your mind, what is it? i think that s exactly the problem. there s no question that this is a serious crises, a real challenge for our country and for much of the world and it requires a diplomatic solution. from the very beginning the president has t this like a cliffhanger on a television show. first he said, breakthrough, the north koreans have agreed to meet with him. kim jong-un s father and grandfather all sought a meeting with the united states because it raise this brutal dictatorship on the world stage. so that wasn t a breakthrough and usually that would happen with concessions o se expectation of some agreement. the president has finally acknowledged this is a get to know you meeting with one of the most brutal dictators on the planet. it sounds like you re saying he shouldn t have that meeting. ist what you re saying? no, i mean, look, this requires a diplomatic solution. i am hopeful that something surprising will come out of it but we have to approach it with
jong-un. is this administration lowering expectations? sfwlfrj also,ighting back. u.s. allies slamming the president s tariffs. canadian prime minister justin trudeau says they re plain insulting. also, former president bill clinton weighing in on his affair and sexual misconduct allegationsinst president trump. does he think the current president is getting a pass? you will hear his answer straight ahead. vo: they re getting more out of life by starting with miracle-gro potting mix and plant food. together, guaranteed to produce three times the harvest. more to enjoy. to share. three times the harvest. one powerful guarantee. miracle-gro. gary: i ve been making blades here at gillette for 20 years. i bet i m the first blade maker you ve ever met. there s a lot of innovation that goes into making our thinnest longest lasting blades on the market. precision machinery and high quality materials from around the world. nobody else even comes close.
meet and bond that s much different than the way the state department dibed the goals of it just last week. they were saying that in order for a summit to be successful, the north koreans were going to have to do something that they ve never done before, that this needed to be actions, not just words, some kind of big gesture or historic action on the part of the north koreans. between now and the time of the summit, they needed to spell out exactly what they were willing to do. then 48 hours later actually less than that, the president announced that the summit was going to take place. there was no word of north korea committing to do anything or no word of historic action. nobody would even answer the question what happened to that requireme requirement. there was talk about it being, well, just the beginning of a very long process. so according to our source with familiarity with the discussions, the thinking is now that it was basically only
basically the greater includes the lesser. poppy, there s a basic flaw there which is even if the president s right that he has these extraordinary powers and i think paul is quite persuasive that in many cases he s not, he hasn t exercised them. until and unless heoes, why they can threaten the special counsel and to bully him into not sitting down with the president i think iseally the big perspective here. it s one thing and notably different for them to sort of bully the special counsel in the court of public opinion on cable news for the surrogates to do that. it s another thing for the lawyers to do it in that letter directly to mueller. guys, talking about mueller, the president just wrote this, quote, the appointnt of the special counsel is totally unconstitutional despite that we play the game because i, unlike wrong.mocrats, have done nothing ul callan, is the appntment of the special counsel unconstitutional? no. it s totally constitutional and
reporting. there s a lot to get to this morning. we have the professor of the university of texas school of law and cnn analyst paul callan. nice to have you here and we have a loto talk about. paul, the presidentims he hahe absolute right to pardon himself. does he? i m not buying that. under article one, section three of the u.s. constitution, the way the founding fathers set it up, first they talked about impeachment but they clearly then follow with the concept that a president can be prosecuted under the constitution. of course there s no mention ann the kongs tuconstitution that the president has the right to pardon himself. i don t think that s a legitimate claim. steve, what do you think? i think paul is probably right. practically though, whether the president can pardon himself or matter because if we ever got that far the one thing rudy giuliani said yesterday that i completely agree with is that would be the moment at which he would really have to look at