in studio exclusively. I have said from the beginning that what should be done here is that everybody who had any contacts with any Foreign Nationals, especially anyone from russia, should have been giving that information to the administration and should be put out publicly. Across the country, we walk. Carrying flowers that signify why we want to end alzheimers disease. But what if, one day, there was a white flower for alzheimers first survivor . What if there were millions of them . Join us for the Alzheimers Association walk to end alzheimers. Register today at alz. Org walk. Only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol® finding the best hotel price is now a safe bet. Because tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites so you save up to 30 on the hotel you want. Lock it in. Tripadvisor. Is it inappropriate to get Opposition Research from a Foreign Government . Yeah, i think it would be. I think it would be. I dont think there is any evidence that they did. But i i do think it would be, sure. And i think quite frankly thats probably against the law, michael, in addition to being inappropriate. I am joined by new jersey governor chris christie. Thank you for being here with us. Happy to be here, nicolle. You were with the candidate that day. As it turns out. I remember exactly what was going on in that period. He was the nominee by virtue of the delegate count but not all republicans had come to terms with it. Can you talk about the campaign and the candidates state of mind that day. That was a day when we were having a pretty important meeting at the four seasons with major republican donors. And thencandidate trump asked me if i would come in and speak to the donors. A lot of those people had been people who had been big donors of mine at the rga when i was chairman and in my run for reelection in 2013. The candidate and i spent a while beforehand together. Then we went over together to the four seasons to give that talk. Did the candidate say anything that day about this meeting . No, no. Do you think he knew about it . I dont. I dont. Listen, we have a very open, friendly 15year relationship, and i was a at that time, i was a key member of the campaign. And so, if this was anything that he knew about, he is not the holdingback type. We would have talked about it. I am confident he didnt know. Did you know about the meeting . No. No. Is it the kind of meeting you would have been brought into . Not typically because it doesnt sound to me to be first of all, i think so no. The answer is no, i wasnt invited nor would it be the kind of meeting typically i was brought into. When i met most of the time, it was most of the time with the candidate. There might be others in the room with the candidate, but i didnt engage in a lot of the strategic meetings with just staff. My job most of the time was interact with the candidate and deal with debate prep for the candidate. Let me can i read you the email that led to sure. So the email that was sent to don junior said, the crown prosecutor of russia, its unclear that there is one, met with his father this morning and offered to provide the Trump Campaign with official documents and information that would incriminate hillary and her dealings with russia and be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and Sensitive Information but is part of russia and its governments support for mr. Trump. What does that say to you . He wrote back, if its what you say, i love it. What do those two statements represent in your mind . Listen, first of all, i think you have got to consider the source of the information and the recipient of the information. In the source of the information, as i understand it, i have never met this guy, but the source of the information seems to me to be like a music promoter, right. I dont think this guy is necessarily sophisticated in the language of government like you and i would be. And the recipient of the information, donald trump jr. , who i know very well, is by no means a sophisticated political actor. This is a guy who loves his father and got involved in politics because his father got involved, but i dont think don would have gotten involved at that level any other time. Now, all that being said, people who saw that at some point have to, i think, ask more questions. I dont know what that guy means. Crown prosecutor. Pat money hynihan said your entitled to your own opinions but not your own set of facts. This makes clear that was an offer to cluollude with the russian government. You dont agree this is bungled collusion. No. I dont know who goldstone is. Does it matter . It does matter for this reason. If goldstone were an official of the russian government, or someone who has been seen in the past to represent the russian government, neither of those things at least as far as i know, have been represented. That would be one thing. He is a music promoter who they dealt with in the Miss Universe pageant. These representations i am not saying it shouldnt be something that would raise some concerns, but i dont think his representations should necessarily be taken at face value. So you this doesnt, for you, represent clearcut collusion . No. Why not . First of all, lets go. Because of who they are . You are basically saying he was a music professor and youre saying don junior was dumb. No, thats not what im saying. What i am saying is that, first, with goldstone, you have to know that the information he is relaying in that email is actually true. How do you know its not . Were looking in retrospect now. You are saying at the time should it have raised concerns. I am saying yes. Youre saying is it evidence of bungled collusion. The only way it is is if goldstone knew what he was talking about was correct. I dont think we know that. Secondly, there is no evidence of actual collusion. For you the discrepancy is whether or not goldstones information is good, not whether or not the son of an american candidate for president agreed to receive opo from a hostile foreign power . I think don junior and he has said it himself, if he had it to do over he would do it differently. How do you do it differently. Is it patriotic to meet with the russians. How about send it to the fbi. You dont send it to the fbi. Really . When the book was delivered to al gores campaign he called the fbi. Reporter you dont know they didnt talk to their campaigns lawyers first, i suspect thats exactly what they did. I dont suspect this guy on his own who received the book said im going immediately to the fbi. I suspect he spoke to the campaigns lawyers, which any smart person should do. You are saying don is not smart. He is not sophisticated in this stuff. What about Jared Kushner . I dont know what jared knew or didnt know. Thats why its important for this to get out. I think everybody has got to get the information right of who met with who, and about what, and get the information out there. I am confident from speaking to the president that the president didnt authorize any collusion, didnt know about any collusion and i dont know that any collusion ever happened. Do you think he should stand in the east room and continue to bellow at the top of his lungs that there was no collusion . Thats our guy. Thats your guy . Are you proud thats our president . He is all of our president. Should he wekeep saying that . I am proud he is the president. Im talking about collusion. Do you advise him to keep saying there is no collusion or do you advise him not to . He needs to get to the bottom of all this. The fact of the matter is he knows he didnt collude and thats essentially what he is saying. So he should be saying that because the American People need to hear, first and foremost, from their president that he didnt collude and he didnt know anything about collusion. Lets start with that. The rest of this stuff i said this yesterday. I dont think anybody really thinks that this meeting was advisable. I dont think anybody is really saying that. In the end, i think that now you are looking at everything in retrospect. Everybody ois examining this based on what you know how, not what you knew at the time. Youre a prosecutor. How do you know that nothing of value was i dont know. I am sure bob mueller will try to find out. I know as a prosecutor you dont prosecute people until you have the facts. My problem is that people are prosecuting folks before they have the facts . Is bob mueller doing that . I think the media is essentially doing that. Were just asking questions. Its a form of prosecution. I am not saying actually prosecuting. My point is thats the medias job. Thats fine. They can do it. It doesnt mean when you ask me as a former prosecutor i dont see any crime here. I guess stop. Thats what investigations are for. You dont know one wasnt committed. How do you know that something. Lets put it up. The Campaign Finance hold on. You only know once you know. Here is the thing. I am saying to you the same thing youre saying to me. I dont know that there has been a crime committed. Donald trump doesnt know there wasnt. He knows he didnt collude. He knows he didnt collude. I am not sure about that. This is what he said. You have to take him at his word. Why . He doesnt have a close relationship with the truth. Thats fine and well, i understand those are the talking points. The talking points . Has donald trump ever lied about anything . Here is the fact of the matter. You know what, he has never lied to me. I can only judge based on that. Here is the fact of the matter, thats why we have investigations. Thats why the Justice Department is doing what theyre doing and thats why somebody like bob mueller being in this position should give everybody faith and confidence. I worked with him as a u. S. Attorney and he was director of the fbi. He is a smart and careful guy. He is a reasonable guy. I think, at the end, he will come to certain conclusions about conduct in this case. But we cant come to conclusions now. We could have opinions. Just not come to conclusions. Lets put up one of the there is a serious question about whether its possible that a Campaign Finance violation occurred. There is a law i worked on campaigns and i knew this to be the case. No american shall knowingly solicit, accept or receive from a Foreign National any contribution or donation and it says anything of value. When i worked on campaigns, if you got a call from australia, the uae or russia and they want to give you information about an opponent thats strictly out of bounds. Youre right, you go to the Campaign Counsel or to the fbi. Right. Do you think its possible at least that a Campaign Finance violation occurred. It depends what happened in that meeting. Nicolle, we dont know what happened in the meeting yet. I am not saying Nothing Happened and im not saying something happened. You know why . Because i wasnt in the meeting. Neither was anybody else who is commenting on it. I remember when one of your responsibilities was to interface with Foreign Governments and foreign leaders who were waking up to the fact that he could be our next president. You interfaced with the australians and british. Did you ever interface with any russians . Nope. Do you think its weird that the other three most senior people on the campaign had a meeting with at least four russians . Do i think its weird . Its not a meeting, from my perspective, that i would have been anxious to take. Its four people with leadership positions on the campaign had a meeting that was pitched as, very highlevel and Sensitive Information and part of russias Government Support for mr. Trump. Three of them did. Should you have been in the loop since you were dealing with other countries . No. My dealing with other countries was not anything official as part of the campaign. You were the head of the transition. Yes. So what they reached out to me to talk about was what kind of government do you think donald trump will have. What kind of people do you think hell put into positions of authority . How does he view the world. And thats what i was asked about. So my responsibility was very different from the campaign. In the campaign, i had no official position in the campaign, but my job was to be the candidates friend. And to be the person who could talk to him on a peertopeer level. Someone who had run against him, had been his friend for 15 years and someone whom he respected as a debater. And so, i would work with him significantly on those type of issues. But i was not, by any stretch, in every kind of strategy meeting or discussion of all kinds of different things. Sometimes i would be. Right. But usually it was only what he was also in the room, not with the rest of the staff. Other staff might be in there when i was but not all the time. I have got more questions about the conversations you had with thencandidate trump and now president trump. Stay with us. Well be right back. Only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol® i own my own company. I had some severe fatigue, some funny rashes. Finally, listening to my wife, went to a doctor. And i became diagnosed with hodgkins lymphoma. That diagnosis was tough. I had to put my trust in somebody. When i first met steve, we recommended chemotherapy, and then we did high dose therapy and then autologous stem cell transplant. Unfortunately, he went on to have progressive disease i thought that he would be a good candidate for immune therapy. Its an intravenous medicine that is going to make his immune system evade the tumor. With chemotherapy, i felt rough, fatigue, nauseous. And with immune therapy weve had such a positive result. Im back to working hard. Ive honestly never felt this great. I believe the future of immunotherapy at ctca is very bright. The evolution of cancer care is here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com Appointments Available now. For over 100 yearsaking like kraft has,al cheese you learn a lot about peoples tastes. Honey, what do you want for dinner tonight . Oh whatever youre making. Triple cheddar stuffed sliders. Sold were back with governor chris christie. Should Jared Kushners security clearances be put on pause while he finishes the process which, by his own admission involves i think the third round of updating his background forms . I dont think there is a reason to put it on pause. I think the president needs to make the judgment himself regarding this. If you were the president and a senior staffer had to turn in their background forms three times, if i was the senior staffer, would you want my security clearance put on hold . Its a much different relationship, right. Seriously. He knows jared better than i ever knew anyone on my senior staff as government. Diplomats and foreign intelligence agencies are asked to trust jared, its not just the president who is asked to trust Jared Kushner. In the end its the president who decides who has security clearance and who does not. Unless donald trump is brought strong, direct evidence that there is some kind of risk to jared having security clearance, he wont take it away. Do you think the Blind Loyalty to family is serving him well . I dont know that its Blind Loyalty. Its been developed over a number of years that hes gotten to know him as a business person and as the father of his grandchildren. I dont know if its Blind Loyalty or not. The president can only judge that. It appears that theyve known each other for a long time in an intimate way and the president made judgments. Does the president believe don junior, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort handled the meeting well . I havent heard the president say that. I havent seen him tweeted. Can i show you what your friend chris wray said . Here is what i want you to tell every politician. If you get a call from somebody suggesting that a Foreign Government wants to help you by disparaging your opponent, tell us all to call the fbi. To the members of this committee, any threat or effort to interfere with our elections from any nationstate, or any nonstate actor, is the kind of thing the fbi would want to know. Yeah. I agree with him. So should Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, don junior have called the fbi . As i said before, what they should have done was to go to don mcgahn. Hold on. This is a process. This was a campaign that had no processes. Excuse me. They had a lawyer. I was i interacted with don often during that period of time. He is someone who is now the white house counsel. Don is a good, smart, careful lawyer. If they had gone to don with that, i am willing to bet you everything ive got in my pocket don would have said, dont take the meeting, lets alert the fbi. That video you just saw is why chris wray is going to be the best fbi director of my lifetime. Listen to exactly what he said. He didnt say anything about the meeting in particular. He said any threat from a Foreign Government to interfere in our election is something the fbi should know about. He wasnt passing judgment on all that. Can you acknowledge that thats what this sounds like in hindsight, an offer to interfere . Not only in hindsight. I told you that if i read that at the time it would have rang bells for me. But remember, i come from this with a prosecutors training and mentality. And a lifetime of experience in politics. Right . So thats the experience from don junior didnt have that experience. I guess its on donald trump to surround himself with some people who know something, isnt it . Isnt that what an executive does . Don mcgahn does know something. Im sure he would have advised them to go to the fbi. There is no indication that this was ever brought to the campaign lawyers. It should have been. There is no question about that. I think the president would say that, that in retrospect it should have been brought to campaign lawyers. Even don junior said i would have handled it differently. I understand people make mistakes. I am not here defending the taking of the meeting. I am not. What i am also saying is its not evidence of a crime. Is it evidence, though, of a lack of loyalty to this country . No. You dont meet with a russian its evidence of a lack of judgment and understanding. So Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort and don junior have a lack of judgment. I am only speaking as to don junior because he had the direct contact with these folks, and i think the only one the others had direct contact. They sat in a meeting with them. They came into the meeting. We dont know what they knew when they walked into the meeting. They were in receipt of the email. I dont know whether they read the whole email or considered everything. I will say to you, i was around the campaign a lot, and especially at that time. It was extraordinarily hectic and the white house was shorthanded. There are many more people there doing things than there was during the Trump Campaign. Is it hectic . I think every white house is hectic. You know that better than me. It was a well oiled machine. I want to talk about politics and your term as governor. You are so different in person thank you. From the image that you project as a politician. You project defiance and indifference to your public image. I know that thats i know you are not indifferent. You are not indifferent about a single person. To see your indifference projected in the wake of an image of you on a beach, its hard to watch. I mean, i know you were trying to get the beaches open for the citizens of your state. By the way, all the beaches were open. They werent all open. I dont want to spend a lot of time on this ridiculousness. I want to talk about your image, not beaches. Why dont you care how youre perceived . I do care how im perceived, but i wont sacrifice my family for public perception. Are they mutually exclusive . Sometimes. Sometimes they are. It depends. Sometimes they are. In this instance they were. I had to make a choice. I had to make a choice. I had to make a choice between political optics and my family. When i have to make a choice between the two, i have never made anything clearer to the people of new jersey, i am picking my family. When i have to make a choice. Thats only happened two or three times in eight years. When it happens, you have to make the choice. I am making my choice. My wife and my children are the permanent part of my life. I know that to be true. But wasnt there a way to protect yourself from this image thats now been projected no. The only way to protect myself would have been to tell my family that because every beach in new jersey was opened except for the one where the governors residence happens to be that none of you can be there until the legislature decides to send me a budget, even though i was willing to sign it if they had sent it to me on time. Given that we had, as i said before, people traveling from around the country and from london to come and visit with my children should you have stayed inside . I dont think i dont know how that would have made a difference. There wouldnt have been a picture of you sitting on the beach. Thats fine. I told everybody from monday forward i was going to be at the beach. I told everyone that. On disclosure youre clean, but its the image. If thats where our politics are now, i am not going to play that game. Just not. Now, if i had not told everybody if i tried to make people think i was at the governors residence in princeton or our private mohomen morris county, then the papers would say, now you have a problem. But through monday and the press briefings on wednesday, thursday and friday. I said ill be at the beach. My family invited a lot of people to come for the weekend. I dont think it was a matter of you being sneaky. Its about the image. It was about the media being sneaky. Flying the plane they were trying to play gotcha when there was no gotcha to be had. It wasnt like i didnt say i was going to be there. This is the biggest scandal i have ever seen. The politician who is caught. You know thats not what im talking about. I am talking about your own image. You know that i i never thought there was a political scandal. I am asking you. You are about to end the 16year chapter of your life in government, and your reputation is so different from the reality of who you are. First of all, i think my reputation is much broader than just what happened two weeks ago. Your Approval Rating george w. Bush about an Approval Rating at the end of his presidency and he would say publicly i am happy to let history judge me but he would say privately it pained me to have no one enjoys that. Does it pain you . It really doesnt. I didnt believe my Approval Rating when it was at 75 . Which it was in new jersey. 78 at some point. And i dont believe it when they say its 15 . I dont believe either one of them. What happens in all this, i think, is if you judge yourself by that, you never belonged in the job in the first place. You judge yourself by the way you make decisions, what you accomplish and how you conduct yourself, whether its honestly or not. I am happy to be judged in that way over the course of time. Our former boss, emphasized that to me too when i became an officeholder. He didnt mean any of it. He would have loved to have been in the 80s. When i was in 78 its a wonderful thing. You know what, its like i tell my children, nicolle, all of this is temporary. All of its temporary. Well take a temporary break. Much, much more with the governor who is sticking around to join our panel. Ill ask him about a new book out today on the inner workings of the Trump Campaign and account of what went down on election night. From the first moment you met it was love at first touch and all you wanted to do was surround them in comfort and protection thats why only pampers swaddlers is the 1 choice of hospitals to wrap your baby in blanketlike softness and premium protection mom oh hi baby so all they feel is love wishing you love, sleep and play. Pampers istart at the new carfax. Comar. Show me minivans with no reported accidents. Boom. Love it. [struggles] show me the carfax. Start your used car search at the allnew carfax. Com. Only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol® their leadership is instinctive. Theyre experts in things you havent heard of researchers of technologies that one day, you will. Some call them the best of the best. Some call them veterans. We call them our team. Were back. Joining me and the governor, Brett Stevens and harold ford jr. Buttoning up my jacket here. Still getting dressed. You reviewed this new book. I think we have a picture of the cover. A new book out about mostly the bannontrump relationship, the devil devils bargain by joshua green. Talk about your review. Its a positive review. I think its a tremendous book. It gives us an insight into how steve bannon created an alternative gop that was able to fill in for the Republican Party as the Republican Party failed to really deliver a Winning Coalition for donald trump going into the summer of 2016. The way they did that is what i call or what really steve bannon would call the honey boston colleger approach. The honey badger is the animal who doesnt give a darn or Something Like that. What they did was kind of a strategy of sort of deliberate shamelessness. People used to wonder how is trump winning despite what he said about megyn kelly, muslims, women, mexicans and so on. The lesson is he won because he said those things. One of the things thats getting a lot of attention, governor, is the story about you and the call from former president obama. Shocking. Tell us what happened on election night. First off, the book is wrong fundamentally in that there was no call from president obama that evening to me. I didnt speak to the president that night at all. Did you talk to senior staff . I got a call from a member of senior staff who, as the election started to turn, who i had been working with on the transition and he said if this goes again, important to point out that you were the transition director at the time, so you had contacts inside the government. We were meeting with the white house every three weeks or so. And they said im not saying that we think this is what is going to happen, but if your guy happens to win, how do i get president in touch with your guy because they literally had no contact at all prior to that. And i said just call my phone and ill give you his number. But i wasnt going to give him the number then until the president of the kruyund united wanted to make the call and i turned to the candidate and he said i think at the white house they think that you are winning because they are calling how to get in touch with you after that happens. And he was happy about that. Can i ask you, irrespective of the story, i was just listening to you during your previous interview, very loyal to president trump. Most of us sense that that loyalty hasnt been returned to you in any way. Do you feel that the president has ban loy has been loyal to you, and repaid the services that you rendered to him . The president doesnt owe me anything. Hes the president ed a oos my friend for 15 years. So what do you owe him . I only owe him the truth. Which is exactly what i was saying to the last two segments. I owe imtwe him the truth and w a friendship that well predates both our political careers. So i think i understand him a lot better than most people do. So i have a great relationship with the president. And i dont feel like he owes me a thing. Would the truth be that his presidency is failing . No. Why not . Listen, this presidency in the First Six Months is not failing if for no other reason than gorsuch oig is now Supreme Court justice. If you were advising him on health care, and you probably are, but if you were advising hill day him day to day, would you advise him to work with democrats to find an improvement in how the exchanges work and how we can provide more affordable . In no, id advise him to move on. Id advise him to move on to other priorities. In no, id ad on. Id advise him to move on to other priorities. In no, id ad on. Id advise him to move on to other priorities. N no, id advi on. Id advise him to move on to other priorities. No, id advis on. Id advise him to move on to other priorities. Like tax reform and infrastructure. Its no secret that ive said that to the president for months. I dont think there is a will in congress right now. I think she have known that there is no will in congress for them to work with each or or for them to republicans and democrats to work with each other. They all mouth it. They say say the night thing and they always throw joe manchin up there to say it because hes from west virginia. But what id say is lets move on to things that are also important to the country. Reforming our tax system to be able to draet jobs and to increase wages. And to work on infrastructure to rebuild the heart and soul of this country in a way that only the federal government can do in partnership with the states. That would be my advice. Health care seemed like they focused only to getting republicans. So the question, if youre encouraging him to do taxes or infrastructure, would you encourage him to do it in a bipartisan way or pursue it the same way they pursued health care . Sure, because i think both trax tax reform and infrastructure lend themselves to be less partisan than health care. I think you can find democrats who will agree with you on infrastructure. I think you can find democrats who will agree with you on aspects of tax reform. And one of the things that i thought was one of the real good parts of the president as private citizen trump was that he was able to talk with democrats and republicans equally and be able to bring people together. I think he needs to get back to that. But i think the issues have to be right and i think tax reform and infrastructure are things that he should move on to. If congress sgntd have the will to do this and she have known they dont have the will to muster 50 votes in the senate, so if they dont, then the president shouldnt bother with it. Move on. Well this remind me of monty python. This is like the black knights skit. The leg comes off, arm is hacked off and he keeps saying lets fight on. It matters what battle you choose to fight first in politics. George w. Bush going into his second term chose to fight for Social Security reform. And failed. Well sneak in a quick break and let the governor respond on the other side. En hundred miles, youll see what youre really made of. After five hours of spinning and one unfortunate ride on the gravitron, your grandkids spot a 6 foot banana that you need to win. In that moment, youll be happy you partnered with a humana care manager and got your health back on track. Because that banana isnt coming home with you until that bell sings. Great things are ahead of you when your health is ready for them. At humana, we can help you with a personalized plan for your health for years to come. We are back. And bret has a question for the governor. I want to go back to what you were talking about russia. Youre a prosecutor. So i walk through the red door. I think its a bore bor democratic elo, but instead its a chicken shack. Thats essentially what don jr. Thought he was doing. He thought some russian lawyer would hand him a dossier i dont know that thats what he thought. Im sure he would love to have any information on Hillary Clinton. From russia . Again, youre talking about a guy who is not that sophisticated. But the point is Paul Manafort is sophisticated. I didnt talk about manafort. If it turn out to be a chicken shack, it aint a crime. But if you plot as a prosecutor, those are the judgments you need to make. Not what you think what might have happen, but what did happen. But conspiracy are were not talking about conspiracy now, are we . Well, a hostile foreign power. No, to go this to a meeting, its not a conspiracy. Conspiracy to commit what crime . Collusion with a power power. Collusion in and of itself is not a crime. Receiving information from a Foreign Government that is of value could be a crime. Didnt moran say that were defer gre deviating down . I didnt know this was the moynihan show. But without a more compass youre asking me as a prosecutor, not as a moral compass. I was a prosecutor, not the pope. So but at lease its disgraceful be the son of the republican git, tgit candidate, the son hopes to obtain information from a hostile foreign power that gives you the wikileaks disclosure and i wouldnt have done the meeting. And i dont think it can be any clearer than that. You want to use a lot of other adjectives, that is up to you. But my view is i try to be dispassionate about this. You wouldnt call it i would call at the shouldnt have taken the meeting. That will have to be the last word. Thats what lawyers do. They tell what to do and whatnot to tdo. Were and i ovway over oir t. M tchmtp daily starts right n. That was a riveting interview with the governor and