this was part of a russian effort to impact the election. the president telling reuters, i think many people would have held that meeting. he goes on and on. but that point, i think many people would have held the meeting given the context that it was part of an russian effort to interfere in our election and help get president trump elected. even don jr. said he might have done things differently in retrospect. what do you make of that? right. it s the same thing. i think he might want to hear his son s initial comments and repeat those. there are not many people saying this was a good idea. and the real debate is how bad was it. are they saying i m sure you can find someone saying the meeting was okay. i haven t heard them. it s pretty unanimous or there s a pretty strong consensus that this was a bad idea. whether it was amateurish or something worse, that s the debate. but you don t hear many experts
but they re not getting it cleared. the scorecard is bare on legislation. this is not considered by any measure a success in terms of the legislative agenda. it s summer. it s only a matter of time until it becomes a central concern, and he s losing that time. mitch mcconnell extending the term, wiping out two weeks. the president did say the white house is functioning beautifully to reuters last night. pushing back against that notion. a hoax made up by the democrats. julian, thank you. on the subject of health care, with the senate expected to unveil its updated version of the health care bill today, it looks like it might not cut obamacare s taxes on the wealthy. critics blast it as a reverse robin hood, cutting health care coverage to help pay for tax cuts for the rich. keeping those taxes, those taxes on the wealthy, may help the senate get the votes it needs to pass. the two taxes disproportionately
conference alongside french president emmanuel macron. it will be the first chance for reporters to question the president publicly since the revolution donald trump jr. met with a russian lawyer hoping to get dirt on hillary clinton. in advance of the news conference, president trump tells reuters he was unaware of the meeting don jr. agreed to, only learning about it a couple of days ago. a republican source says the president has privately expressed dismay his son agreed to the meeting but believes don jr. did nothing illegal. a source also says the president is annoyed the story has become a distraction from the overseas trip last week to poland and germany. a trip the white house sees as a success. how will it impact the president s trip to france? melissa bell joining us from paris. good morning. let s start with the extraordinary meeting between president trump and president macron. how would you characterize the
it will be the first chance for reporters to question the president publicly since the revelation donald trump jr. met with a russian lawyer hoping to get dirt on hillary clinton. in advance of the conference, president trump tells reuters he was unaware of the meeting, only learning about it a couple of days ago. a public source says the president has privately dismidismiss privately discussed dismay with the meeting, but he s annoyed that it s become a distraction from the overseas trip last week to poland and germany, and now a trip that the white house sees as a success. how will it affect the president s trip now to france? we have more from our paris bureau. good morning. reporter: good morning. no doubt this is what is likely to overshadow what was already going to be a very closely watched visit by the american president from the european
or policymakers or elected officials saying of course he took the meeting. not the director, the appointee to run the fbi. christopher ray said this is the kind of thing the fbi would want to know. perhaps the president should have written that down, as well. julian, thank you very much. see you in about 20 minutes. 41 minutes past the hour. fed chief janet yellen s capitol hill testimony is sending stocks to new record highs. here s how she says the fed is handling a recent slowdown in inflation indicated in its june statement that it intends to carefully monitor actual and expected progress toward our symmetric inflation goal. translation for you that could mean the fed will be more cautious with future rate hikes. rallying government bonds and stocks with the dow hitting an all-time high. yellen also noted the economy s solid growth. in a rare exchange for the fed chief very rare she had