has yet to put it on the schedule. >> mr. vice president have you got the votes on health care? are you going to get it passed? >> the republican effort to repeal and replace obamacare in jeopardy again. the white house ramping up pressure on house republicans to bring the new bill to a vote this week despite wavering confidence in its fate. >> do we have the votes for health care? i think we do. >> we're getting closer and closer every day. we're not there yet. >> latest whip count has 21 house republicans to vote against the bill, which means they can only afford to lose one more vote or it fails. a big gamble for president trump considering 18 other lawmakers remain undecided. some republicans warning the no count could be even higher. >> there are probably a few more no votes than 21 at the moment. i don't know what the exact number is. i've heard within two or three votes and as many as ten. i would expect closer to ten than two or three. >> the court issue how patients with pre-existing conditions would be covered under the new plan. president trump insisting the bill will protect them telling bloomberg news, i want it to be good for sick people. it's not in its final form right now. it will be every bit as good on pre-existing conditions as obamacare. but the bill actually allows states to apply for a waver allowing to raise premiums on pre-existing conditions, a change that attracted house freedom caucus members but alienated moderates. in a surprise defection, congressman long who supported the first bill with drawing his support complaining it strips away any guarantee that pre-existing conditions would be covered and affordable. president trump's lack of understanding about what's in the bill growing more apparent. the white house attempting to clarify the president's mixed messages. >> what the president is doing is ensuring going forward as we attempt to repeal and replace that coverage of pre-existing conditions is at the core of them. so that is something that he has ensured is in the current bill and will continue to push forward. >> house republican conference will meet at 9:00 this morning and join gop leadership at 10:00 for a fuse conference. we hope to get more information about the update on the health care plan. meantime we do expect to see again vice president, vice president pence back on the hill spending much of the day. he's going to sit down and have lunch with senate republicans and later this afternoon meet with additional lawmakers. alisyn, chris. >> suzanne, appreciate it. an interesting political question. why the president seems to be forcing this right now. is it a big gamble for him? let's bring in our panel, david gregory, national reporter for bloomberg jennifer jacobs. she interviewed the president. >> not seen here. >> they are friends. >> a.b. stoddard. jen is in the top right of your screen. all right. so let's talk about this, david gregory, the stakes, the urgency, trying to get this through. why the pressure? what is the gamble? >> the gamble is you're putting your self out there and you may fail. i cannot imagine why they would put themselves in such a precarious position and allow the prospect of failure to be real here. look, they may win in the end. the washington capitals were up 2-0, squandered their lead and won in overtime so everything is fine but they still made it perilously close. even if they clear this hurdle, especially this issue of pre-existing conditions is not going to survive. in other words, it's going to remain in the bill once the senate looks at it. lax message discipline, doesn't know what's in the bill, allowing himself to run the risk of failing again on a central promise. it's just not being done well even if they pull it off. >> a.b. you've been talking to people on the hill, crunching numbers, you felt there was some momentum. where are we this morning? >> there's definitely momentum. i agree that something could happen by the end of the week. congressman mark meadows out of the freedom caucus said last night, told me last night they were going to have a wednesday afternoon vote, push that off. they were very close. another member i spoke to late last night put the no vote to 25. so there's room with undecides to change that, actually get over the finish line. david is right. the whole process is really counter-productive. you need to do this quietly. i believe you need to start in the senate, come up with something that can ultimately pass the senate and make it to president trump's desk. this fighting in the house back and forth, and that billy long, congressman billy long of missouri, his statement in the opener, he's the canary in the coal mine, his backing off from the bill in march saying this threat to pre-existing conditions is not acceptable, president trump is wrong when he told jennifer that the bill is going to change, it's not. what they are whipping last night and today is a bill that threatens the coverage and more importantly the price of the cost of coverage of pre-existing conditions. so something probably has to change but it's really hard to see the internal dynamics of the republican conference that it c can. they can pull out a miracle but why they keep making this a three-ring circus i have no idea. >> canary in coal mine, you think he gets dizzy walking in a straight line? my day is complete. jen, the idea of political dynamic, a.b. laid it out pretty well there. there's another layer on top of it, which is, guys, just pass this. i know you may get killed at home. i know it's incomplete. i know the president doesn't seem to be selling it the way they should but the senate will fix it. that's okay. how big a risk is that? >> you're exactly right. it was hard to tell when trump was talking to me in the oval office whether he means these things are specifically in this bill or health care in general and pieces to come. he also made -- implied this particular bill allows health insurance to be sold across state lines, one of his favorite lines to sell. this bill, of course, does not have that provision. it's hard to tell if he was talking about how he could do this in the future. one thing was clear, has he a lot of passion about this particular thing. he really wants this to happen. he was trying to tell us he's not a heartless guy. he feels for people. he wants sick people to be taken care of. he doesn't want to leave people stranded. david, look, you can forgive the american people for being confused about this, because we're getting conflicting information about what is in this bill. the mcarthur amendment, which was the amendment that was going to help brink house freedom caucus, conservatives together says can seek waivers for that pre-existing condition component so up to the state. >> set up high-risk pools. >> that's complicated. that's where i think president trump is trying to thread this needle, if states out there a high-risk pool so people don't fall through the cracks. >> the chance costs don't go up in high-risk pools are the most. the most vulnerable people paying the most. have been used in certain parts of the country. maine has had a successful experiment with them. this is really this battle line between cost and coverage. i think as a policy and a political matter, coverage is what people understand. you're either going to get covered or you're not. if you have a pre-existing condition it's covered or it's not. one of the most attractive parts of obamacare from the beginning but demands a lot. all that coverage to get people covered and rein in cost requires a lot of participation and downward leverage on the part of the government. that's what more conservatives want to avoid, but you can't have both. that's where the debate is. that's where i come back to tactics here matter. you've got to have a singular discipline in how you're selling this to the public. it requires an all-out campaign. remember back in obamacare, people didn't understand what was in the bill. they are still not going to understand. an implementation of this if they repeal obamacare it's going to take years because the system is implementing what was passed in the obamacare system. that's taken five years to take root and feel the impact of it. >> a little bit, the perception, aca, obamacare has become a political football. a.b., you look at the poll numbers back in 2016 nothing changed with the actual plan except the politicization of it between november and now. the numbers are up. people are there. that can be that it's genuine enthusiasm or can be concern they are going to make it worse. when lou at the cbo score, there is a foundation for prepare days. 15 to 20% higher premiums would be right off the bat as you get market settling in exchange for some years from now being 10% lower. that is not the best vig for the risk people might be taking for the loss of coverage. >> first of all this new amendment they are hoping to vote on this week, people can use. not making an argument why they should vote against it and that has to happen. in terms of the threat throw coverage, prices, most particularly for those with conditions is really the crux here. republicans know they can't repeal obamacare. that ship has sailed. they wanted to so badly but they know now they can't. people are so anxious, chris, and i think that's why the approval rating for the law has gone up. as you said not so much they are bubbling up with enthusiasm over obamacare but they fear another upheaval in the system after seven years. the idea of it getting worse and more expensive with the threat to those essential benefits, slimmer coverage, that's the kind of thing that really frightens these people who have opioid addiction in their family or cancer or a condition like diabetes. so this is why the idea that this preexisting condition third rail here is being debated in the house when it's never going to make it through the senate to the president's desk. it's too unfair asking republicans to take this vote when it could go away. >> panel, stick around. we have many more questions for you. why is president trump seeming to cozy up to or at least speak in a complimentary way to some brutal world leaders. he's invited the president of the philippines to the white house. now he says he would be honored to meet kim jong-un. what is going on with this? we'll discuss all that next. z282uz zwtz y282uy ywty oh, it's actually...s your sfx: (short balloon squeal) it's ver... sfx: (balloon squeals) ok can we... sfx: (balloon squeals) i'm being so serious right now... i really want to know how your coffee is. it's... sfx: (balloon squeals) hahahaha, i had a 2nd balloon goodbye! oof, that milk in your coffee was messing with you, wasn't it? yeah. happens to more people than you think. try lactaid, it's real milk, without that annoying lactose. mmm. good right? yeah. lactaid. it's the milk that doesn't mess with you. we're on the move. hey rick, all good? oh yeah, we're good. we're good. terminix. defenders of home. there's nothing more than my vacation.me so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. they offer free cancellation if my plans change. visit booking.com. booking.yeah. now u.s. presidents are usually very shy about cottoning to despots or authoritarian leaders. we're seeing a shift with president trump. he has been engaging some brutal world leaders, some with atrocious human rights records. he even said it would be an honor to meet with north korea's kim jong-un as he's preparing to speak today with russian president vladimir putin. what is driving this strategy? cnn's joe johns joins us live at the white house. joe. >> reporter: good morning, chris. that call coming at a time when russian interference in the last election remains on the front burner. you're right, there's also are you need interest now about the administration's outreach to desp despots, strong men, dictators. the administration says it's reaching out to fight against common adversaries but many of the president's critics suggest it undermines the u.s. position on human rights. >> if it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, i would absolutely, i would be honored to do it under the right circumstances. >> reporter: president trump sending shock waves through the international community with the prospect of an american president meeting with north korea's brutal dictator kim jong-un after praising the nuclear armed despot a day earlier. >> at a very young age he was able to assume power. a lot of people i'm sure tried to take that power away. he was able to do it. so obviously he's a pretty smart cookie. >> reporter: the president also issuing impromptu invitation to rodrigo duterte who has overseen a deadly crackdown on drugs and openly bragged about killing people. the president's willingness to cozy up to rogue leaders with atrocious human rights records is sparking criticism from both sides of the aisle. >> what you do is you legitimize a person who is one of the really bad actors in the world. >> white house press secretary sean spicer left to clean up the mess defending trump's praise of kim jong-un. >> he's still a head of state. so it is sort of -- there's a diplomatic piece. >> reporter: the invitation to duterte who has since rebuffed trump who said he may be too busy to visit. >> it is an opportunity for us to work with countries in that region that can help play a role in diplomatically and economically isolating north korea. >> these aren't the only eyebrow raising comments from the president. in an interview with sirius xm president trump made this perplexing argument that the civil war fought over slavery could have been avoided. >> had andrew jackson been a little later you wouldn't have had the civil war. he was really angry that he saw that was happening with the civil war and said there's no reason for this. >> the problem, andrew jackson had been dead 16 years when the civil war started and was also a slave owner. president trump later acknowledging this fact on twitter while insisting president jackson, quote, saw it coming. trump also defending his unproven claim that president obama illegally wiretapped his phone, refusing to answer questions about his charge that obama is a bad or sick guy. >> you stand by that claim? >> i don't stand by anything. >> before bankruptly ending the interview with cbs. >> you don't have to ask me. >> why not? >> i have my own opinions, you can have your own opinions. >> i want to know your opinion. you're the president of the united states. >> that's enough. thank you. >> more on that call scheduled for this afternoon. mr. trump and mr. putin have spoken at least three times that we know of since mr. trump's election last november. this will be the first time since u.s. missile strike on syria, which mr. putin condemned. chris and alisyn. >> thank you very much, joe. you've given us a lot to talk about. let's bring back our panel, david gregory, a.b. stoddard. the president has given a flurry of interviews in the last few days. they are more than eyebrow raising, eye popping some of the things he said. jennifer, you were just in the oval office talking to him. when he said andrew jackson could have stopped civil war, invites duterte to the white house, kim jong-un, honored to sit down with him. hijacking the news cycle. what do you think, having just spoken to the president, is behind some of these things. >> almost every interview he does reveals a parade of head scratchers. a fascinating look into his mind. his critics say he's a function al illiterate when it comes to history. his fans say this is a guy who loves media exposure. it dpifs usa chance to hear what he's thinking. it makes us feel like we can relate to him like he's a man of the people. it does confound. one interview in bloomberg news in 30 minutes, talks about how he felt like he could honored to meet with a member of the hostile regime. maybe he would be willing to consider a gas tax increase. he talked about breaking up big banks. it was just this whole string of things. he managed to poke in the eye every constituency of the gop, military hawks. blue-collar, fiscal conservatives, everybody. so it is a puzzle, yet it does give us an idea into what he's thinking. someone mentioned to me would hillary clinton if she were in the oval office be giving so much media exposure and answering so many questions. one thing about the president, he was willing to answer any questions. he's spent hours and hours and hours in the last week answering reporter's questions. >> look, let's be honest here. hillary clinton would not be exposing like this. she was very hard to deal with within the media. she didn't like to do interviews the way trump does. when she did it was tough to get her to answer questions. i think clinton is one of the best question duckers i've ever interviewed. trump is a different animal. boy, david, does he go a million miles in the opposite direction. he just calls his competence into question. sometimes it doesn't even seem to serve any ostensible purpose. i always think, why? why would he talk about andrew jackson this way? why would he say things about kim jong-un. just listen to the andrew jackson thing and what the momentum seems to be behind this. >> had andrew jackson been a little later, we wouldn't have had the civil war. he was a very tough person but he had a big heart. and he was really angry that -- he saw what was happening with regard to the civil war and said there's no reason for this. people don't realize the civil war -- >> yeah. >> you think about it, why? people don't ask that question, why was there the civil war? why could that one not have been worked out? >> then when this gets called out he tweets this. >> he says president andrew jackson who died 16 years before the civil war started saw it coming and was angry, would never have let it happen. i think he was upset people were questioning his math. but really that wasn't his point. he said that had andrew jackson been later he would have stopped it. >> the question is not the math, david, but why? >> right. he's so enamored of the painting of andrew jackson in the oval office, he's now starting -- >> starting to talk to it and hear answers. >> right. this is a fascinating topic to wade into. unfortunately he just doesn't seem to know a great deal about it. the notion --ening it was onto something. andrew jackson was a fierce unionist. he would have worked just as hard as abraham lincoln did to keep the the union together. i don't know what he thinks, because he had a big heart and a tough guy he could have headed it off. i don't know where he's going with that. of course we've spent hundreds of years talking about why the civil war happened so people do ask why. this is an indication besides being off base historically, this is an indication of what reporters find so entertaining about trump. he will answer any question, go off in lots of directions. it's unsettling and can be dangerous when the president of the united states is doing it because it puts you off in directions policies changes that get people worried and i think are confused by it. i think in the case of north korea, i think there's something going on here, an impulsivity aspect to it. i think there's a strategy going on. i think the united states is trying to help build up kim jong-un, give him some standing in the world, and to try to diffuse this crisis. one end deploying a missile interception system in south korea, on the other end praising him for being a smart cookie. i think they are trying to diffuse this a little bit and be totally unpredictable. i think that's what's going on here. you can hear in his voice how measured he's being. i think there's some strategy at work. >> i agree with you, david. a.b., i think the strategy -- i would be honored -- is a signature saying of president trump's. it is disarming for the person on the receiving end of it as i can tell you because he has said that at the end of one of our interviews. it's a nice thing to say. he can turn on the dime and the next day say he can't stand kim jong-un. at this moment i think he thinks that's part of the courtship of getting kim jong-un to do what he wants. how do you see it? >> absolutely. he's definitely trying to charm him and give him some begrudging respect and standing, as you said. that was telegraphed last week when he was saying he was 27, a tough fight for power after his father died, the regime, not an easy thing to do, smart cookie and it would be an honor. there are a couple of things here. that is a strategy. that, i think, is happening because in the absence of any real signal from china that they are doing it to help. we've seen coal shipments stop from chinese. we're not seeing this great help from china that president trump was expecting from his tremendous relationship with president xi. as we await on china who is not interested in the collapse of the regime in north korea, i think he is trying this tactic of sort of flattering kim jong-un. when he got to the words, i would be honored, that becomes very problematic as we all know with japanese, south koreans, really, chinese, everybody. i think it's not something for anyone in the state department or pentagon would have advised. it's what he does when he gets too many interviews, talks too much, goes on too long, undisciplined, starts making up stuff about the civil war. it's a mistake. actually this is happening in the health care debate. he needs to stop talking about what's in or out of the bill because it actually gets in the way of getting to 216 votes in the house. >> look, sometimes these interviews wind up revealing something about the person, not just about the position, jen. that's the curiosity here about this andrew jackson thing. it's not about trump's bona fides as a historian. no one arguing he needs to understand the meticulous detail about the thing, it's just the general idea. nobody asks why about the civil war. when he's confronted with how silly a notion it is, he doubles down. we saw him do it with russia again. after all he's been through, not russia, could have been china. no one thinks that who is working for him in the ic right now. they had consensus. again he brings up the wiretapping saying he's been proven strongly. >> you're the president of the united states, you said he was sick and bad. >> you can take it any way you want. >> i'm asking you. you don't want it to be fake news. i want to hear from president trump. >> you don't have to ask me? >> why not. >> because i have my own opinions, you can have your opinions. >> i want to know your opinions. you're the president of the united states. >> that's enough. thank you. thank you very much. >> that's an awkward ending to an interview. what do you mean take it any way you want. you call the president a bad and sick man, brings it up very obvious. why? do you think it's a way to keep it off balance, keep driving the cycle, doesn't care if it's positive or negative? >> yeah, i think so. also one really quick point i want to make to you guys. you were exactly right, he said that thing about north korea and meeting with kim jong-un, he said that very strategically. one thing i should point out to you, before he said that, there was like a seven second long pause. he took his time, he looked down at his desk. then he said, if the conditions were right, i would be honored. he slowed down his speech pattern and enunciated each word. he was thinking about it very clearly and went on to say i know my political advisers would not want me to say this but i am saying this. he was saying it. he went on to say we're breaking news here. i know people think he sometimes just spews things and just says things without thinking. in that particular case, he knew exactly what he was saying. he said it very carefully. >> that is great context, jen. i'm so glad you're giving that to us. that is not speaking off the cuff. that is speaking deliberately. it's important to make that distinction when we hear it from the president. >> i think he's trying to blend a couple of things. when it comes to north korea, i do have the impression he's listening to some degree to those advisers who say, look, this is how we want to orchestrate this. you have to be careful in your use of language. that was an instance where i think he was listening. i think he went too far to say i would be honored, but there could be negotiation down the road, a lot would have to happen. you could see him singing off a song sheet. that level of discipline is what eludes him in so many other matters. he lacks intellectual curiosity and you see this. this whole business of the civil war, he's onto something about what a fierce unionist andrew jackson was. he doesn't read. he's now the president. there's so much literature written by other presidents and their contemporaries that could inform the kinds of decisions he's making, the conditions he's operating in. imagine if general eisenhower were to pull back and say oh, my gosh, i had no idea invading france was going to be so complicated and difficult. of course he didn't say that. he did know how disastrous and difficult it would be. we should and can expect that of our presidents. >> a.b., why are we bringing this up? the korean discussion is one matter. obviously you have to put different irons in the fire. nothing else has worked. if anything we've seen during the clinton era creative diplomacy did seem to slow things down, not going that direction, fine. that's not what i'm talking about. this penchant for doubling down on error and creating news cycles that are reality checks is something that this president has a particular inclination for. i don't get it. someone has to have told him, hey, down here it's a war of attrition. they are trying to kill you every day. your opponents, the media, based on what mistakes you make. stop feeding them easy things and yet he continues to do so. >> i just don't think he cares. look, i know his advisers tell him please don't talk again about the wiretapping in the certain language. please don't talk again about wiretap at trump tower. >> russia not being behind the hacking, could have been china. >> obviously if he was concerned about it, he would have stopped a long time ago. again, i heard that reporting on north korea. i heard him go into his with conditions. it's the words, i would be honored, that's trump. he threw that in there. last week maggie hagerman is the best source of anyone in the west wing, she told you guys he just threw out major, major conflict in an interview with reuters about north korea. i don't think his advisers wanted him to say double major. he just likes to talk this way. his supporters don't care if he's wrong about andrew jackson and that's what he cares about. >> panel, thank you very much for all the insight and reporting. great to talk to you. we have some other headlines to take auto look at. mayday, turning violent in several cities around the world. take a look at this horrifying image from paris. a police officer engulfed in flames after he was hit with molotov cocktail. unidentified hospital rushed to the hospital with as you can imagine severe burns. in the u.s. two dozen people arrested you in downtown portland, demonstrators setting fires on the streets, damaging cars and buildings. sale scene in seattle. one protester arrested after throwing a rock at a group of reporters. >> distressing mayday. campus classes resuming at university of texas at austin as investigators try to figure why a student wen onto a deadly stabbing spree with hunting knife. one person identified as harrison brown was killed, three others injured. police say the suspect didn't resist when officers arrested him at gunpoint. >> this heart pounding video out of maryland to show you. see the red car -- my gosh, obviously slammed into the gas pump and flipped over, upside down in the process. special valves turned the fuel off thank goodness preventing a fire. police trying to determine what happened to prompt that crash. the 64-year-old driver is in the hospital this hour with life threatening injuries. >> the concern there is going to be there seemed to be no attempt to slow down. was this something where the driver had some type of emergency, death wish. when those gas stations go up they burn for many hours. we'll find what happens on that, we'll let you know. so he could become next president of france emmanuel macron has quite an improbable love story to tell. it's captivating his country. i guarantee it's worth your hearing about. >> can't wait. >> next. >> you have never heard anything like this. >> i'm excited about this. 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macron could become france's next president if he wins sunday's election. the conservative candidate is proofing to be unconventional in many ways, including the way he found the love of his life. cnn's melissa bell live in paris with more on macron's love story. what is so unusual about this, melissa? >> reporter: alisyn, it is partly about the age difference, partly about the way the couple met. the advantages of the political system where you have the first round leaving just two you have a couple of weeks to have a long, hard look at the candidate. beyond the different programs being offered by the far right, the independent centrist macron, there is the question of his private life. if he wins and he is for now leading the polls, he will be bringing to the palace a very different sort of first lady. have a look. their relationship has caught the attention of the world. the favorite to become the next president of france and his wife, his former teacher. macron was 15 when he met her. she was a 40-year-old married teacher at his school in northern france. >> he was the friend of the teacher's, he had dinner with them. >> an old school friend said macron always did what was expected of him except when it came to bridget. he left but not before telling her that one day he would marry her. by the time he arrived in paris he certainly avoided girls of his own age. >> i think maybe too young to be interesting for him. he needs to learn something from his lover. >> so maybe slightly older women makes more sense. >> of course. especially if they are a teacher. >> fourteen years after his first meeting, they were married, but not before macron asked three children for permission. >> translator: it's a powerful act. not everyone would take that precaution to come and ask us for her hand in marriage. it wasn't quite like that. but he did wan to know if this was something we could accept. >> reporter: macron said becoming a family was an important step for him when he turned an improbable relationship to what he calls the commitment of a lifetime. he's 29 and she's 64 with seven grandchildren. >> we do not have a classic family, it's undeniable. but is there less love in this family? i do not think so. maybe there's even more than in conventional families. >> she's now at the center of the french campaign, visible but not volable for now. >> translator: i'll start speaking in two months and then i'll never be quiet again. >> reporter: so what kind of first lady would she be? >> she wouldn't be paid for it by taxpayers, but she certainly will have an existence. she will have her own take on things. she will always be by my side, of course. >> if you leave aside the manner of their meeting, the fact they met at school when he was 15 and the relationship was therefore impossible under french law and you just look at the age difference now, it is a quarter of a century. that is a big age difference. it is also the age difference that separates the american president from the american first lady. it's just, alisyn we're not used to seeing it this way around. >> that is a great story. so fascinating to watch and hear about their courtship, love story. you're right. you did not oversell this. >> i love, melissa, i love the idea of leave aside how they met. no. why would you leave aside how they met. the idea of a student saying i'm going to marry you someday and then it happens. >> right. but also she looks extremely cool, wears leather, so obviously she was a catch. >> but i told you, you never heard anything like that from people running for president. delivered. so president trump's approach to some of the world's most brutal dictators. what's doing on? what is driving his affinity for strong men and some gentle language about what is some really atrocious behavior. is this diplomacy at work? something else? we discuss. at'll inspire you. but i take it all with me, and give it all back. experience more as a member. the marriott 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(vo) try beneful originals with beef. with real beef as the number one ingredient. healthful. flavorful. beneful. heavy rain expected to fall in the flood ravaged central u.s. hard hit by deadly tornadoes over the weekend. cnn meteorologist chad myers, what do you see? >> chris, two to four inches of rain on top of places already flooded. there you go. here it comes. weather brought to you by purina, your pet, our passion. rain across the country relentless arkansas through missouri, indiana, illinois. it has just come down in buckets. six to eight inches on the ground already running off and more weather coming your way. now, to the northeast, we'll see rain in boston this morning. some clouds in new york. maybe a slowdown attila guard. other than that pretty good across the northeast. there is the next storm system there. it's going to run right across the same places that had all of the rain already. we're going to see two to four inches on top of those flooded rivers and streams and back up even if they were going down, they are coming back up again this week. alisyn, a dangerous situation out there flooding one of the biggest killers in the world. >> keeping an eye on it for us. thank you very much for that reminder. president trump is making overtures to world leaders like kim jong-un. why is he doing this? 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let's bring in cnn global affairs analyst and former deputy secretary of state and cnn military diplomatic analyst and spokesperson. the assumption is u.s. presidents are usually shy to cottoning to bad guys. but let's talk about it. tony blinkton, things haven't worked with russia. trump said that again and again during the campaign. let's try something else. a good relationship couldn't be a bad thing. worked with clinton with north kor korea, some strategic diplomatic talks. why not try it again? >> chris, we've got to embrace working with all sorts of people but we don't have to embrace them, especially when they are authoritarian. it's one thing to say we have to work with someone like the president of the philippines, it's another to invite him to the white house and give him that backdrop. it's one thing to say we may have to engage at some point with kim jong-un of north korea if he does the right thing. it's another thing to say you'd be honored to meet with someone who is running one of the most repressive systems the world has known. so that's the line that you have to walk. it seems to me president trump has crossed it. >> john, give respect to get respect, if that's the operative principle trump is following, what's wrong with it? >> people he's doing it with don't look at respect the same way he does. when you're elevating them to a level of legitimacy that they don't deserve, you are probably in the long run having a detrimental affect on our foreign policy. what the president needs to understand, if he's all about america first, sometimes we protect our national interest best when we protect and defend human rights and democracy and the ability of others to live free elsewhere. that's a long-term view of global strategy but it's one i think he's missing. >> a lot of bad guys out there, fellas. you're going to wind up doing things with them if you want to get things done. senator markey, democrat, you have to give north korea a seat at the table, sit down with kim jong-un. isn't that the advice trump us following? >> again, i think the difference is when he creates perception that his support for some of these guys is unconditional, he's wrapping them in his embrace that erodes our own position, the moral clarity we try to bring, not always successfully, to our world. that's the danger. to work and engage with them, another to give them unconditional embrace, bring them to the white house, give them that backdrop, saying you're honored to meet someone who is clearly one of the worst leaders the world has known. >> let's play it out as a scenario. trump says putin is strong. you've got to say that, stronger than obama. see how he holds onto power in his own place. how does that hurt him? how does that hurt trump? when he said that, people jumped on it. you can't talk about putin like that, he's a strongman, does terrible things, can't give him advantage over president obama. how does that hurt him around the world. >> there's a difference between strength and brutality. president obama was a strong leader but he wasn't brutal on his own people in the system and putin is. so is duterte. this is a guy responsible for 7,000 deaths in the philippines in this rabid counter-drug operation he continues to conduct. there's a difference between strength and brutality. all presidents have had to talk to dictators and tyrants. fdr, stalin, khruschev to the white house. president obama opened up diplomatic relations with cuba, that meant talking to raul castro. we have to do these things. you control the timing. you control the circumstances. that's what makes for legitimate diplomatic relations with a strongman you don't necessarily want to deal w elevating that strong man to a position of legitimacy they don't deserve. right now duterte does not deserve a meeting in the "people" house, the white house. >> fair point. ironically duterte said he's too busy, doesn't think he'll be able to come, interesting insight into his head. tony blinken, this isn't the first time trump folk and his supporters will say you guys are getting on trump for very little reason. this is how we deal with people around the world. to be fair, i was down there in south africa covering nelson mandela's funeral and all eyes on how president obama would deal with raul castro. when he shook his hand we had to talk about it all day and days after, how could you shake raul castro's hand. this isn't something unique to trump. >> no but what we see here is a little bit of a pattern. the folks he seems to have given his unconditional support to, whether mr. erdogan in turkey after the referendum that consolidated all power in the presidency, el sisi in egypt being welcomed to the white house. again, leading a very authoritarian system now. whether it's most recently duterte or the language about kim jong-un, there's a pattern here are really giving unconditional support to strongmen. these are people who have another thing in common. virtually all of them have tried to keep down the press and the judiciary, the most important checks and balances on their own power. that's not something we want to be giving support to either. again, it comes back to this, chris. yes, we have to work with all sorts of people, including people we find distasteful but the way you do it matters. >> it took me a few rounds but i finally got it out of tony there, and now i'll bring it to you. is pushback on this a suspicion that donald trump has an affinity to strongmen, that he likes or admires some of these qualities of harshness like what tony was saying about the judiciary here, wanting to break down on free press. is your concern fueled by a suspicion maybe he's more like them than he wants to admit. >> i think so so. i'm not a psychiatrist, i wouldn't try to get inside the president's head. look what he said about andrew jackson. i think he does have, as a corporate ceo, as a guy who was responsible for his own decisions, able to make decisions quickly without having a lot of bureaucratic nonsense in the way, yes, i think he's naturally drawn to leaders he thinks can pull the strings faster and with a little less resistance than the president of the united states can. this is what he ran for. this the job he's got now. has he to learn to work within that system. he also has to remember, it's not just about protecting national security interest, it's about the example of our values. our foreign policy is strongest, best, most sustainable when our interests come inside with our values. that's the gap i think we're seeing here in the white house. >> john kirby, tony blinken, appreciate it. thank you, fellas. thanks to you, our international viewers for watching. "cnn newsroom" is next. for our u.s. viewers we have a cnn exclusive. an fbi employee goes rogue and marries the isis terrorist she was meant to investigate. how did that happen? "new day" gets after it. >> the trump administration, are they on the verge of another health care defeat. >> we're getting closer and closer every day but not there yet. >> people with pre-existing conditions. >> we have one plan going through. it's getting better and better and better. >> i can't imagine what the right conditions would be for a meeting between our president and kim jong-un. >> obviously he's a smart cookie. >> the president understands and will do whatever is necessary under the right circumstances from the threat they pose. >> the white house is rolling out the red carpet for all these human rights violators. >> announcer: this is "new day" with chris cuomo and alisyn camerota. >> good morning. white house turning up pressure on house republicans to vote this week on a health care bill. trying to get a vote wednesday and now thursday.