here. you and peter baker interviewed the president tonight. he's talking about his long time friend roger stone. give us a headline there. >> sure, the president was number one very praising of roger stone, whom as you know he's known for several decades. he was emphatic he did not speak with roger stone about wikileaks. he was emphatic he did not direct anyone on the campaign to speak to roger stone about what wikileaks might have. and this is important because there's that vague line in the indictment against roger stone that says he was directed some time after july 22, 2016, that a senior campaign official was directed to get in touch with stone. we don't know who the senior official was and we don't know who directed that person, but the president definitively said it was not him tonight. seemed defiant about, you know, negotiations with congress, that his lawyers have been told by rod rosenstein he himself is not a target of investigations into him. although he seemed to suggest that only applied to the mueller probe, not the southern district of new york probe into michael cohen and into aspects of the trump organization. and, you know, he was adamant that he is essentially done with congress. he considers negotiations with them right now. >> you talked about his demeanor. i don't want to just focus on the demeanor. i'm wondering what it tells us overall. you said you described him as having his arms tightly folded when him about the russia investigation. but he sounded opmitsic to you, right? >> i think his body language got a bit more defensive when we were asking him about the russia investigations. at other times he was relaxed. he was i wouldn't say subdued put it was of the oval office interviews i have done with him over the last two years it was the most conventional, frankly, of the interviews. he was, you know, sort of carrying on a range of topics that he was not -- there were no sort of peaks and valleys at various points in the interview and he said a bunch of new things on a variety of topics. but he was overall pretty calm in his demeanor. >> so let's talk about the negotiations going on on capitol hill when tit comes to the bordr situation. this is quote from the piece. it says i think nancy pelosi is hurting our very badly by doing what he's doing. while he would not directly say he has plans to declare a national emergency for building a wall, he added i set the table, i set the stage for doing what i'm going to do. are you sensing he is about ready to pull the trigger on declaring a national emergency? >> that was certainly the impression he left. he would not go so far as to say he would. and we did ask him. he essentially said he's running out the clock until the 15th date, and then he's going to do what he's going to do. we certainly know declaring a national emergency is what he's been looking toward. >> so in his mind the only negotiation as far as he's concerned is the wall. there's nothing outside of giving him what he wants to get on the wall. anything outside of that is not going to happen? >> i think it's right. it's funny. it reminds me a little bit of the first year when he had the -- the sales negotiations for a health care bill that remember they pulled the bill from the floor right before the vote. and we were told that's dead, and he said to us i want to move on, i'm done with this. and almost immediately they started getting to work on another version of that bill. it's a little similar. he had a view in his mind of where this should be. i think he tried it other people's way, it didn't work well and i think he wants it go back to what he wants. >> he said that he thinks his intel chiefs were -- what they said was mischaracterized or they were misquoted. you spoke to him about summoning the intel chiefs to the oval office today after they publicly contradicted him. what is he saying now on that? >> he's essentially saying the media got it wrong, they told him this was mischaracterized and misrepresented by the media. and he agrees with them after looking at it. >> so then how is that mischaracterized? >> i don't know. i mean, i think it's easier for i think the intel chiefs decided to fault the press instead of have a lengthy argument with the president about whether they were contradicting him. >> and if we can talk a bit more about roger stone. he thinks roger stone is doing the right thing, had polite things to say about him but did not necessarily broach the subject of a pardon. >> he didn't and we didn't, and candidly, don, the president has already said he's not going to rule it out. so there's a certain point he tends to say that comment about this kind of thing over and over. he tends to not rule anything in or out as you know unless it's an extreme came. i think certainly it could happen for some time. >> maggie, am i missing anything in your interview? >> i don't think so. >> okay. maggie haberman, fantastic reporting as usual. we appreciate your time. >> thank you, don. >> thank you. so we're going to continue to talk about this. again, bombshell of an interview in "the new york times," the president broaching a lot of subjects today. and we have a lot to talk about on "cnn tonight" right now. there's also our exclusive on the russia investigation, one of the biggest mysteries surrounding that trump tower meeting in 2016. who was on the other end of those calls donald trump, jr. made to a blocked number just days before the meeting? well, cnn has learned that senate investigators have new information showing that the calls were between trump junior and two of his business associates, not as many democrats suspected between trump junior and his father, which is good news for the president's son. but there's a lot we still don't know here, including exactly who those business associates were, and what was discussed on those calls. we've got a lot more to come on that story as well. but we've got to talk about the president today, okay? he's trying to convince you to ignore what you heard with your own ears. he's done that before. but this must be the most stunning example of them all, the most stunning one yet. the president tweeting tonight, just concluded a great meeting with my intel team in the oval office who told me that what they said on tuesday at the senate hearing was mischaracterized by the media. mischaracterized by the media. so the president would like you to believe that what you heard with your own ears, as his own hand picked intel chiefs testified on tuesday on live tv was as his word, mischaracterized. which is impossible. after all, they said it. we all heard them say it, but the president wasn't done. i want you to listen to this exchange with cnn's pamela brown. >> mr. president, did you talk to your intelligence chiefs today about the displeasure you had -- >> i did. and they said they were totally misquoted and it was taken out of context. they said it was fake news. >> you can't misquote somebody when you play their own words. and i feel really confident that none of those experienced intelligence chiefs used the words misquoted or fake news. all of this coming hours after the president said he didn't have confidence in dan coats or gena haspel, and said he'd probably be proved right. >> do you still have confidence in gena haspel and dan coats? >> no, i disagree with certain things they said. i think time will prove me right, probably. >> well, the president says time will prove him right probably. and that's what this is all about, being right. this is president who can't stand being contradicted. sources telling cnn the president was seething and called out dni dan coats by name as he watched tv highlights of the senate testimony yesterday. testimony in which again and again those intel chiefs flat out contradicted what the president has said. so we are going to go to the videotape. here's what the president said about isis in december. >> we have won against isis. we've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. we've taken back the land, and now it's time for our troops to come back home. >> we have won against isis, we've beaten them and we've beaten them badly. we've taken back the land and it's now time for our troops to come home. here's what dni coats said. >> the group has returned to its guerilla warfare, isis is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in iraq and syria. >> here's what the president said this afternoon about north korea. >> when i came in or let's say at the end of the last administration, frankly, it looked like we were going to war with north korea. now there's no missile testing, there's no rocket testing, there's no nuclear testing. >> now there's no missile testing, there's no rocket testing, there's no nuclear testing. dan coats. >> we currently assessed that north korea will seek to retain its wmd capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival. our assessment is bolstered by our observations of some activity that is inconsistent with full denuclearization. >> here's what the president said this afternoon about iran. >> i think iran is a threat. i think it's a very big threat. and i think i did a great thing when i terminated the ridiculous iran nuclear deal. >> dan coats about iran. >> we do not believe iran is currently undertaking activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device. >> and of course there's the biggest contradiction of all. on russia's election interference. this is the president, what he said in helsinki standing side by side with vladimir putin. >> my people came to me, dan coats, came to me and some others. they said they think it's russia. i have president putin, he just said it's not russia. i will say this. i don't see any reason why it would be. >> okay, so he mentioned dan coats. this is what dan coats said this week. >> we assess that foreign actors will view the 2020 u.s. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests. we expect russia will continue to wage its information war against democracies and to use social media to attempt to divide our societies. >> a source telling cnn tonight that dni coats and gena haspel are safe in their jobs. and the president, he says, they were mischaracterized, misquoted. don't forget, this is president who said this. >> and just remember what you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening. >> so the question is who are you going to believe? seriously, who do you believe? do you believe the president, or do you believe your own ears? our cnn exclusive, new information showing donald trump, jr.'s phone calls ahead of the 2016 trump tower meeting were not with his father. that as the president sits down for an oval office interview with "the new york times." lots to talk about with shimon prokupecz, jack quin, michael d'antonio. we're going to dig into it next. audible members know listening has the power to change us, make us better people. with audible you get more. two audible originals: exclusive titles you can't find anywhere else. plus a credit good for any audiobook and exclusive fitness and wellness programs. all for just $14.95 a month, and always ad free. the most inspiring minds, the most compelling stories, the best place to listen. download audible and start your free trial today. one hougot it.p order? 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. hurry and get 20% off with coupon at office depot officemax it is a busy news night. we have some breaking news right now. president trump telling "the new york times" he had nothing to do with roger stone's involvement in wikileaks. i want to bring in now shimon prokupecz, jack quin, michael d'antonio. shimon, we're going to start with you. let's talk about this reporting from maggie haberman. he told her that he never spoke to roger stone about wikileaks. what's your take on this? >> so not only does he leave no wiggle room here, he said he didn't direct anyone to get in touch with roger stone about wikileaks. remember there's a part in the roger stone indictment that says that someone in the campaign directed a senior person, a senior campaign official to talk to roger stone about wikileaks. he's saying basically and he's really leaving himself no wiggle room here, that he wasn't that person. he wasn't the person that directed anyone to talk to roger stone about wikileaks. it'll be interesting down the line to see if that question ever came up with mueller and how he answered it when mueller asked. >> let's talk a bit more, jack. the president also reiterated to "the times" that rod rosenstein who previously oversaw the special counsel's investigation told the attorneys he's not a subject or a target. we've seen in previous reporting from "the washington post" while mueller doesn't consider trump a criminal target he describes trump as a target. >> a target of the investigation is someone the prosecutor in essence is determined to indict or very close to that determination. a subject is somebody who is intimately involved in the transactions at issue and who could become somebody who later on is identified as a target. so, i mean, it doesn't surprise me that it deputy attorney general would say at this or some earlier stage of the investigation, that the president is not a target of the investigation or even a subject. but, you know, we're sort of getting ahead of ourselves here. i mean, bob mueller has a lot of work to do. let's remember that the mandate here was not to gather evidence about donald trump. the mandate was to determine whether there was coordination between the trump campaign and russia in the 2016 election. now, we have had, you know, any number of indictments of people who were part of that campaign. like the campaign manager, the deputy campaign manager, the president's personal council, the national security advisor during the transition and later in the white house. and they -- they've all been indicted. what were they indicted for? they're indicted for lying. what kind of lies? lies about russia. so there's still a lot of smoke in the air. and mueller needs to just finish this investigation at his own pace and make a judgment about whether there was in fact coordination. >> and just wonder if it's different in the southern district of new york, if that's a different story there, shimon. >> it is a different story, and we have that in paper and documents that have been filed by the department of justice where they've implicated the president in the hush money payments. and michael cohen when he pleaded guilty to those charges, came out of his mouth as well that he was directed by the president, by the then candidate donald trump to make these payments. so sdny, in the southern district of new york, he has been implicated in a crime. it's very different in terms of the mueller stuff, because there's nothing to date, nothing in the public record that indicates that the president was involved in any illegal activity. >> michael, i want to bring you in now. it says at one point he stopped at the notion that he was making money from the presidency. i lost massive amounts of money doing this job, he said. this is not the money. this one of the great losers -- this is one of the great losers of all-time. you know, fortunately, i don't need money. this is one of the great losers of all-time. but they'll say that somebody at some country stayed at hotel, and i'll say yeah, but i lose. the numbers are incredible. that's how he's describing the presidency, that it's a loser for money? the presidency should not be about making money. >> no, it's really shocking, isn't it, that he's thinking about his bottom line when he's sitting in the oval office. and what i take away from that is the closer things get to the heart of his administration, actually the calmer the president becomes. and this is true of a lot of people who are disturbed. they actually love the chaos. the tighter things get, the more comfortable they are, the more relaxed they are. so this president, i think, is feeling the pressure but he likes it. and so he's also going back to the old days. he talked about this early on in his presidency, that he wasn't making enough money. >> but i don't -- i'm not surprised by reading that. should anybody be surprised because it's all about him and it's always about the money. and the people elected him maybe because of that or maybe they just didn't realize that. >> it makes you wonder when is it going to be about the country. >> exactly. it's from people who say they're patriots and this is about the country. it also sounds like he's fully aware what's going on financially at the trump organization. >> yeah, isn't that interesting? so we saw that display before he took office of all the papers. you know, these are file folders that were setout and a lot of folks speculated they contained blank paper, and it was supposed to describe how disengaged he would be from the affairs of the trump organization. he's not disengaged at all. i'm sure he's hearing from his sons and from his daughter. i'm sure the whole family knows what's going on in these enterprises. and i actually think the money is on his mind where these prosecutors are concerned. he does not want to see his legacy be the collapse of the trump organization. and that's at risk. >> the mysterious calls that donald trump, jr. had with that blocked number before and after the trump tower meeting with russians were not with his father, okay, and so tell us more. what is cnn learning here? >> what cnn is learning, don, is that these calls -- this was in 2016. there were several calls leading up to the meeting, and there was a call that was placed after the meeting, just a couple of hours after the meeting. one was on june 6th, three days before the meeting there were these two calls. both from blocked numbers and there was an additional call on june 9th also from a blocked number. and members of congress were asking questions about these calls. and don junior didn't recall who they were with, he didn't answer some of the questions. the whole point of this is that members of congress wanted to see if he was talking to his father, donald trump, about this meeting. and so they were a little suspicious. and finally they have the records, and now they see, well, hey, you know what, this wasn't with his father as we may have thought or suspected. and obviously the bigger point in all of this is they're trying to find out if donald trump had any advance notice of this meeting with the russians, which turned into all about, you know, dirt on hillary clinton. first it was going to be about adoption, then it was hillary clinton dirt. so it turned into a meeting that they should not have had. obviously we know all of the activity that went on after that meeting. so members of congress were trying to use this to perhaps see if he did in fact give his father advance notice. and it turns out at least from these calls, we can't tell. >> let's talk a bit more about that, jack. because this is good news for don junior, but it's one of many things in question -- for starters, again, the president's son still had a meeting with russians to get dirt on hillary clinton. there is that fact. >> yes. and look, just as proof that he had had a conversation with his father would not necessarily have implicated his father in getting dirt on hillary clinton on some kind of involvement on his part with the russians at that point in time. this conclusion that he was talking to someone else about business matters speaks only for that point. and i'm glad for don junior, you know, this piece of evidence has not gone badly for him. but it only proves that that blocked call episode did not involve the president. we have at the same time, you know, now the indictment of roger stone, those indicting papers indicated that a senior campaign official was directed by someone to get in touch with stone and help make a link between the campaign and stone, assange, wikileaks. that's the kind of linkage, that's the kind of coordination that speaks directly to the mandate that robert mueller's operating under. and i think that is vastly more important -- whichever way it comes out, it's vastly more important than this blocked call episode. >> thank you, gentlemen. i appreciate your time. more to talk about faced with the political reality of being stiff armed by his own party, the president says he could declare a national emergency to build his wall. but will he? i'm going to talk to the texas congressman who represents the largest stretch of our southern border with mexico. will hurd joins me next. go ahead, ask it a question. tecky, can you offer low costs and award-winning full service with a satisfaction guarantee, like schwab? sorry. tecky can't do that. schwabbb! calling schwab. we don't have a satisfaction guarantee, but we do have tecky! i'm tecky. i ca... are you getting low costs and award-winning full service? if not, talk to schwab. they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the amazing services of the post office only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again! unstopand it's strengthenedting place, the by xfi pods,gateway. which plug in to extend the wifi even farther, past anything that stands in its way. ...well almost anything. leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. president trump and house speaker nancy pelosi escalating their war of words over the border wall. pelosi insisting a deal to keep the government open beyond february 15th will not include any money for the wall. the president threatening to declare a national emergency and go around congress to secure the funding for a wall. oh, boy. well, let's bring in now congressman will hurd, a texas republican whose district, by the way, stretches 800 miles along the border with mexico. congressman, i'm so glad you're here. thank you very much. so i let out a sigh there and i think most of america as well. we can't stand anymore government shutdown. people want to get paid. let's talk about this interview and then go over the whole border situation. first of all, this is -- i want to get your reaction from the "the new york times" reporting tonight, and here's what trump says about this house speaker. i think nancy pelosi is hurting our country very badly by doing what she's doing. while he would not directly say at he plans to declare -- that he plans to declare a national emergency to build a wall, he added, i've set the table, i've set the stage for doing what i'm going to do. so the president says if nancy pelosi doesn't approve the wall the rest of it is just a waste of money and time. what do you say? >> well, i think a large homeland security package for a lot of border security is not a waste of time. we need technology, we need additional man power. in between the ports of entry, at the ports of entry. so all of those items would be great in getting us to the vision of having operational control of the border. that means we know everything that's going back and forth across our border. the problem is what does a wall mean? what does fencing mean, physical barriers mean? this is where this debate between the president and speaker is getting us. i'm glad there's 17 people in a room in a bipartisan way trying to negotiate a funding deal to fund the department of homeland security. and i hope that they move towards some kind of completion. the president outlined what he thought was a compromise, and today the democrats provided their response. and now it's up for this conference committee, this bipartisan, bicameral group to work together to try and find this deal. and ultimately -- >> do you expect him to declare a national emergency? >> i think he's planning to do that. and i think that's a bad idea, and i think many people have already articulated this is bad idea. he has the capability according to law to declare a national emergency. but the question is going to be in some of the secks they're talking about using in public law to have the department of defense build this wall. that will definitely be challenged in a court. and the ruling states that if the military has to build something to advance their mission, then they can do that. but when the mission is the thing that they're trying to build, that's going to be the issue around this court case. we shouldn't be taking money from the department of defense, because the next question is what are we taking away from dod in order to do some of these physical barriers. >> a couple of kwelquestions he. in your negotiations at all does the idea of the reality that the president said mexico's going to pay for the wall, does that ever come up? and now taxpayers and department of defense, they're being asked to pay for the wall. does anyone ever go to that reality? >> i think it's been often talked about and quoted in the press when it comes to the individuals that are actually trying to solve this problem, avoid another government shutdown, ensure that we really have border security. that's not a topic of conversation that i've heard of or i've participated in. this should be how do we gain operation control? we should work within the confines of the security fence act that's already law. we have 654 miles right now of physical barrier. we should have technology, and we should have man power. >> quickly i just want to ask you about other things. does he understand the precedent that this will set? if another president came -- was elected into office and said i think health care for all, that is national emergency so i'm going to have a mandate and we're going to do health care for everyone regardless what people say? or any other particular issue that, you know, my taxes are a real crisis in this country, this is going to be an emergency, therefore i am going to declare that everyone does -- does he understand the precedent, and republican members of congress do they understand the precedent this might set? >> i can't speak to whether the president understands or not, but i know members of congress understand that. think about had president obama declared a national emergency because of climate change. this is something that military officials have said is threatening our national security, and they use that to close energy plants. people would have been outraged. so i think members here in both the house and senate recognize the dangerous precedent something like this would set, and many people are trying to articulate that to the president. >> i'm really out of time here, but did it resonate to any of you guys, the members of our intel community didn't mention the border wall as an existential threat in their testimony? >> that should be a highlight. you know, i'm a member of the intelligence community or was for almost a decade, trying to understand whether there was a nexus between international terrorist organizations coming through our southern border is something men and women for a very long time have been paying attention to. and the fact it didn't come out in those hearings should tell you it's easier to get a european passpert -- a fake your fn passport and travel through one of our airports than trying to sneak in from one of our borders. >> thank you, sir. i appreciate your time. >> always a pleasure. >> we'll be right back. attract new customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah! now business is rolling in. get started at fastsigns.com. yeah! now business is rolling in. they seem to be the very foundation of your typical bank. capital one is anything but typical. that's why we designed capital one cafes. you can get savings and checking accounts with no fees or minimums. and one of america's best savings rates. to top it off, you can open one from anywhere in 5 minutes. this isn't a typical bank. this is banking reimagined. what's in your wallet? 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[ cheering ] it's also the winner of... you're unbelievable. oh, that was a good time. ed gets copays as lowlily go to as zero dollars on medicare part d prescriptions. ed gets labels clear as day. and, lily.... lily gets anything she wants. ed knows he could just have us deliver his prescriptions. but what's the fun in that? switch to cvs pharmacy. and we're back. the president is calling the negotiations in congress over the border wall and government funding a waste of time in an interview with "the new york times" and dropping hints he may declare an emergency to get money for his border wall. chris liz is here, april ryan. just breathe answers, please, because i want to get into it. chris, i'm going to start with you. the president told "the times" tonight i'll continue to build a wall and we'll get the wall finished. now whether or not i declare a national emergency that you'll see. he calls talks with congress a waste of time. sure sounds like we're headed towards a government shutdown or national emergency. >> so february 15th, don, is when this current deal runs out. he has two options at the end of that, and i don't think there'll be a deal that he signs. he has two options, let the government shutdown again, two, declare a national emergency. i think given what happened to the republican brand we've just endured, there's no way in heck he's shutting down the government again, which means a national emergency. and that'll be litigated through the courts. >> how will his base react to that, you think? >> i think they'll react well because it'll be a prolonged legal fight, but in the sort of nearest term he can say i got it even though democrats wouldn't work with me. >> okay, so i wanted to talk about and we touched on this. i don't understand the framing of this. there's already fencing, 654 miles of fencing or barrier along the border now. much of it needs to be shored up. some of the needs to be shored up. there are already -- there's already legislation and efforts in place before the trump administration to shore that up and add new fencing. so why are we fighting over something that's already happening? is it a failure on us, the media, to not tell the american people that? is it a failure on the democrats who haven't framed it right? or is it on republicans who are going along with the president for something already in the works, the government is shutdown, we're fighting over something for naught? >> so there are a lot of things, don, in trying to quickly unpack it, you're right. president obama and prior pre-s have been working on fixing the wall and extending it just a bit. but this president went out and he said it from the oval office today when he had the bill signing on manufacturing. he said, you know, he campaigned on this. it's a partial campaign issue. so what the president was talking about, i want to build this wall and people were like, wait a minute, there's 2,000 miles of a stretch on the southern border. what are you talking about? in essence he wants to be the one to have the optics of i secured the border. >> there's already fencing along the border. >> there's already fencing along -- but he -- and this is the fight right now over censors and drones versus a wall. president trump says he's not going to do censors, he's not going to do drones. if it's not a wall, it's nothing at all. he's going to go to a national emergency february 15th. >> this is the president on january 11th. watch this. >> they can name it whatever they can -- peaches, i don't care what they name it, but we need money for that barrier. >> all right, chris, and then today he tweeted this. he said let's just call them walls from now on and stop playing political games. >> i mean, i feel like we have this conversation about once a week, don, which is read his twitter feed. his twitter feed is the purest form of trump, right? everything else can be filtered. he does often say contradictory things even in his twitter feed, but i think he speaks the truth more often via twitter than any other form of communication. he is stuck on calling it a wall. if it is not called a wall, if it's called normandy fencing, steel slats, i know he has proeped things like that in a past, he wants a wall because he wants to take it to the base and say i promised this, i said it was going to be big and beautiful and i got the money. that's it. >> okay. more to come. thank you both. >> thanks, don. the democratic field for next year emphasis election is getting bigger and my next guest is thinking of throwing his hat into the ring. one hougot it.p order? 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. hurry and get 20% off with coupon at office depot officemax democrats are lining up for the chance to take on president trump in 2020. six candidates have announced that they are officially running. three more have launched exploratory committees. look at that field already. it's early. my next guest is considering throwing his hat into the ring. joining me now john hicken looper, the former governor of colorado. everyone always asks -- good evening. asks this question last. are you going to run? i'm going to ask first. >> we haven't made up our mind yet, but certainly it's a great chance to talk about some of the great things we've done in colorado, how we've been able to bring people together and solve problems and -- >> you're leaning which way? >> i'm leaning toward running. i think there's a lot of traction we've gotten. >> so let's go over a couple things. thank you for being honest with me. the president says that democrats have really drifted left. is that a preview of his message in 2020? >> yeah, i think that's one of the many messages. this president deals in buckshot and scattershot. he'll have many, many messages but that will be one. he'll try to demonize everyone who's even had a -- taken a moment to run against him. >> so then what is your message then if you run? we know this president early on the wall was important, meaning immigration, repealing and replacing obamacare, that was important. so you. >> i think if you look at president trump he has divided the country worse than it's ever been divided in its history, or certainly for the last 100 years. my history as both a mayor, a governor, as a business person was to bring people together and find solutions to vexing problems. we brought environmentalists together with the oil and gas industry for methane regulations. the equivalent of take 320,000 cars off the road. we've got expanded medicaid. we've got almost 95% of the population of colorado now has health care coverage. those are difficult tough problems we've been able to get people together. >> do you think it's a winning strategy to run to the left because a lot of the people who won when you look at the new congress, the younger more diverse people coming to the office, they ran further left than many in recent years past. and they won. do you think that's a winning strategy, that democrats actually want someone who is pretty progressive and to the left? >> well, certainly democrats have strong values, and i've always loved that about the democratic party. most of the democrats i've talked to, they want to beat trump. and i think to beat trump, i think you're going to do better with someone like myself that has a record of accomplishing -- bringing people together and accomplishing, you know, challenging solutions. and whoever's going to take on trump has got to win in ohio and michigan and wisconsin and pennsylvania. those are places where accomplishments are going to matter. it's not just having a progressive vision and talking a good game. you're going to have to show you can get things accomplished. >> let's dig in more about that because my real question is how do you break through? because this a new "the washington post" abc poll. it shows this week at the majority of democratic voters don't have preference right now but among those who do the top choices are vice president joe biden and senator kamala harris. so then how do you break through with that, and how do you as you said beat the president? >> sure. well, certainly winning the primary is a place where i mean that's -- i've got lots of time on my hands. i finished being governor three weeks ago. so i will be in iowa and in south carolina and new hampshire, in nevada. all spring, all summer, all fall. and i'm going to make that record again and again, the examples of sitting down with 34 mayors in the denver metropolitan area, two thirds are republicans or conservative independents and we came together to build a transit system. no other metropolitan area has ever done that. and i think people are tired of the dysfunction and all the attacks, the anger in washington. and they're going to want to support somebody who can get things done and in that process be able to support someone who can beat trump at his own game. >> is that person you or someone like howard schultz who democrats are really upset with right now because he's thinking of running as an independent. they're afraid he's going to be a spoiler, he's going to help to re-elect trump. what do you think? >> that certainly worries many of us. if you look back through history democrats have won a couple of elections but for that third party candidate who came in and siphoned away a crucial number of votes from the democrats. that's the way it is. i suspect that howard schultz, if the polls show him that he is going to harm the chances of beating trump thael in the end not declare he's running. but you know, you can't predict what someone's going to do in this kind of situation. >> i've watched his interviews and i understand what he says, and, you know, if it was a completely utopian political landscape what he says makes sense. but on paper when you look at actually how you break down how people win elections in this country, it's just not winnable. i mean, it doesn't make sense. >> well, i look at it, again, as this is a point where the frustration that americans are feeling and being so divided, they're going to be looking for people who don't just talk about bringing them together but can demonstrate again and again and again that ability to, you know, find common ground. you know, there's no trick to persuading someone to shift their opinion a little. you've got to listen to them. i've never persuaded somebody yet to change their mind by telling them why they're wrong or why i'm right. and i think that kind of approach is what most americans are hungry for. >> and what i'm saying is listen, not that the american people wouldn't want to elect him, but when you think about the current way our system works, in order to qualify for certain elections and primaries you have to be a democrat or a republic republican. i mean it's just the way the system works it's almost an insurmountable feat for him to actually get the job done as an independent without a party behind him. quickly, please, sir. >> well, the system is clearly -- i think you can expand that and say the system is not designed so the americans feel heard. one of the things i've done in colorado and have tried to do throughout my life is go to where people are and listen as hard as i can so they do feel heard, they do feel validated and you often find you learn new things about them and yourself. >> governor, thank you for your time. >> you bet, thank you. >> we'll be right back. what am i paying you to manage my money? 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