senior political reporter and senior political analyst david gergen and david axelrod. good to have you on this evening. walk us through the changes that have been made to the health care bill. who are they aimed at winning over, and are more changes coming here? >> you know, if you listen to president trump, he says there are more changes coming. in some ways this is not something that paul ryan necessarily wants to hear, but it is music to people in the house freedom caucus who want to see more done in terms of medicaid sunsetting earlier. one of the changes that they have made is to allow these medicaid states to block grant the funding. that is something that is very important to the freedom caucus. as well there's a change that's being made in terms of how medicaid is funded in new york. upstate new yorkers very much want the state to foot the bill rather than the counties. so that is something that's aimed at getting some of those folks off the bench and to support this bill. you know, my thinking on thursday is it's hard to imagine that paul ryan is going to bring this to the flo

reporter nia-malika henderson. and -- and david axelrod. nia start with you. walk us through the changes made to the health care bill. who are they aimed at winning over and are more changes coming here? >> if you listen to president trump says more changes coming. in some ways not something that paul ryan necessarily wants to hear but music to people in the house freedom caucus who want to see more done in terms of medicaid, one of the changes is allow medicaid states to grant the funding. important to the freedom caucus as well. change being made in terms of how medicaid is funded in new york. upstate new yorkers want the state to foot the bill rather than the counties. that's aimed at getting those folks to support the bill. my thinking on thursday is it's hard to imagine paul ryan will bring this to the floor without knowing he's going to pass this thing. 48 hours to go. imagine will be arm twisting and horse trading in the meantime but i think it's hard to think that we get to thursday, the anniversary of obama's passing this thing back in 2010, symbolic date for obama, and going to

it. on the panel cnn political commentator david axelrod who was senior adviser to president obama and analyst david gergen who wan an individual, to presidents nixon, ford, reagan and clinton, so a lot of good advice given by both of these men. before we get to the substance of the fact that general michael flynn, former national security adviser asking for immunity i want to put this question to you. if you were sitting in the west wing in your old job and someone walked in and said, hey, this fired senior staffer just asked for immunity, david axelrod, what would be your response? >> i would say i miss my old life. you know, the -- i never had that experience you know, so i don't know how i would react, but david has had so many experiens in different administrations that he can speak to that, but, look, there's no way i saw jack kingston on the air last night trying to spin it as somehow a positive thing. there's nothing positive about this, okay? this is bad news. it marks a -- a step up in the seriousness of the investigation and you've got a guy who is super close to the pre

job in the west wing. very excited to have david axelrod joining us next. featuring ego's patented, 56 the #1 rated,volt,power+ mower. arc lithium battery technology, it delivers the cutting-torque of gas. the ego mower's durable construction makes mowing in difficult conditions easy. the self-propelled model makes it effortless. and it folds flat in seconds for easy storage. the ego power+ mower. exclusively at the home depot and ego authorized dealers. >>> only 71 days in, and the storm the churns on a few fronts. michael flynn has a story he wants to tell, but guess what? he wants immunity to tell it. two staffers inside the white house are the ones that provided that intelligence to devin nunes. joining us to talk about it, david axelrod, host of a very awesome podcast, the axe files which i listen to with my daughter every night during din in. >> i want her months. >> she's 11-months old. >> this is what the president tweeted this morning. michael flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt. this is a big deal, david, because this is someone so close to the pres

. david axelrod is with us. it looks, certainly looks at this point, david, and you tell me if it could be fixed, this entire house intelligence committee investigation beginning this past monday with an extraordinary testimony from the fbi director, the national security agency, it looks like the whole thing has now been compromised. >> well, there's no question. look, this is a mind boggling development. for the chairman of this committee to ankle on down to the white house before he even informs the members of the committee on the matters in which he's briefing the president is just unfathomable. and you have to wonder what kind of pressure devin nunes was under from the white house and other sources because of the fact that he had been proceeding on a bipartisan basis. he had stepped forward with adam schiff to say nothing we've seen supports the president's allegations. and now all of a sudden he takes a sharp turn. his interview with jake, he at one point said, well, this seems to lend some credence to what the president was saying. not really, not at all. and yet now he seems to

juxtaposed with conservatives saying, you see? this is what david axelrod brought and this is what jeff lord brought. >> you have chicken scratch, i assume that's not from the white house. >> not this time. >> look, i think it's going to be interesting tonight. you actually have, if he is this great deal maker, seems to me he's just erratic, but if this is what you say, he's got a very interesting audience tonight. he has two divided parties. on the one hand we talk a lot about the conservatives and the populist division of the republican party, he's also got a divided democratic party. you have a people who are a part of the resistance who say no, no, and never, never, there were big protests today in front of the white house, and they are going to be looking at those democrats saying, we don't want to see you crack a smile. we don't want to see a giggle. you better not do anything, because we don't want any motion towards trump, and you have others saying, listen, we've got to actually govern here, so he is -- how he chooses to navigate this is going to be very, very important. a

. joining us now is cnn's senior political analyst, david gergen and the multi-facet is, david axelrod. x files pod caster now host of the x files on tv premires saturday night at 9 which know. looking forward to that. david gergen, you said earlier tonight that, quote, the clouds are darkening over the white house tonight. any way you look at it, and congressman kingston was trying to spin this as -- or trying to say this was a good thing for the white house. any way you look at it, this doesn't seem to be good for them, no? >> anderson, first of all, we've never had a national security adviser embroiled in a legal dispute that potentially has criminal implications since john poindexter back in the reagan years overs the iranian arms deal. we've never had -- never, ever had a president in the first hundred days whose white house is so embroiled in controversies that are increasingly suspicious. so, yes, this is very bad news for the white house, darkening clouds. i'm not quite sure how they deal with it, but, you know, if the national security adviser is ready to sing in exchange for imm

analyst and investigative reporter carl bernstein and john king and david axelrod who hosts the pod cast the ax files. the words of the night are previously undisclosed, previously undisclosed meetings. the previously undisclosed meetings between jared kusnyer, michael flynn and russian ambassador, the previously undisclosed meetings with the attorney general. how big of a problem is that for the trump administration? >> the biggest question here is what was discussed? we don't know that. we need to be clear about that. the fact that we continue to drip, drip, drip, find out about the meetings at a time when this is in the news for a long time, when the new administration knows this is a huge issue and knows there is an fib brkfbi investigation and let's not forget 42 days into office, the president is trying to pass an agenda. he went on the road to sell it. that story is blown out of the water by this and so there is a lot of questions, a lot of questions, republicans are very happy the attorney general made the decision to recuse himself. they think that turns the volume down a bit an

passed them? let's get david axelrod. great to have you in studio with us. i predict you'll say transparency is the answer. but white houses don't always like transparency. >> right. but i think it is more than transparency. let's start with not looking guilty. don't do things that make it worse. and, you know, this last week's events with nunes and the whole escapade of his trip down -- turning him into a carrier piggen essentially only makes it worse and the president's tweet this morning only makes it worse. he's so reactive -- >> reporter: saying michael flynn should have been given immunity. why does that make it worse? >> him weighing in and being as reactive to these things, you know, if i were he, i would want to stay as far away from thises a possible. i know the strategy appears to be advance this whole investigation and leave the impression that it's a political exercise. but at some point, that's insufficient. and what you are doing is only intensifying coverage. every team he puts out a tweet, he intensifies coverage of this story. >> wbut to the extent they are tal

breaking news. david axelrod, you worked in the white house with president obama for four years, you were one of his top advisers. at what point does an adviser go to a president of the united states, speak truth to power and say, you know what, this has to stop? >> it has to happen. presidents have to have those people around them. but one of the things that strikes me about this administration, wolf, is donald trump is new to politics and he's new to the whole political world. a lot of the people who surround him are new to him. he wasn't close to reince priebus. steve bannon came on in the campaign in august. kellyanne conway was working for ted cruz a year ago. and the only person there who has a long-standing relationship with him is his son-in-law, jared kushner, and of course his family is whom he's been relying on over the years. so i had a several-decade relationship with barack obama, valerie jarrett did, rahm emanuel did. robert gibbs worked for him for years at the time that he became president, and there were people with whom he was close and in whom he had trust and cou

cia operative bob bear and david axelrod. david, the bottom line, u.s. intelligence believes he is one of putin's top spies and recruiters. he met with people in trump's inner circle, multiple meetings over months and months through december. is this troubling? >> well, look, even if you don't connect the two facts whatever role kislyak plays in terms of es plea onnage, we know there's an ongoing investigation about russian hacking into the election and potential links between the trump campaign and russia. in that environment, it's very, very curious and it raises suspicion when central figures in the trump world are secretive and unrevealing about their conversations with kislyak. we have seen it with flynn, apparently with jared kushner, who both of whom met with him in december. you would think with all that was swirling around general flynn tharks fact would have been divulged before now. of course, general sessions sitting before the senate got a chance to answer this question. he's well aware of the senate procedures. anytime after that, he could have corrected it and he, to

claim. i want bring in david axelrod, a former senior adviser of president obama and historian john meechum. good evening to you. david, i'm going to start with you. tonight, multiple top republicans said that they have seen no evidence that the former president obama wire staped president trump. listen to this. >> we don't have anything today that would send us in that direction but that's not to say we might not find something. >> i don't know what the basis of his statement is. so i really can't comment on this. >> have you seen any evidence of that? >> mr. leader -- >> no, i haven't. >> i have not. i have not seen that evidence. as you know, i think a lot of that was maybe a little bit -- the multiple tweets were perhaps a little bit strung together. >> so but the white house is not backing down from their claim that they want an investigation. an investigation based on what, though? >> yeah. well, look. i think both things can be true. i think they can have no regrets and can be no evidence and we have seen that before. your panel mentioned earlier the comments he made over twi

former senior advisor to president obama, david axelrod, tweeting this. this seems nuts. frantic way in which the real donald trump is kicking up dust only adds to suspicions and the need for full public reckoning. a historian and professor at princeton university. so this is pretty serious because you're talking about a sitting president making accusations about his predecessor without any kind of evidence. has there been any kind of reference to this kind of history that you can recall? >> no, not recently. it's hard to think of one sitting president making an accusation is either about the former president or someone who was in office many decades earlier without anything to substantiate claims for an allegation of this sort. from what we know, this is based on user reports and breitbart news, some radio show hosts and that's it. this is not something that's norm normal, this is not something we see all the time and this is part of an unprecedented and unusual presidency. >> now that our own jeff zeleny talked to an administration official with the trump campaign saying, and back

liar who uses untruth as a basic way of governance. >> david axelrod? >> well, i just wish carl would stop mincing words, i can't stand that. i think one thing we ought to ask is whatever investigation is going on, chances are donald trump has some sense of what it is and where it might lead. there is an element of strategy to this which is to try and sully the investigating agencies beforehand and to suggest there was some kind of political agenda, so if something does surface, you can say, ah-ha, you see, i've been telling you this all along. but there's tremendous collateral damage to such a strategy. not just in terms of our relationships with allies as has been pointed out. but yournl, he's completely degrading not only his own credibility, but his staff. sean spicer is someone i know and i like. has gone out and completely discredited himself and twisted himself into pretzels trying to justify the unjustifiable. the white house is like a fantasy island over there. everybody else in the world knows that what is being said isn't true. yet they keep digging and digging and digging.

. >>> plus, david axelrod is joining me live on the rough start for this presidency and why he's sitting down with former rival john mccain. >>> and hillary clinton speaking moments ago, just 48 hours after her most political speech since the election. we have her remarks and also, why did joe biden just take a swipe at her campaign? but grandma, we use charmin ultra soft so we don't have to wad to get clean. charmin ultra soft gets you clean without the wasteful wadding. it has comfort cushions you can see that are softer... ...and more absorbent, and you can use up to 4 times less. enjoy the go with charmin. our customer is a our 21-year-old female. heavily into basketball. wait. data just changed... now she's into disc sports. ah, no she's not. since when? since now. she's into tai chi. she found disc sports too stressful. hold on. let me ask you this... what's she gonna like six months from now? who do we have on aerial karate? steve. steve. steve. and alexis. uh, no. just steve. just steve. just steve. live business, powered by sap. when you run live, you run simple. ♪ ♪

bit presumptuous and limit their options later on. >> i want to get david axelrod into this. you worked at the white house and understand the procedures that go on in any white house. when the housing intelligence committee chairman devin nunes said to me earlier in the week he didn't meet with the president or with white house officials. his visit there was not coordinated with anyone in the west wing. now we know that two white house officials, at least two white house officials did coordinate that visit there, what -- what's your reaction when you hear that? >> well, first of all, when -- when sean spicer said in the -- in jessica's piece that it's not in our interest to talk about the process, truer words were never spoken because the process obviously implicates chairman nunes, but i wasn't terribly surprised by the revelation because once it was learned that he was on the white house grounds the day before he made his breathless announcement on the white house lawn it seemed prelt apparent that folks at the white house may have been his source. what is kind of stunning to m

from the obama administration, including david axelrod, who is running institute for politics at the university of chicago. they will be turning out a lot of legacy stuff on obama. not much being done on reagan like that. reagan, in two ways, was in -- one of the most certain presidents we have had in the history of the country. let me identify those two factors. first of all, he is one of five presidents who led the country through an existential crisis. you have washington, lincoln, wilson, roosevelt, all dealing with wars, and reagan dealing with, in effect, the preemption of a war, the preemption of the cold war. much more difficult to do, by the way, than to manage in some sense, and much more commendable than to manage a war after it breaks out. reagan preempted a war. and second, he is one of a presidents who was reelected twice and turned over the white house to his own party, which suggests not only that he was able to engineer outcomes, but he was able to bring the public along with him. he retired, of course come with a 68% approval rating. thoroughly three of those other

power. she can walk in and out of anyone's office. >> got to go. david axelrod said the most important thing she can do is say let me told your coell phon. >> no more tweeting. >> thank you. i appreciate it. see you here tomorrow. uh, sorry. it's unlimited without compromising reliability, on the largest, most advanced 4g lte network in america. (thud) uh... sorry, last thing. it's just $45 per line. forty. five. (cheering and applause) and that is all the microphones that i have. (vo) unlimited on verizon. 4 lines, just $45 per line. ♪ >>> happening now -- the white house looking to rangel the votes it needs to pass the republican health care bill but with just one day before the house vote account president seal the deal? >>> and the president's nominee for the supreme court says he is his own judge, he will not be forced into any ruling by this president normy other. what else did neil gorsuch say during 12 hours. >> 12 hours. >> i'm christine romans. >> and i'm dave briggs.

the great newspaper men of all time and a great compassionate man. david axelrod tweeting i grew up reading it. he captured new york city like nobody else. >>> sesame street is adding a new character to its main cast. a new muppet is autistic elmo. saying quote we really like julia. she is really special to us. oh, elmo. excuse me. elmo making the introduction. >> amazon and a team of stylists want to help the latest version of the e commerce app. users can upload photos wearing various outfits to the app and real stylists will base their choices based on fit. >> i don't want to send in a picture to a website of myself. >> you take selfies daily and you're on tv daily. >> because you don't want them to have that data. i guess they have every other data of my life. >> i can see certain individuals being against that. >> when we come back -- >> i almost just want to wear what i want to wear and be stuck with it. >> you're confident. we've got today's must read stories coming to you. but as we fwoe to break. >>> a look at equitiess at this hour. u.s. futures falling in their foot steps

throughout the next two hours. john king and pot cast host, david axelrod know what is this is like and chief political analyst and trump reporter and contributor jeffrey lord. obama communications director and senator and republican candidate rick santorum. anyone else? we have got dana bash and sarah murray. we have two hours. postponing the vote is not the same as losing. this is not where they wanted to be, but they could get there. author. >> this happened under democratic votes. take a deep breath. no question it's crunch time for the president and speaker paul ryan. if you pass this or you are stuck with obamacare, that's spin, but they need to spin it that bay. they said to the president you have to say we are done. thank you for your help and negotiating, but if the door is open to talk, we are never going to get this done. they had a problem with conservative members. you are a yes? we will give you this. they are moving the goal post. now we will see if they succeed. it is a defining test for the president for up to today for all the praise, the conservatives who donald trump

obama adviser, david axelrod. the president in the past has called the russia investigation a ruse. can he continue to claim that -- he can, but can he credibly claim that going forward knowing what weigh know about the fbi investigation? >> well, i think he will as long as he can. and i'm not sure that credibly is all that much important to him. but look, i think that what you see this inexorable march of information that begins to point in a direction. we know now, and it's been confirmed that the russians were behind the stealing of the e-mails from the dnc. john podesta and the leaking by wikileaks. those things have been confirmed. and now, if you add the component that there were people involved with the trump campaign or close to the trump campaign who are in communication with the russians, relative to this, i mean, that's a very explosive story. and if, if this is proven, and if the fbi and if the justice department comes to that conclusion, you know, this is a major, major, may jor scandal. and it will rock this government. >> carl bernstein, you agree with that, yes? and

the real story. >> i get to talk to david axelrod, host of "the axe files" which premiers here tomorrow night at 9:00. honor and privilege. >> that's some awkward tape right there. >> it's out of the archive. >> yes. >> what do you think? >> well, obviously that was then and this is now. >> sure. >> this is a serious turn in the road in this investigation. you know, i think that immunity doesn't speak to guilt. but they've colored it in their own words in a very dark way and it does raise questions about what exactly is the proffer that general flynn is going to make to the committee about what he has to offer in exchange for immunity. >> president trump tweeted about this today. >> i saw that. >> why would the president weigh in on something like this? >> this is such an interesting question. if fact, to answer it, i would have degrees that i don't have. i don't know why president trump does what he does. i assume he hopes that flynn will tell the whole story and secondarily he thinks that the whole thing is political and a witch hunt and all of that stuff which is a big part

all is former senior obama adviser, david axelrod, carl bernstein, and gloria borger is back as well. david, you've known president obama for more than two decades now. when you hear people saying that he was irked and exasperated, what does that actually look like? >> well, look, i've seen him irked and exasperated, sometimes at me, so i know what it looks like. but i think it's wrong to assume that he was irked and exasperated about the personal affront of president trump was after all accusing him of a crime with that tweet, even if president trump didn't realize it. but i think what would offend him would be this sort of casual degradation of the institution of the presidency, this suggestion that people would just carelessly ignore what is a very well-defined law and boundaries, and that a president of the united states would, of his own volition, just authorize taps for political purposes on players in the american political landscape. and that is, that, i think, would get him very, very angry and aggravated. so, and this, i think, is an ongoing concern of his. is less about th

year. david axelrod in new york joining me here to talk through a lot. you're watching cnn's special live coverage. i'm brook baldwin. i moved upstate because i was interested in building a career. i came to ibm to manage global clients and big data. but i found so much more. ( ♪ ) it's really a melting pot of activities and people. (applause, cheering) new york state is filled with bright minds like victoria's. to find the companies and talent of tomorrow, search for our page, jobsinnewyorkstate on linkedin. essential for him,age, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don't start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts a

necessary. let's dig deeper with experts and analysts. david axelrod, so far no evidence to back up the president's claim that president obama, your former boss, ordered a wiretap of trump tower during the campaign. the white house said that no one ever ordered surveillance on any civilian. any suggestion otherwise is simply false. tell us how president obama -- you were there would approach matters of surveillance. >> well, very skrcarefully. he had spent years teaching constitutional law. he understood where the lines were and everybody in the white house. presidents cannot order surveillance on american citizens for political reason or any reason and that authority belongs only to the appropriate investigative agencies and only then with the approval of the courts. that's what separates us from countries like russia. vladimir putin places surveillance on his political opponents and worse. we do not. president obama understands that and what was appalling about what's transpired over the last few days apparently president trump does not. >> a pretty shocking allegation he makes agains

checking in with you throughout the next two hours. let's bring in our panel, john king, david axelrod, he knows what this is like in the obama white house. galore gloria borger, jeffrey lord, jen psaki, rick santorum, jennifer granholm. anyone else? anyone? we've also got dana bash monitoring developments from the capitol. we can check back in with sara murray. we've got two hours. john, postponing the vote is obviously not the same as losing the vote. this isn't where the white house or house leadership wanted to be, but they could still get there. >> this has happened before in washington under democratic and republican presidents, votes have been postponed. so take a deep breath, no question it's crunch time for the president. no question it's crunch time for speaker paul ryan. let's see what happens tomorrow. what's interesting is the white house going into this meeting and saying, this is it. if you pass this or you're stuck with obamacare. a, that's spin. but b, they need to spin it that way right now. the house leadership has repeatedly said to the president, at some point, you hav

void or people like karen hues who were there for george w. bush or david axelrod or david plouffe, people who would stand up to the president and say to him, no, sir this is not the right course. it's ultimately the president's decision. he's the reality, here's the set of facts you have to base your decision on. ultimately the president has to decide but they're not even considering what the facts are each day. he goes out and shoots from the hip. that's the most dangerous thing to have in the president of the united states. >> just had members of congress go to cia themselves. what might they -- will the cia give members of congress the real raw truth are they concerned that might end up leaking? is there a quote/unquote, background part of the intelligence community that might be afraid to fully brief congress or the president because they don't know whether it'll end up on the front page of brigeitbartbreitbart.com? >> they need to be concerned. they just have to lay out what's really going on, the pron is it's been twisted, and tweaked and torqued around at the white house p.