Wolf Blitzer looks at politics, Breaking News and international stories. I had an aide next to my ear nearly screaming within the last several minutes when the president was with the italian president in the oval office but its an example of just how hard they are trying to keep reporters from asking the president questions. Obviously they cant be do that in the News Conference coming p up. You may see the president with the investigation, the president may be tempted to call on somebody in the friendly conservative media to lob a softball at him. Weve seen him try to do that before, wolf. Its one of these q a questions. Two questions from american questions, two questions from italian journalists, is that right . Thats right. Obviously the president at some of these two plus twos, one thing that weve noticed is at the very end of it, this happened at checkers with
mueller and the Special Counsel calling him out by name. There are some glaring factual errors in his tweets. Lets go to a fact check. We are talk being about the three tweets in the last 24 hours. Heres the first. The Robert Mueller rigged wish hunt, thats a mouth full. Your english teacher wouldnt love it. Its not true. Heres muellers team that we know about. 13 have at one point in their lives been registered as democrats, four no party affiliation. Worth noting but this is also worth noting, you recognize that guy . Thats Robert Mueller, the Guy Running The Probe Appointed by george w. Bush to be the director of the fbi, appointed by Rob Rosenstein and a republican. This is the boss, this is 9 second in command when youre
again, theres nothing in here that speaks to a conflict of interest as we would define it. You have three tweets, a bunch of claims and you have seven, eight, nine things or willful effort by donald trump to cast whatever bob mueller finds as being easily dismissed by him and his supporters. Really escalating as personal attacks on Robert Mueller. The president s Tweet Attacks are certainly also being backed up by Rudy Giuliani, the president s personal lawyer. He tried to clear up the president s point on a number of investigation issues. Listen. Hes rearing to referring a dispute that wasnt settled. I know how convinced he is that he didnt do anything wrong and
wants to explain it. You can only investigate an origin original problem. Theyre saying donald trump is unethical, scum bag, we have 183 unique tape recordings, only one with the president of the United States. He turned out to have a close friend betray him like brutus put the last knife into caesar. When don jr. Made calls to a blocked number, was that the president . I dont know. I cant tell you. I wouldnt pardon me. If he did that to me. All right. Lets get some analysis from our legal analyst, Rachel Coates and laura bates and our chief political analyst gloria borger. All of a sudden Rudy Giuliani is
saying he doesnt know if collusion is a crime. Thats moving the goalposts a little bit. What hes saying is if it were Collusion Trump would have had to pay for the hacking for russias hacking the American Election and he said hacking is a crime and then he went on to say and disparage michael cohen. They are punching back. I know hes quoting shakespeare here and how it has dissolved. Its up to bob mueller to figure out whos telling the truth here and what occurred and what did not occur and what cohn knows and what he doesnt know. And laura you can talk about this. If he says collusion is not necessarily a crime, Rudy Giuliani. Alan desh wits hr show wits sayt a crime. Lets put it to bed. When its used here in terms of an Umbrella Showing there is two coordinated people showing there is a conspiracy, it could be a whole host of things. To have Rudy Giuliani focus on the underlying substance, if you tell everyone, no, no, no, he didnt do this, its not a crime if i did do it. Are you saying he did or did not do it . Remember, as the focus has been on mueller and rose jerosenstei
the legal team, the more important nurms are what is the actual grand jury information. They have to be questioned to figure out, well, is it a partisan affiliation . Its like murder on the orient express. Its becoming more and more laughable. If you substituted conspiracy for collusion. Defraud the United States government, period. Or conspiracy to encourage russia to illegally go a hhead try to steal information. Another c word, Campaign Finance issues, et cetera. Giving contributions to a government or campaign. All of the different c words may not sound like collusion, but they fall under an Umbrella Term which is the number one seed to
focus on. If you wont address that, all of a sudden the president in his tweets going personally after Robert Mueller. Its the Robert Mueller, why is he doing this . Hes been calling it a witch hunt for how many hundreds of times. Yes, youre right. This is definitely more personal meaning Robert Mueller specifically calling this a scam and investigation. Republicans on the hill are successfully arguing that some people at the fbi have had some sort of bias against the president. They have held up these Text Messages between peter strzok and another agent saying they dont want trump to be the next president. Theyre going to stop it. What hes trying to do is take that strategy and pull it towards mueller. There are no Text Messages like this with mueller. He was appointed by a republican. He has served republican president s. This is not going to stick. He is a republican. Exactly. Christopher wray was named by the president and is a republican as well. The president sads about Robert Mueller, we have a very nasty and contentious business relationship. Yesterday Rudy Giuliani was asked on new day what are you talking about . And giuliani refuses to say. Its hard to know what the president is talking about but there have been stories mueller left the president s golf club and wanted a refund on his dues and the stories are that it was resolved amicably and that there were letters exchanged and that it was you know, it was not it was not a terrible thing and that it was it was
resolved. I mean, it hardly seems to me to be a disqualifier. What the president is trying to do is to further get his base together about Anything Mueller might do. Dont forget the context here. The context is that trumps lawyers have proposed sort of some kind of hybrid way in which perhaps they could hear from the president preinauguration versus post inauguration, maybe they can work something out. Mueller has been like buddha. They have not heard a thing. He has been sitting there and they have not heard a thing back from him. Rudy giuliani told dana bash that its time for us to hear back from mueller so i think the president is probably a little agitated by mueller right now to the lawyers. So consider that context as you think about the President Tweeting against mueller now
because hes trying to kind of get this resolved and push him to some resolution. Knowing what i know about bob mueller, which is only from other people, i dont think hes a guy that can be pushed. Another reason this doesnt just happen in a vacuum is Paul Manafort is going to be on trial this week. Starting tomorrow. Right. Former head of his campaign. Right. Theyre going to be calling 35 witnesses to talk about what manafort had done in terms of working for the ukrainian official, taking money, not paying taxes on it. This is going to be bad headlines for trump. We could see another Campaign Manager testifying against the previous Campaign Manager. It will be a bad week for him and he knows it and is tweeting aggressively. Well stay all over and question this event with the visiting italian Prime Minister. Theres a lot more coming up. The republicans dont want it. The president threatening a Government Shutdown if he doesnt get one thing. Well discuss. Plus, The Koch Network. Theyre now saying the Trump Administration is too divisive and is willing to give money to the democrats. Ill speak with a representative of the koch agency. Theyre using air marshals to put it out. We have new information. You might take something for your heart. Or joints. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish,
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the president has money for the border wall with mexico. With just over just under 100 days before the mid term elections, theres fear at least among many republicans that all of this could end up helping the democrats. Is the funding of the border wall going to wait until the mid term elections . Probably. Thats something we do have a disagreement on. Youre not worried about a Government Shutdown . No, thats not going to happen. I dont like play iing politics. I dont think it would be helpful so lets try and avoid it. The president is facing a backlash from one of the Republican Party biggest supporters, the koch brothers. Theyre saying President Trumps
deivy divisiveness is cause being problems. Joining us is james davis, hes a koch network spokesman. James, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. So why is your network raising the alarm right now about the president . Well, weve always had the same vision, how do we remove barriers that are Holding People back from achieving their potential. So our engagement in the Public Policy and political process is just a small part of what this network does overall. It gets obviously a lot of attention. So as we look at the successes weve had in working with partisan coalitions throughout time, weve seen some great success. Tax reform. Weve seen justices. Weve seen va reform and i could go on and on, but weve also seen tremendous set back and those set backs are significant. A 1. 3 trillion spending bill. Then we see families being
separated at the border. These are just injustices that we have to continue to fight against and so we want to make it clear that Building Policy Coalitions as we have moved forward we think is the best way to bring cut through the divisiveness that weve seen across the country and to actually mobilize on some change and make progress on some of these issues. Weve talked about one of those areas this week. You had right to trial legislation which is for terminally ill patients, the ability to use experimental drugs. Congress completely agreed on this. The house and senate had legislation on it. The president mentioned it in the state of the union address. The American People overwhelmingly support it and yet congress was going nowhere so we said we have to step up our efforts and we launched a campaign ad lighting it. We mobilized grassroots and low and behold we saw tremendous
bipartisan support both in the house and senate and then the president signed it into legislation. Thats the kind of leadership that we need to bring forward to tackle these problems. Important issues, youre aware The Koch Network has been trying to persuade the president to shift his views on trade and tariffs. He has trade battles going on with china, europe, canada, mexico. Is that a threat to the overall u. S. Economy . Absolutely. Economys going really strong right now. The numbers just came out 4 point be point 1 . That is tremendous. Stronger than years and thats a testament to the work done on tax reform and removing the regulatory barriers. The tariffs threatens to undermine that progress significantly. This is a tax on the American People after all and, you know, even the policy thats put forward, its hurting the very people that it was meant to help, farmers now need a
bailout. Theres a 12 billion bailout being put forward. Its really not a bailout for farmers as much as its a bailout for the bad policy. At the end of the day we were talking about putting the policies in place for the bad actions on trade. Who holds our debt . China. You cant make this stuff up, wolf. The president s former chief political strategist, steve bannon, he replied yesterday telling politico that officials at The Koch Network, im quoting now, need to shut up and get with the program. How do you respond to steve bannon . Were not going to get into the divisive nature and continuing in that course. Were focused on uniting people to tackle challenges and help people succeed. Thats where our focus is going to be. Ill leave that to steve bannon. One final question on the Budget Deficit. Its exploding right now. Ill put some numbers up on the
screen 20678916 the Budget Deficit for that year, 587 billion. First year the Trump Administration went up to 660 billion. The Congressional Budget Office suggesting it could be a trillion dollars next year. Less revenue coming in because there have been tax cuts for the military and other issues as well. How does The Koch Network feel about a trillion dollar Budget Deficit coming up . We think thats awful. The problem is not a tax cut americans rightly deserve. That has stimulated the economy. The problem is the 1. 3 trillion package that republicans signed into place. That is a lack of leadership. Any democrats yet joining your network for support . Have you got any names youd like to mention . We have an open invitation. You know what, regardless of whether we agree on every issue or not, right . There are certainly issues where we can find common interests so we can unite to build strong bipartisan coalitions and drive these policy changes so that we can make some progress. The problem is its so deviivis and faction allized that even when you do find opportunities where theres agreement, its hard to work with one another because those relationships with been destroyed. What we see is we need to work towards a society of Mutual Benefit where people succeed by helping other people succeed creating winwin situations for the American People. Well see where this leads. James davis, thanks for joining us. Thank you. The tsa under fire right now after its been revealed theres been a secret Surveillance Program in place for years allowing the u. S. Marshals to track passengers, why theyre chosen and monitored. Plus, a grandfather loses his wife and grandkids as the
wildfires out in california close in. I talked to junior on the phone until he died. He just kept saying, grandpa, he said, come get me. Come and get me. The fire is coming in the back door. Come on, grandpa. Members stand and be recognized. Sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. No matter where or when you served, tmobile stands ready to serve you. Thats why were providing half off family lines to all military. Its willingham, edge of the box, willingham shoots. Goooooooaaaaaaaallllllll that. Was. Magic. Willingham tucks it in and puts the championship to bed. Sweet dreams, nighty night. As long as Soccer Players celebrate with a slide, you can count on geico saving folks money. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. Pressure, what pressure . The players on the. Im a small business, but i have. Big dreams. And big plans. So how do i make the efforts of 8 employees. Feel like 50 . How can i share new plans virtually . How can i download an efile . Virtual tours . Zipfile . Really big files . In seconds, not minutes. Just like that. Like everything. The answer is simple. Ill do what ive always done. Dream more, dream faster, and above all. Now, ill dream gig. Now more businesses, in more places, can afford to dream gig. Comcast, building americas largest gigspeed network. We want to welcome back our
viewers. Im wolf blitzer in washington. Were learning the details of a secret tsa program called quiet skies. Its aimed at gathering details on peoples behavior at the airport and on planes here in the United States in hopes of identifying possible threats. Now theyre tracking average americans not suspected of a crime not under investigation and not on the terrorist watch list. Our Government Regulation Correspondent has been working the story for us. What can you tell us . Speaking to the tsa its been revealed over the weekend that for the past eight years they have been tracking ordinary americans who have no obvious ties to terrorism and theyve been tracking them as they are on their flights. The tsa wont divulge too much about this program but they will say that there are certain things that theyre looking at. Theyre able to decide who theyre going to track based on their past travel patterns, have they ever traveled to a terrorism hot spot or any information that theyve
received from the Intel Community that says, hey, we need to look at this individual. Once theyve determined we want to track this passenger a federal air marshall is actually dispatched to that travellers flight, is placed in a seat strategically so that they can observe this persons behavior during the flight. We have some of the behaviors that they are specifically looking for, everything from being excessively aware of their surroundings to essentially fidgeting too much, even sleeping on the flight, however, tsa is pushing back saying were doing this for the safety of americans. Were not doing this to Surveil Americans but, you know, its something that the American Public did not know about until now. Its interesting and potentially worrisome development. Im sure its going to cause some serious concerns. Privacy concerns. Thats what i mean, rene. More news were following. Shes the oldest justice on the United StatesSupreme Court and the president is on the verge of
a second appointment with two years left. So how long will Ruth Bader Ginsburg serve . The New York Times publisher said his antimedia rhetoric is becoming increasingly dangerous and then the president ignored the warning. Well discuss. Gimme one minute. And ill tell you some important things to know about medicare. First, it doesnt pay for everything. Say this pizza is your part b medical expenses. This much about 80 medicare will pay for. Whats left is on you. Thats where an aarp Medicare SupplementInsurance Plan, insured by Unitedhealthcare Insurance Company comes in. This type of plan helps pay some of what medicare doesnt. These are the only plans to carry the aarp endorsement for meeting their high standards of quality and service. So call Unitedhealthcare Insurance Company today
and ask for your free Decision Guide. With this type of plan, youll have the freedom to choose any doctor who accepts medicare patients. And when you travel, your plan will go with you anywhere in the country. Whew Call Unitedhealthcare today and ask for your free Decision Guide. Supreme Court JusticeRuth Bader Ginsburg. The 85yearold court veteran says shes not ready to retire any time soon, at least not until she hits 90. Her comments come after the fight over Brett Kavanaugh for the high court. Democrats are demanding more information, specifically records from kavanaughs time. Steve cohn is joining us. Hes a democrat and a member of the house judiciary committee. Let me get your reaction to what Ruth Bader Ginsburg said. She survived two cancers, she can survive anything. We need her for at least 2 1 2 years. I think she makes it and she serves america admirably. Let me ask you about the president s attacks on the news media here in the United States calling the news media the enemy of the American People. As you know, the new publisher of tthe New York Times warned the president during a private Off The Record meeting that the
president s attacks could lead to violence against members of the news media. Do you believe that people could take the president aes vitreols a call to arms . I definitely think they could. They believe everything he puts out. Its like james jones and they drank the koolaid. Im afraid he could incite them to violence. A lot of them are on edge. The free press is important to america as a bullwart of democracy. It was an Off The Record meeting and then the president tweeted about the meeting and as a result the publisher and Editorial Page Editor decided to give their version as well. Lets get to another new development, congressman. The president launching the most personal attack yet on the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, talking about nonspecific Conflicts Of Interest calling it the Robert Mueller witch hunt now. What do you think of this latest
attack on the Special Counsel . When you cant defend yourself against the facts and the truth that the president knows will come out in the report, you attack the investigators. Thats whats happened. Its clear as you could have it. The president knows that mueller knows things about him and his campaign that were incriminating so hes attacking like roy cohn taught him, the investigators, thats unfortunate. Robert mueller is an american hero, donald trump is not. All of a sudden the president s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani telling cnn that he doesnt know if collusion with russians is even a crime. What do you think of this new line . Well, i think theyre getting closer to knowing that the truth is going to come out, that there was activities with Trump Campaign in russia and releasing the takes and guiding them to the states and localities where they came from. Some of that was jared kushners
activities. Some was donald jr. I think youre going to see inindictments of both of those people. Actual indictments from mueller specifically against who . Against donald jr. And against jared kushner. You think both of them are going to be indicted by mueller . I think thats entirely possible and i think the president is going to go totally off his rocker, not that hes on it now, and then issue pardons. What kind of charges could be leveled . Well, i i this they were probably the people that were in connection with the russians and in conspiracy to affect the elections. But do you have specific evidence that its a very serious charge. Its a serious charge, wolf. The tablets will show whether im correct or not. I believe i am correct. If you see it, if it walks like a duck, if it swims like a duck
and if it quacks like a duck, its a duck. You can see where its going. Let me get your reaction to the president s threat about the most recent tweet over the weekend to shut down the federal government, presumably before the mid term elections. He says it will be the democrats fault for not fully funding a border wall with mexico. What do you think of this threat . You know, i think if mexico doesnt pay for the wall, then maybe we shunned have a wall. The whole campaign, this is a Campaign Pledge was mexico will pay for the wall and the threat to close down the government is childish. Its mishagosh. So is there going to be a Government Shutdown do you think . No. The republicans wont allow it to happen because it will hurt them at the ballot box and its a political mistake. I voted to open the government twice because people dont want government shut zblouns congressman steve cohen, thanks for joining us. Wolf, i saw mission
impossible. They could have picked mission they picked the wolf man. Dont give it away. They picked you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I recommend people go see the new mission impossible. Very good film. All right, congressman. Thanks very much for that. A reminder, were just minutes away from the president taking questions from reporters. Take a look at that. Also, outrage after a Cruise Ship Worker shoots and kills a polar bear. Youre going to hear what happened. And hundreds of tourists and hikers trapped on top of volcanos after an earthquake. Well take you there. Behr premium plus, behr through it all with a toprated paint at a great price. Find it exclusively at the home depot. Were in a small room. What . welcome. [ gasps ] a bigger room . how many of you use Car Insurance . Oh. Well, what if i showed you this . [ laughing ] hohoho wow. Its a computer. We compare rates to help you get the price and coverage thats right for you. Thats amazing the only thing that would make this better is if my mom were here. What . an unexpected ending
hundreds of people are trapped on a volcano after a deadly earthquake a. Cruise line employees kills a polar bar sparking outrage. And one of south koreas biggest pop stars take on President Trump and kim jongun. We are following lots of stories from around the world. Cnn is tracking all of them for us from london. Update our viewers. Reporter starting in forway, the northernmost island between forway and the north pole, a polar bear was shot and killed by a polar bear guard from a cruise ship. Polar bears are listed as a vulnerable spears. There is estimated to be between 21,000 and 31,000 of them left still living in the world. There is outrage about this incident. These guards are hired to survey
the islands before visitors visit the islands. They missed one. So the polar bear was shot. The Statement Reads that there had to be an intervention for selfdefense. We are extremely sorry this incident happened. As you can imagine, there has been an outcry from people as well as conservationists about the incident. Next to another story about a popular tourist site, a mount in indonesia, where nearly 700 people are trapped. It is a popular hiking destination. This is following a 6. 4 magnitude earthquake that hit indonesia on sunday. 14 people have died. 162 are injured. Lastly. Would, moving to east asia, where a South Korean Pop Star has taken to the u. S. North Korea Summit In Singapore in his music video. Li sin kuhns video where are you from which has gone viral
with over 3 million views last time i checked sees the Pop Star Dancing and Drinking Champagne with rather dubious kim jongun and President Trump look alikes. It is worth a watch. Those are your International News stories for you wolf. Back to you. Thank you bianca notebook low in washington. Moments from now here in washington President Trump will be take questions from reporters amid his attacks on Robert Mueller and the news media and merely 14 days after his sum with russian president vladimir putin. Stand bichlt we are about to go to the east room for live coverage. When my hot water heater failed it rocked our world. We called usaa. And they greeted me as they always do. Sergeant baker, how are you . They took care of everything a to z. Having insurance is something everyone needs, but having usaa now thats a privilege. Sometimes a day at the ballpark is more than just a day at the ballpark. Stadium pa all military members stand and be recognized. Sometimes fans cheer for those who wear a different uniform. No matter where or when you served, tmobile stands ready to serve you. Thats why were providing half off family lines to all military. We let you keep an eye on your business from anywhere. The others . Nope get internet on our gigspeed network and add voice and tv for 34. 90 more per month. Call or go online today. Announcer this is cnn Breaking News. Hello, im Wolf Blitzerer in washington. I want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. This is cnns special live coverage. In only moments, the president of the United States will go before reporters alongside one of his new top allies in europe. The president will be joined by the new italian Prime Minister who is a fellow pop you list who has been cracking down on immigration in italy and showing support for some serious dialogue with russias president , vladimir putin. As President Trump continues to