Damage control. And its careful what you wish for. Thats right. Elaina, youve been all over this story. Youve had great reporting, including this issue of the raises. 28,000 and 58,000 for the top two aides, right . Here how pruitt, as he tried to explain this here is what he said. I did not know that they got the pay raises until yesterday. One of them got a pay raise of, lets see, 28,000. The other was 56,000. Do you know what the Median Income in this country is . 57,000 a year. So one of your aides got a pay raise that is they did not. They did not . I stopped it. Are you embarrassed that it should not have happened and the officials involved in that process should not have done what they did. Hes pleading ignorance there. Does that mesh with your reporting that he wasnt aware of these raises . Not at all. In my initial report, as i stated i was told by several top officials that he ordered the salary raises specifically, in part because he knew these people from back in oklahoma. They were close to him. I can also tell you, brianna, he was told this would not go over well if it got out. And he got wise counsel. Why he would agree to go on fox news, washington examiner, washington times. Sours believe its like no, i can handle this. Dont worry. I know kelly doesnt want me to do this but i know who im talking to and can do damage control on my own. Somebody reminded me this before coming on. Weve seen sort of a history of this in lots of administrations, in cases where people are kind of big deals back in their home state and they feel that theyre used to handling questions from the media. But its a different ball game when you come here. Its just different. The stakes are different. The questions are different and, as we saw, the followups are different from people who know what theyre doing. Those are pretty tough followups from edry there. Big deterrent to remove scott pruitt is that hes doing exactly what the president wants him to do. Theres also a question about well, if someone needed to replace him, could they be confirmed, even in this Current Senate with a narrow republican majority its uncertain. He succeeded in terms of rolling back regulation. A big friend of industry, which matters in this white house to an extent, greater than in a democratic white house. However, he has not cow dtailedo trump. In doing things like giving raises to top aides when the white house had told him not to. Going out and doing these media appearances when the white house evidently told him not to is acting in defiance of what a cabinet secretary ought to be doing. Speaking to somebody close to pruitt just now during the break we saw you talking. What dana said is exactly right. He is a big deal in his own world and is used to being the boss. When youre in a subordinate position, the way a cabinet secretary is to a president , thats not always such a great fit. We see pruitt going rogue and mounting his own defense in opposition of what the white house would like him to do. Are pruitts backers, dana, wrong when they think what hes doing at the epa is more important than the fact that hes bucking trumps promise to drain the swamp . No. Theyre not wrong in that the president , im told, and people at the white house are very happy about the focus that he has put on rolling back the obamaera regulations. Theres no question. That is a hugely important issue for the base. But the flip side, the second point you made, brianna, is if hes not there, who would be . Meaning who would they nominate . Its also a hugely important issue to the democratic base. If hes fired and somebody else is nominated, the democrats are going to go bananas in trying to make sure that a new epa administrator is not anywhere near scott pruitt. We need to pause for a moment. We have breaking news. The negatives keep mounting against scott pruitt. 15 states attorneys general in the city of chicago filed a lawsuit specifically charging epa administrator of violating the clean air act. I want to turn now to cnns tom foremen for mo foreman for more details on this. Tom . Pruitt, in an effort to please his boss, is essentially going with the politics but not doing his job. Among the basic claims here is that he withdrew policy that determines how major air polluting facilities are regulated. One of the real focuses here is on plants that put out methane that can essentially damage the ozone, the environment. He withdrew policy that would have done something about that. He announced plans to reveal obamas Clean Power Plan for regulating Greenhouse Gas emissions and beyond that, he has this big announcement of plans to roll back auto fuel efficiency standards. These states are saying look, that is the essence of what youre supposed to be doing and youre retreating from it, delaying it, reversing it. Thats their concern, brianna. Tom foreman, thank you so much. I want to go now to something we have just monitored of the president s comments in West Virginia, reviving his debunked claim that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election. It doesnt matter because in many places like california, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say thats a Conspiracy Theory. Not a Conspiracy Theory, folks. Millions and millions of people. And its very hard because the state guards their records. They dont want to you see it. All right. So, lets bring our panel back in to talk about this. Thats untrue. I mean, that is just patently false, disproven. Its something that was hatched by a conspiracy theorist and proven wrong. Dana, what is he doing . He is in West Virginia, a place where he won by more than 30 points. Its such a key president ial electoral state for him . No, its not. Its not. Thank you. But there is a very Important Senate race there. Joe manchin, whom he has really gone after on twitter and elsewhere, a democrat, who although he has a very long history as former governor and now senator in West Virginia, he is vulnerable. And so if donald trump goes to West Virginia and keeps the republican base, the trump voters excited about him and energized, then that is bad for joe manchin. Having said that, im gaming this out in a very political way. Im not entirely sure that the president did that. But it also, even separate from where he is and perhaps the message specific to West Virginia, this fits with what weve seen for over the past week plus. Very specifically targeting the base over and over and over again. Whats he doing, though, in the bigger picture, i wonder . There is this senate race in West Virginia, sure, josh. But he also revived his claim about rapists, that he was excoriated for. Certainly not by his base, his diehard supporters, in his announcement address speech. And he just revived that as well. This is just trump. Its what he does. He doesnt tie himself to standards of fact and objectivity. Simply decides to say these things, maybe saw them on fox news, watching alex jones. His habit is to repeat them, regardless of them being consistently disproven by the media. He is there to tout tax reform, right . Isnt that why hes in West Virginia . He is there to say, look, we delivered on something. You have more money in your paycheck. Thats because of us. And, you know, the larger thought among republicans is that if you can make an economic argument that that can be a winning argument. Why isnt he sticking to that and hes just getting distracted by so many things . I think we all know the answer to this question. He doesnt want to be told what message to be tethered to. Also, i think it speaks to the cynicism of this white house. If you think about what rallies in the last year trump has revived claims of millions of Illegal Immigrants casting votes in this election. Another state was alabama. I think, you know, he has in his head i dont know if hes being advised this way. We saw during the roy moore election, too, he would tout this line because he just imagines this is something that would energize his base, as dana said, and drive them out there even further. Its an interesting play in West Virginia because he doesnt need the base for whoever the gop nominee is to win that senate race. He needs to pull over some of the more conservative democras. S i dont see this as the best strategy for doing that. Lets listen to what he said about reviving his rape claim as well. This was moments ago in West Virginia. Remember my opening remarks at trump tower when i opened. Everybody said oh, he was so tough. I used the word rape. Yesterday it came out where this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They dont want to mention that. So we have to change our laws. And the democrats, what theyre doing is just its insanity. I dont nobody understands whats going on. We have to have strong borders. Were going to have the wall. We already started building it. 1. 6 billion and fixing miles and miles of wall thats already up, and fence. And were going to have our wall. Josh . What trump is doing here is conflating victims of rape with perpetrators of rape. What he said when he came down the elevator for his Campaign Speech was mexican immigrants are rapists. One of the reasons these refugees is traveling in a caravan is for safety, to protect themselves collectively against being attacked and raped by people as they move from honduras and Central America up to the u. S. Border. The idea that they, themselves, are this marauding band of rapists trying to climb the border fence, whatever it is that trump is trying to imply there is wrong in all sorts of ways. Final thoughts here . Look, its disturbing that the president thinks that he can be successful in saying things over and over again that are just not true. He called it a Conspiracy Theory. What you said is a more accurate way to phrase it, things that are just not true. Your description, josh, is important for us to keep doing over and over again. There are theres a faction of viewers and of voters who will believe things because he says them. It doesnt make them true. It makes it very difficult. Elaina, dana, josh, appreciate it. Great panel. Next the pentagon and Homeland Security officials unable to answer some key questions today about that Troop Deployment to the mexican border. Cnn is on the ground, speaking to migrants headed to the u. S. And the Vice President of the Border Patrol union will join me live to discuss why hes backing the president s decision. Plus russian billionaires stopped at the airport by Robert Muellers team of investigators. Well explain why the special counsel wants to talk to them. S. Jimmy shouting james hes survived record rain and a supplier that went belly up. So while hes proud to have helped put a roof over the heads of hundreds of families, hes most proud of the one hes kept over his own. Brand vo get the most out of your money, whether youre using quickbooks smart invoicing to get paid twice as fast or automatically tracking your mileage. Smarter Business Tools for the worlds hardest workers. Quickbooks. Backing you. Im allbusiness when i, travel. Even when i travel. For leisure. So i go national, where i can choose any available upgrade in the aisle without starting any conversations or paying any upcharges. What can i say . Control suits me. Go national. Go like a pro. 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So what we dont know is how many troops there are going to be, how long theyre going to be there, what theyll be doing or even if these troops are going to be armed. Even the department of Homeland Security cannot give us an answer on that. Armed or unarmed . We are working what i would like to hear from the governors is what it is that they want. That is not anything that we had proposed. We want to get to Border Security. I think what were seeing here is that well do everything we can until and when congress acts. How many will go . Do you have that number . We dont. Thats because we take each mission set, each location and work with the governor on how many people. Well let you know that as soon as we can. Do you know when here is what we do know. In 2017, we saw the fewest arrests of those attempting to cross illegally in years. There has, however, been a recent surge. Late last night the administration released these figures that you can see here, showing a dramatic spike in march. Cnns leyla santiago spoke to one of the man who was part of the caravan of Central American migrants going through the mexican border. Reporter hes from honduras. Im asking him why he left. [ speaking Foreign Language ]. He says theres a lot of economic problems in honduras. He doesnt have a job. Theres little opportunity there. He says that it is very much controlled by the violence and the gangs that are there. Im going to specifically ask him what the National Guard impact would be here. [ speaking Foreign Language ] reporter he says that he could keep going. Right. So he says even if hes arrested or detained by the National Guard or some sort of Law Enforcement on the border there, hes saying that he could either try to continue on, to be deported back to honduras and then he would try to make the same trip again. Again, this is about a better life. I want to bring in the Vice President of the national Border Patrol council. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. I want to start with this caravan approaching the u. S. This morning, the president tweeted the caravan is largely broken up thanks to the strong immigration laws of mexico and their willingness to use them so as not to cause a giant scene at our border. Because of the trump administrations actions, border crossings are still at an unacceptable 46year low. Stop drugs. The tweet is not accurate. The caravan is an annual event organized by activists and theyve always dispersed into these separate smaller groups as they approach the border. What mexican laws is the president talking about . What ive seen is im not familiar with mexican laws. Im obviously familiar with United States laws. Ive been doing this for 15 years, have been in Law Enforcement over 20 years. In the time that ive been here, ive never seen so much immediately put on on this cara. If its done before ive not been aware of it. You have not been aware of it. Hes touting in a way this 46year low. He says its still unacceptable but hes admitting there has been this dip in arrests of illegal border crossings and yet he is sending the National Guard. And hes painting this picture of there being a crisis. We just spoke to a general, retired general who said that this is not a crisis and its not a good use of the National Guards resources. What do you say to that . I dont know if this general has ever worked with the United StatesBorder Patrol or has ever done the job that the men and women of the Border Patrol do. What i can tell you is that were in an area where were losing a lot of agents. A lot of agents are leaving our agency. And the illegals that are still coming in are still coming n when i first started this job, i would apprehend a group of, say, 80, and all of them would be pretty much peaceful and you wouldnt see any attacks from this. What were seeing now is the attacks on Border Patrol agents are higher than theyve ever been. The groups may be smaller, but theyre a lot more aggressive. They attack our agents a lot more. That needs to be taken care of. What the military would provide us is they would provide us an extra set of eyes or ears. That way the agent has enough time to move forward and effect the arrest. Thats what were looking for. We need more time to be able to get to where these illegals are crossing. Its not just illegal aliens, obviously. Its drugs. Drugs are a huge epidemic. Here in the tucson sector, we still account for close to 50 of all the drug seizures in the entire country. Thats astronomical. When we can have the military down here to assist us in giving us more time to effect the arrest, that creates that dent that is needed against a criminal cartel. Thats what needs to be taken care of also. What are the things you need to know . Were short on specifics about what the plan is with the Nationa