david gergen? then axelrod. either one. >> go ahead, david, please. >> i was there, so i can tell you that that was a lengthy process. it died a thousand deaths along the way. in certain ways they're mirroring that process because what happened was you had progressives, liberals in the house who thought that the bill the senate passed hadn't gone far enough. you had senators who thought the liberals were -- the bill was too expensive and generous. they couldn't reconcile. these are among democrats. and it was only at the end when it was absolutely clear to the house that the only opportunity for them was to accept the senate bill with some amendments they could do through reconciliation that they grudgingly got on board. and so you're seeing some of that same tug and pull here. what i don't remember is the president -- i do remember him going to members and saying, this is why we ran for office, to do this for people. and he sold the bill on its merits. he didn't make a purely political argument. he knew that th

david axelrod and david gergen, gentlemen, thanks so much for being with us. have a great weekend and, of course, this programming note. you can see "the axe files," and his interfew wiview with john m tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. eastern. >>> coming up, the president on the hook for millions of dollars for his trump university students. details straight ahead. ♪ everyone deserves attention, whether you've saved a lot or just a little. at pnc investments, we believe you're more than just a number. so we provide personal financial advice for every retirement investor. it's nice to remove artificial ingredients. kind never had to. we've used real ingredients, whole nuts, and natural flavors from the very beginning. give kind a try. >>> back now with our money lead. a $25 million settlement was approved this afternoon in the trump university case. thousands of former students will get most of their money back. in his decision judge curiel said the settlement is fair, adequate and reasonable. you may remember that then candidate trump had accused curiel of being

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. at the same time, there is a trust deficit with thi

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

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 wha

david axelrod. of course you are going to want to watch the axe files special tomorrow night 9:00 p.m. eastern. still to come for us, a growing epidemic forcing u.s. companies to hire refugees over americans. we're talking about these companies led by trump supporters along the rust belt hiring syrian refugees instead. why? listen. >> i know that refugees need an opportunity when they come here, and employers given the opportunity. but people like us who also live here need an opportunity. ♪ ♪ ♪ wanna get away? now you can with southwest fares as low as 59 dollars one-way. yes to low fares with nothing to hide. that's transfarency. ...one of many pieces in my life. so when my asthma symptoms kept coming back on my long-term control medicine. i talked to my doctor and found a missing piece in my asthma treatment with breo. once-daily breo prevents asthma symptoms. breo is for adults with asthma not well controlled on a long-term asthma control medicine, like an inhaled corticosteroid. breo won'

this is not going away as david axelrod said. >> no. >> and there is the appearance here of a coverup certainly among a couple people very close to donald trump. >> let me ask kirsten powers. donald trump used the word cover up several times. cover up of what exactly. it's a coverup of a meeting that could be benign. every senator and lawmaker told me they have met with ambassadors before. >> you have to consider the context of what was happening in the election. that's true under normal circumstances but under the circumstances of where we were having interference by russians in our election and then there is an fbi investigation into it, it does seem like something that would rise to the level of disclosure and if you were prepping him, you would say russia is issue number one. let's talk about the things you may have had. with other people in the trump administration, you can say they are rookies and don't understand the process. he's not a rookie. he's not only a senator, he's a lawyer. he understands how to disclose information, what is important. he clearly does remember the mee

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 i

david axelrod is with me. what is your reaction? the president coming out to slam democrats, but acknowledging he could have stated his response more accurately to congress. >> it's important to point out given the statement, there were more than a few republicans on capitol hill who called for general sessions to recuse himself. there are more than a few republicans participating in these intelligence committee reviews who said they take it quite seriously. so, i understand the strategy, to contain the thing and turn it into a partisan issue. i think it's beyond that now. the president is going to need a different strategy moving forward. he might start with being open and honest with people about exactly what happened or didn't happen. >> all right. as you point out, even in the time line of flynn and spicer didn't include a meeting with the russian ambassador at trump tower. thank you, david. we'll be right back. look closely. hidden in every swing, every chip, and every putt, is data that can make the difference between winning

with me now david axelrod and david meacham. it sounds like obamacare or the aca lite, i mean, they rolled out a plan to dismantle the president's signature health care law. some republicans are calling it lite. as i said. what is your reaction to that as a man that was by president obama's side as he crafted this law? >> well, look. i think that what you're seeing here is the collision of politics and the reality of governing. it's been a good strategy of republicans for last three cycles to run against obamacare, to run against the affordable care act. to say we'll repeal and replace it with something better and then they were the dogs that caught the car and now they have to produce and what they're finding is the president has said, we're going to eliminate all those things you don't like about this affordable care act and keep all the good things. well, it is very hard to do both. and they're caught in this game of twister and so they're right wing or i should say republican conservative base is unhappy because it doesn't c

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 th

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 tru

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 could go in and be

david axelrod. thank you so much, have a good weekend. i appreciate you being with us tonight. >>> just ahead, we spoke about great britain. it's not just the uk. we will look closer with the new president's relationship with america's most important ally and how germany's chancellor has gone to try to figure out donald trump. >>> also new details on how an intruder got onto white house grounds. this is even more remarkable, stayed there undetected for more than 16 minutes. how did that happen? details ahead. doing next to nothing for days weekenders. even when a weekend's not enough, there's a hilton for you. book your break direct with hilton.com and join the weeklong weekenders. how to brush his teeth. (woman vo) in march, my husband didn't recognize our grandson. (woman 2 vo) that's when moderate alzheimer's made me a caregiver. (avo) if their alzheimer's is getting worse, ask about once-a-day namzaric. namzaric is approved for moderate to severe alzheimer's disease in patients who are taking donepezil. it may improve cognition and ov

. >> 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

david axelrod is cnn political commentator and senior adviser to former president obama. great to see you, david. >> good to be here. >> so, where do you think this is headed with devin nunes and how this is looking right now? >> not good, obviously. and he made a point, as manu mentioned, of saying that a whistleblower gave him this information. it really looks like he was whistled down to the white house to run an earned frrand for theh is to take this information and come back the next day. and the question really isn't what he knew so much as who in the white house knew about this and how far up did it go, and was he used, essentially, to do a political chore for the president? if such, it does create a cloud over his chairmanship. >> that gets to some of the pushback we've heard over and over from the white house about this. first and foremost, they say we are all focusing too much on the process -- what time of day devin nunes came to the white house grounds, how he got in and we are not focusing enough on the substance. first of all, we would all focus on the subst

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. what's cri

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.

there will be many coming out 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. th

. >> 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 of what appears to be

anchor and former top 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 r

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 carried the direct with 60%

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 against his predecessor. as you know, gloria, former presi

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 intes

joining us to talk about it 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 o

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 have to say, we're done. thank you for your help and

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. what we need to be established is this is the truth. this is w