well, i don't think the tweet helped him. >> reporter: the president's attorney jay sekulow offering this explanation. >> that tweet was in response to a "washington post" story that ran with five unnamed sources, without identifying the agencies they represented, saying that the special counsel had broadened out his investigation to include the president. >> reporter: before appearing to blame social media for the misunderstanding. >> it was 141 characters. there's a limitation on twitter. the president has very effective utilization of social media. >> reporter: sekulow conceding in a different interview he could not know for sure. >> no one has notified us that he is. i can't read people's minds. i can tell you this, we have not been notified there's investigation of the president of the united states. >> it is in the best interest of the president and this country to have a full investigation. >> reporter: despite the confusion prompted by friday's tweet, the president continues to attack the special counsel's investigation. >> what's happening here is the president wants to take

. >> so that's one of the president's new lawyers, jay sekulow, making the rounds on the sunday news programs. that was the line. it was the president practicing media criticism, not actually saying he's under investigation, which he's not, unless of course he is. but who would dare contradict jay sekulow about this claim he says there should be no confusion. who i ask you? how about jay sekulow himself. >> now he's being investigated by the department of justice, so he's being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general, deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency, who recommended the termination. >> okay. so if you're keeping score, according to jay sekulow, the president both was not and was under investigation. that was just sunday. what about today? >> do you think that bob mueller is looking at the circumstances surrounding comey's firing? do you think that's part of the purview of his probe? >> i have no idea if he's looking at that or not. >> now, jay sekulow is a very influential attorney and advocate and a distinguished member of the supre

. >> reporter: we're just about to find out what jay sekulow is saying today. yesterday he said the president may, may release information about whether there are recordings of the president's conversations with the fired fbi director james comey. chris and alison? >> joe, thank you very much. let's bring in our political panel, david gregory and john avalon and julie pace. john avalon, it's confusing what jay sekulow was saying, in part because in the same interview he said different things. let me play for you a portion of him talking to jake tapper and then chris wallace, that sounded diametricalily opposed. >> should we take it that the president is under investigation? >> let me be clear. he is not under investigation. now he's being investigated by the department of justice. the special counsel under the special counsel regulations reports still to the department of justice, not an independent counsel. he is being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general deputy attorney general recommended him to take by the agency who recommended the termination. >> how do

>>> 5:00 eastern, 2:00 out west. i'm ana cabrera in new york. you are live in the "cnn newsroom." thanks for being with me. >>> we have breaking news on this sunday here on cnn. the united states military has shot down a warplane in syria. it is the first time this has happened since the u.s. took an active role in the syrian conflict. plane was shot down, it was a syrian regime bomber, we are learning, that is said to have attacked coalition supported fighters on the ground. this is where it happened, near the city of raqqa, the isis stronghold in northern syria. a statement from the coalition, which is led by the united states, that its forces were responding to the syrian bombing which did cause casualties on the ground, and that the syrian jet was shot down in self-defense. again, the u.s. military for the first time has shot down a syrian air force warplane. we are closely following these developments. stay with becnn for more detail as we get them. >>> now to politics and the question of whether president trump himself is under investigation. he tweeted on friday that he is, but just 48 hours later his lawyer says, no, the president is not being investigated, period. confused? a bit perplexed? here's what we know. last week "the washington post" that special counsel robert mueller is investigating president trump for possible obstruction of justice and that mueller is interviewing at least three senior intelligence officials as part of this expanding probe. the post report was the most significant sign yet that mueller's investigation is growing beyond questions of russian interference in the 2016 election. president trump called the report phony, then on friday he tweeted this, and i quote -- i am being investigated for firing the fbi director by the man who told me to fire the fbi director. witch hunt. let's bring in white house correspondent, athena jones. the president's lawyer was asked point-blank about that tweet. >> hi, ana. he was. look, these are exactly the sorts of mixed messages that have come to define this white house and the president's lawyer is just the latest example of someone who's working for the president who doesn't seem to be exactly on the same page as the president. you laid it all out with the "washington post" reporting on wednesday, with the president responding at first saying that it was phony, then friday sending out this curious tweet that seemed to confirm that he is under investigation. sources close to the president -- familiar with the president's thinking said he had hadn't been officially informed that he was under investigation. he was just basing that tweet on news reports. listen to what jay sekulow, one of the president's lawyers, said in response to all of this this morning. >> should we take that tweet as confirmation that the president is under investigation. >> let me be clear. president is not under investigation. as james comey said in his testimony, the president is not target of the investigation on three occasions. the president is not subject or target of an investigation. >> the president said, "i am under investigation," even though he isn't under investigation? >> that response on social media was in response to "the washington post" piece. it is that simple. the president is not under investigation. >> you're saying that the president when he said that was not accurate? >> no. the president was -- it was 141 characters. there's a limitation on twitter. as we all know. the president is a very effective utilization of social media. so here's what you have. the president issued that tweet, that social media statement, based on a fake report, a report with no documented sources, from "the washington post." >> so a couple of things there about that interview with jay sekulow. for one thing, for months now we've had white house officials telling us that we should take the president's tweets at face value. they are presidential statements. and now we're hearing something different from one of his lawyers giving excuses as to why he was mainly a little unclear in his message in that tweet. the other part is that the president's allies, his lawyers, the folks at the republican national committee, have been pointing over and over again to comey's testimony that he did in fact tell the president on three separate occasions that he was not personally being investigated. the problem here, ana, is that is that information is out of date, or certainly potentially out of date. comey has not been in charge of the fbi, as we all know, since the beginning of may. i should mention, of course, that cnn has not confirmed "the washington post's" reporting that special counsel bob mueller is investigating the president for obstruction but we do know from law enforcement sources earlier that mueller is gathering information to determine whether to open a full-scale investigation in to obstruction. >> so athena, what about the tapes, the same lawyers that just last weekend would address the "are there tapes" or no tapes of the oval office conversations issue within a week? that didn't happen. so what's going on? >> well, exactly. jay sekulow said last week that we would hear an answer next week, meaning this past week. that didn't happen. sekulow said that, well, there was a lot going on this past week. the president had that big address on cuba policy. there was also what he described as an assassination attempt against house majority whip steve scalise and other gop members of congress. so the way he put it on "face the nation" was the issue of tapes i think right now was not a priority issue this past week. he said he expects it could be addressed this week, but this is just one more example of these deadlines being set that are not met. we really don't know what we're going to get an answer on that issue. >> athena jones, thank you. >>> joining moo he n ing me now. also, michael zelden. and jewelette kayam. listen to another part of attorney jay sekulow. >> in this particular case you had a scenario where the president, receiving advice from a variety of government officials, was told by his attorney general and by his deputy attorney general that james comey should not be leading the fbi. it is ironic that based on the action that they recommended, that he took, in consultation with others, that he is now being investigated by the agencies that told him to take that very action, removing the fbi director. >> so, michael, the president's lawyer said multiple times, which we heard in a sound bite that athena played us, that the president is not under investigation, only to then stay in that last statement we played that it is ironic the president is being investigated by the agencies who told him to fire james comey. so his statements are at odds with one another. what do you make of that? >> there is a schizophrenia to what he has been saying this morning on talk shows. as i try to divine it, a couple of things come to mind. first is he's saying in very legalistic terms that the president has not received a target or subject letter from mueller so that he is technically in legal terms not a target of criminal investigation. fair enough. the president, of course, doesn't talk in legal terms, he talks in lay terms and he feels that he's under siege or under investigation, broadly speaking. those things are not necessarily in conflict with one another. with respect to the president being -- having received advice about the firing of comey and acting on that advice, the president said that that's not true. he said that he fired him because he had russia on his mind and that he was going to fire him regardless of those recommendations from sessions and comey. and, of course, it is not the justice department who is investigating the president now, it is the special counsel. the reason there is a special counsel is that it would be ironic if the justice department were investigating him because they would have a conflict of interest. there is no irony there because they appointed muler eller to d that because they couldn't do it themselves without it being a conflict. they're segregated so they can line up into a sensible narrative. >> the president also mentioned rosenstein, the deputy ag's, recommendation to fire comey, that memo that was included in the president's letter about why he was firing him. does rosenstein's memo offer the president some protection? >> if he hadn't said to lester holt that he wasn't listening to the rosenstein recommendation or the sessions recommendation, but that he had russia on his mind and that's what he used as the basis to fire, then he reiterated it with the russians in his oval office that he fired him because it was to take pressure off of him from the russia investigation. so rosenstein's memo, which may have been a pretext for what he wanted to do anyway, if he had kept it to himself, maybe he gets away with it. but because he talked, he can't. >> juliet, might there be a clear answer to whether or not the president is actually under investigation himself for potential obstruction of justice? is someone usually told when they're being investigated by federal authorities? >> again, he might eventually be told. but let's just be clear here. mueller has over a dozen prosecutors. the best of the best. the notion that there's not some underlying crime, whether it is collusion or some financial dealings or this data -- the sort of data issue that's come up in the last week, what did his data team did, were they sharing information with the russians, that's with where the mueller investigation is. not to say the obstruction charges aren't feel. i would find it sort of inconseevl with muinko inreceivable with mueller and -- >> juliet, you have an audio issue going on. while i ask doug a question about what we've been hearing from newt gingrich, a close ally on the president. listen to his take on the president's tweet that he is being investigated. >> trump has a compulsion to counter attack and is very pugnacious. i don't think it serves him well. i don't think that tweet helped him. he is infuriated and legitima legitimately, in my judgment, by this whole russian baloney. there's not anything on russian, maybe obstruction. maybe there will be perjury. you go down the list. >> doug, you are a republican strategi strategist. the president calling this all a witch hunt. suggesting people should be outraged. do you see a political up side to what he's saying? >> i really don't. one thing that we've seen that's consistent, michael talked -- used the word schizophrenic earlier. athena talked about mixed messages. as somebody who used to work as a communicator on capitol hill i see mixed messages coming from the administration and their allies every day. certainly what we saw with jay sekulow this morning, the impossible situation he is in where he ha is to defend the president who said something very clearly that they now have to say is not true. i was getting e-mails from the administration and rnc saying james comey was a liar. later they said james comey exonerated him. what are we supposed to believe? we are being told two different things of a problem. find their message and stick to that. that's the best thing they can do to help donald trump on the staff level and certainly for the president to do the same. >> but, doug, if the president is trying to poke holes in the credibility of people who are investigating him, then let's say the conclusion is the president did something wrong, his team did something wrong, is that going to help him make the case that these guys have some kind of an agenda? that's what i'm talking about in terms of politically could it be helpful for him long term to do what he's doing? >> i think we see more and more of a divergence. if you supported trump, you by and large still support trump, a small amount of erosion so far. that's what republicans on capitol hill are looking at because they know how popular donald trump in their districts. they are the ones who will be voting in republican primaries so that's what they're watching. if you didn't believe or you didn't support donald trump, everything you've seen so far just recon firms that to you as well. >> all right, plikle, from l mi legal perspective, did the president's tweets make it harder to defend him? >> i don't think so. the tweets are more rants than they are in any respect legally compromising for him. what's more challenging for him are the things that he said to lester holt, and then again at that press conference or -- with the romanian president where he said, no, no -- i never said those words to comey with respect -- so there he is making affirmative statements which can be used against him in some respects if there ever was a court or impeachment hearing. >> those are the words he was saying, no, no, i never said -- i hope you would let the michael flynn investigation go. >> that's right. so it is those types of things that i think pose more jeopardy for him legally than the tweets which really i think -- i would characterize them as sort of rants and that's not really so much a legal problem as it is a political one, as doug mentioned. >> michael, doug, juliet, who we lost, thank you all. >>> straight ahead, tragedy at sea. seven that ivy sailors are now confirmed dead after a dramatic collision in the waters off japan. coming up, what we've learned so far about how it happened. retired rear admiral john kirby joins us live next. t day ♪ ♪ he was talking 'fore i knew it, and as he grew ♪ ♪ he'd say i'm gonna be like you, dad ♪ ♪ you know i'm gonna be like you ♪ ♪ and the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon ♪ ♪ little boy blue and the man in the moon... ♪ rumor confirmed. they're playing. -what? 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(avo) new beneful grain free. out with the grain, in with the farm-raised chicken. healthful. flavorful. beneful. and we're partnering with cigna to help save lives. we are the tv doctors of america. by getting you to a real doctor for an annual check-up. so go, know, and take control of your health. doctor poses. learn your key health numbers, and take control today. >>> more break being news this hour. a gun battle going on to stop terrorists who stormed a luxury resort popular with western tourists in mali. mali's ministry of security issued a statement claiming that armed individuals certainly terrorists, attacked the resort just outside the capital. anti-terror forces are on the scene exchanging gunfire with these attackers. the eu training mission in mali tweeted a statement that they are aware of the attack and are assessing the situation. this all happening less than ten days after the u.s. embassy in mali's capital city warned americans traveling there about an increased security threat to westerners. now we are continuing to monitor this story. we'll update you throughout the evening. >>> also overseas, we are getting a stunning look at what portuguese officials are calling the greatest wildfire tragedy of recent years. look at this. at least 61 people are dead and dozens injured after a massive fire raced through central portugal. it has spread so quickly, some victims were burned to death in their cars as they tried to escape. the area's mayor says many villages were completely surrounded by the fire and there was simply not enough firefighters to stop the flames. >>> i want to get to some other breaking news from the pacific now, the possible result in the weekend's frantic search for those american sailors missing at sea. they've been found but sadly, they did not survive the accident. their ship, the "uss fitzgerald" is now back in port after colliding with a much larger cargo ship in waters off japan. parts of the destroyer flooded with seawater, and it is in those flooded compartments that recovery divers found the sailors that were missing for more than 24 hours. our military analyst, retired u.s. navy rear admiral john d kirby is joining us now. admiral, you and i spoke yesterday about this situation. we discussed this possible scenarios and outcome. we learned that this collision happened while most of the crew on board was asleep. what are your thoughts about this tragedy today? >> well, it is just absolutely heart rending. i want to start by offering my thoughts and prayers to everybody aboard "fitzgerald." all the crew and their families, of course in particular the families of these seven sailors that were lost. it is just heartbreaking outcome to a horrible tragedy. it doesn't surprise me some of the casualties were found at berthing compartments at 2:30 in the middle of the night, you would expect most of the crew to be asleep. obviously some crew are up standing driving the ship and navigating it, but most of the crew would be asleep at that time of day. >> the fleet commander today said this collision had the potential to sink the "fitzgerald," but the crew scrambled and were able to keep her at sea. what happens onboard a emergency situation like this. >> everybody aboard a ship is a fireman. everybody aboard a ship is trained to flighight floods. it's called damage control. from the first day you join the navy you learn basic techniques about how to preserve safety and security of a ship at sea. it is something that always comes back to you throughout your career. you constantly go through this training, particularly on small warships like destroyers. i think when all is said and done, the investigation's over, when stories can be finally be told, i think you're going to hear dozens of stories of incredible bravery and skill and team work to keep that ship afloat and to keep her from floundering. the strike below the water line had to have been massive because those freighters had those big bulbous bows. you can't see them underneath there but they are bulbous. it probably punctured right through. that they were able to keep the ship afloat is truly a story of great heroism. >> we know it knocked out the communication systems they were using so there was that additional challenge they were facing. really amazing they could get it back to shore and it wasn't any worse. >> could you give me a second? i would also mention that our japanese partners, our allies, the japanese coast guard which came right to the scene and right to the rescue and from talking to my former friends in the navy, they tell me that without the japanese help this would have been even worse. >> i do want to ask you about the investigation real quick and how it was perceived. you wrote if had an op sed so-e pretty strong words. you feel strongly about lou thos will shake out. navy warships are not supposed to hit anything. not the ground. not each other. and certainly not container ships in the middle of the night. so how do you see the investigation proceeding? >> there's a strong culture of accountability in the navy, particularly for those who command at sea. it is an absolute accountability. there is no getting around that. this investigation, which is just now getting started, will be run by another admiral, not the 7th complete th commander b that he chooses. they will do a complete forensic analysis of what happened, almost minute by minute. they'll talk to every relevant witness. they'll look at every piece of equipment such as the radar system that could have been involved, make sure it was operating or not. they'll look at every bit of recorded data because there will be some electronically recorded data that they can assess, almost like a black box kinds of thing. they'll look at it all and be able to determine exactly what happened. just as importantly, they'll be able to determine what didn't happen, in other words, what decisions should have been made at certain periods of time and weren't, and did that lead to this catastrophe. >> while i have you here, admiral, this breaking news about the u.s. shooting down a syrian air force jet. this is the first time this has happened, though coalition partners have engaged in direct combat in the skies over syria. how big of a development is this in the coalition's war against isis? >> i think we need to be careful in talking to this in terms of es c es claer to measure. this was done in defense of syrian democratic forces that the coalition was supporting and has been supporting on the ground. that is a commitment that coalition made a long time ago when we agreed to help the syrian democratic forces on the ground. we made it very clear publicly -- not just to them, but publicly that if they came under fire, if they come under attack, we would come to their defense. so this was a long-standing understanding between the coalition and the regime. two, i think you can look at this as potentially a deterrent attack. in other words, they had to do this but maybe it will have a deterrent effect on the regime. i don't see this as escalatory. >> how far up the chain of command would that decision have gone? >> i don't know since i am not inside the chain of command anymore. i doubt it would have to go very, very high. again, commander on the ground has authority to defend his forces and we have the authority to defend the forces that we are supporting on the ground. so i don't think this left theater -- if you're asking if this had to go to the pentagon or to washington, i highly doubt that. i would suspect the commander there in charge of the coalition ops had the authority to do this on his own. >> retired rear admiral john kirby, thanks, as always, and happy father's day. >> thank you so much. >>> the fate of president trump's travel ban is in the hands of the supreme court, and there will be developments this week. will the justices save the ban or will one of the president's signature promises be broken by the courts? 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do it in seconds. because we should fit into your life, not the other way around. go to xfinity.com/myaccount >>> in a knew dafew days, presi trump's travel ban will face the ultimate test. we could know by the end of this week. only the supreme court can save trump's travel ban now after the 9th circuit court of appeals upheld the ruling. here's this week's crucial timeline. challengers of the ban must file reply briefs by noon tuesday. then government can respond on wednesday and the supreme court is expected to take up the matter thursday behind closed doors. let's talk it over with hawaii attorney general, douglas chin, who filed one of these lawsuits against the travel ban. thanks so much for spending part of father's day with us. i know we've spoken before along the different steps of your battle. you've now fought the courts -- or fought the travel ban in two different courts already. it is going to the highest court next. how big of a deal is this? >> well, right now the trump administration is up against a very important deadline which is the end of june. that's typically the time when the supreme court recesses for the summer. they don't come back until the beginning of november. so in terms of timing, what the trump administration is trying to do is to allow -- or convince the supreme court to allow it to be able to hear and review the lower court decisions that have occurred. >> would you expect that they would take up the case? >> i think there is a really good chance that they will. i mean even though you have a decision that was based on -- in the 4th circuit for one reason, that stopped the travel ban, you now have the 9th circuit decision that has stopped the travel ban. there are a lot of indications that the supreme court is going to be interested in this case because of the national security implications. >> now while the 9th circuit kept the block of the travel ban in place, the court did allow one portion of that executive order to proceed, and that was the reviewing of the vetting process as dhs secretary john kelly said, the administration saw that as a win. do you see that as a loss? >> we never had a problem with the department of homeland security engaging in research or studies. what we had argued was the problem with the entire travel ban is that it was a muslim ban. so anything that was carried out under the auspices of that executive order would be something that would be either discriminatory under the constitution or illegal under our immigration laws. and so when the 9th circuit allowed the studies to be able to continue, they were simply allowing the department of homeland security to do what it's always been capable of doing, which is essentially to be able to examine and decide what constitutional orders it can put out in the future. >> so assuming the supreme court says it will take the case, with the president's pick judge gorsuch now on the bench, there is a court that's more conservative leaning. does the make-up of this court present a bigger challenge for you? >> you know, you have justice gorsuch who replaced justice scalia and where the rub is really going to be is most people are thinking it is going to have to do with how justice kennedy rules. he'll be the fifth vote. we think we're positioned about as well as we could be because you have now two rationales for stopping the travel ban that are out there. the first one is that this is unconstitutional travel ghan discriminates against a religion. government's not supposed to disfavor one religion against another. and then the other rational that's coming out of the 9th circuit is that when the president issued the executive order, he simply didn't make enough findings. there was just too flimsy evidence that was there to be able to justify banning 180 million people from the six muslim majority nations and presuming that all of them are terrorists. >> now the president has spoken recently about his travel ban, at least on twitter. he brought up the travel ban in the wake of the london terror attacks earlier this month. then just after the 9th circuit ruling came down he tweeted again -- before the ruling he writes, the justice dpd should have stayed with the original travel ban, not the watered down politically correct version they submitted to supreme court. then after that ruling, well, as predicted, the 9th circuit did it again, ruled against the travel ban at such a dangerous time in the history of our country. sc. do you think the supreme court will take into consideration these tweets? >> well, that certainly is a fair argument, is that the president's tweets are his official statements. that was confirmed by sean spicer the day after that president had issued his june 5th tweet that said that he wished that everything would go back to the first -- >> so you think the tweets work in your favor, your case. >> oh, yeah. i mean essentially he's saying -- or confirming that this is a muslim ban. there actually seems to be a theme going on in your show about how the president's tweets are what comes back to haunt him. that's exactly it. he's making these statements in ways that just directly telegraph that he has a discriminatory intention behind what he's doing. and it is not based on keeping out terrorists. it is based on religious discrimination and discriminating of people bases upon their nation of origin. that's not okay. >> douglas chin, thank you so much for your time. >> thank you. >>> democrats bracing for a defiant stand against the republican health care bill. but account dems take down a bill that the gop appears determined to pass? you're live in the "cnn newsroom." but at night, it's the last thing on my mind. for 10 years my tempur-pedic has adapted to my weight and shape, relieving pressure points from head to toe. so i sleep deeply but feel light. and wake up ready to perform. even with the weight of history on my shoulders. find your exclusive retailr at tempur-pedic.com i'm joy bauer, and as a nutritionist i know probiotics can often help. try digestive advantage. it's tougher than your stomach's harsh environment, so it survives a hundred times better than the leading probiotic. also in chocolate. probiotic bites! rumor confirmed. they're playing. -what? -we gotta go. -where? -san francisco. -when? -friday. we gotta go. 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"blue monday" by new order. cheers. ] ♪ how does it feel the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. it's travel, better connected. the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. if you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis like me, and you're talking to your rheumatologist about a medication... ...this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain... ...and protect my joints from further damage. humira has been clinically studied for over 18 years. humira works by targeting and helping to... ...block a specific source... ...of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain and... ...stop further joint damage in many adults. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas... ...where certain fungal infections are common and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. talk to your doctor and visit humira.com this is humira at work. >>> battle over health care is heating up in the senate. democrats and some republicans are upset that the group of republicans crafting the health care bill have shrouded it in secrecy, drafting it behind closed doors. now democrats are considering a dramatic senate shutdown to force republican senators to open up the health care debate. senate minority leader chuck schumer sent a letter to majority leader mitch mcconnell calling for an all-senators meeting this week. our ryan nobles is joining us now from washington with details. ryan, can senate democrats really shut down business over this health care debate? >> they're threatening to at the very least grind the senate to a halt, in that they want to make it hard for republicans to schedule votes and potentially keep nominees from the trump administration from getting confirmed. that would create a glacial pace of work in this senate and that's a body that doesn't work very fast to begin with. among techniques they may employ, stopping committees from meeting or extending their hearings when the senate is in session. and the goal here would be to force republicans to open the debate on the health care bill which at this point, as you pointed out, has been done mainly lined clomain ly behind closed doors. all democrats, even some republicans, have yet to see what's in this bill. despite that, the democratic leadership has vowed to vote before the july 4th holiday. caucuses for the democrats endorse this morpve. >> we have an insane process. insane. here you have legislation which deals with one-sixth of the american economy. that's the health care situation. and there are republicans who haven't even seen this legislation, and certainly no member in the democratic caucus has. what kind of process is it that when you deal with an issue that affects tens of millions of people in this country, republicans don't even have the guts to allow it to go to a committee where we can have an open hearing where questions could be asked. >> we do have some new information about this. our capitol hill team has been ringing the phones of democratic senators and their aides. we learned that they are in the process of planning innin inni floor of the senate tomorrow through midnight. among things i'm hearing is that they may potentially have members of the senate stand up and tell the stories of their constituents that were impacted positively by the affordable care act. one of the reasons that they want to see the plan put in place by barack obama stay in place, to a certain extent this is all a public relations game for democrats. they don't have the votes. their goal here would be to put some of these republicans that are a little squeamish about this version of the bill in a difficult spot so that they do not support it going forward. >> is the big question is, do republicans even have the votes at this point in the senate. they can only lose two people from those republicans. thanks so much, ryan nobles, for the update. >>> donald trump tweeted his way to the white house, and for reporters his twitter feed is the best way possible to know what the president is thinking. but we'll talk about why it is also a major problem. >>> and, michael phelps has won 23 gold medals. but the olympic legend could soon be in the race of his life. we'll explain. you're live in the cnn newsroom. "how to win at business." step one: point decisively with the arm of your glasses. abracadabra. the stage is yours. step two: choose la quinta. the only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free night-instantly and win at business. >>> welcome back. breaking today, president trump's lawyer telling cnn that the president is not under investigation. now that contradicts a tweet from the president in which the president became his own leaker and seemed to confirm he's being investigated for obstruction of justice. couple of days ago the president suggested that the media doesn't like this unfiltered portal into the mind of the president, tweeting, the fake news media hates when i use what's turned out to be my very powerful social media. over 100 million people. i can go around them. earlier i spoke to chris celizza. >> this is the second tweet the president had this month that gets at the basic idea the media hates when he tweets. it is just not true. the fact is reporters like myself, the thing that we are most interested in and the hardest thing to get, ana, is real insight into how a president is thinking. these are people who are walled off by a huge amount of hate, a huge amount of bureaucracy, a huge amount of infrastructure. it is very hard to get a sense typically of what they think. not the case with donald trump. his twitter feed i think is a very close representation of what he thinks and feels at any one time. you know when he's angry. you know when he feels like his staff has failed him. you know when he feels like they haven't got the message out. that's an invaluable resource for someone like me. a tweet away, donald trump. doesn't bother me in the least. >> but, twitter can be a one-way conversation. the president doesn't have to answer reporters' questions on twitter. we've learned he's even blocked people on twitter who have been adversarial. do you ware though, if he's using twitter as his main form of communication, or desires to use it as main form of communication, that it might replace the traditional white house press briefing, for example? >> it's possible. if you'll notice, in the last few weeks the traditional white house press briefing has really, really been down played. sarah huckabee sanders, the deputy press secretary is doing some of them. sean spicer doing some of them. but many of them off camera. that said, the way in which they had evolved in which they really didn't answer any questions, they said, we can't answer that, the tweet speaks for itself, one of sean's favorite lines. at least we are getting insight. i take it to be insight and real -- a real way in to what donald trump is thinking. i will take it at this point. it is not ideal, by any means. but that's not unique to donald trump, by the way, ana. every every president gets less transparent because technology allows them to do that. he is right that twitter, flickr, youtube, all of these things allow a politician to go around having to do an interview with me or you to get their message out, so he's right in that, but every president gets less and less and less transparent because technology allows it. >> i want to share with you some father's day wishes from the first lady. here's her tweet wishing a happy father's day to the president with the trophy and heart emoji. then ivanka trump tweeted a message to her husband, saying "thank you, jared, for loving, encouraging and teaching our kids and me every day. we love you very much." and of course, i have to take a quick moment to wish my husband a happy father's day, the dad of our two children, he's amazing. and my dad, who is also celebrating his birthday today, father of five, all five of us. happy father's day, se llama, papa. >>> michael phelps is fast, but can he outswim a shark? he will kick off the discovery channel's shark week marathon by racing a great white. a great white! no details on how the shark and phelps will face off, but discovery says it will be an event so monumental. no one has ever tried it before. phelps posted this photo of a cage-diving trip, perhaps scouting his competition. the question on this father's day, how will this new dad some day tell the story of how he raced a shark? >>> all right, i want you to meet arafat garabazi. he is quite a swimmer himself. separated from his family in the democratic republic of congo, he was helpless and homeless, but swimming changed his life. >> arafat garabazi is an open-water swimmer in cape town, south africa. >> i feel free when i'm in the ocean. that's where i'm at peace most of the time. it takes you away from the outside world. >> reporter: the outside world hasn't been easy for arafat. he's a refugee from the democratic republic of congo. >> i left my country in 2012 when they were broke up, when i got separated from my mother. >> reporter: unsure if his mother was dead or alive, he fled to cape town on foot and ended up living in this children's shelter, which offers swimming classes. >> i remember the first time i went in the swimming pool, it was like you were in a new planet. i realized swimming was something which i could use for the process of healing. then i kept doing it. >> reporter: swimming gave arafat a new sense of purpose, and he began training for long-distance swims. in 2016, he was named open-water swimmer of the year by the cape town long-distance swimming association. >> the moment i stop, that's when i feel like life is becoming like a mess. my main focus is to try and give as much hope as i can through the challenges which i'm going. >> guys, what's up! go south to finish this swim! >> reporter: arafat's next challenge is a 2 1/2-kilometer swim called the high-tech walker bay extreme. >> i don't compete with anyone when i'm swimming. i just compete with myself. >> reporter: what makes the race so challenging isn't the distance but the frigid 55-degree water temperature, and arafat does it without a wet suit. >> it's a very mental game. your body doesn't know to stay in, but your mind controls your body saying you can keep going. >> reporter: the cold water proved too much for some swimmers, but arafat was able to finish. >> all done. >> i'm very proud of what i've achieved today. i don't want people to see me as a homeless boy. i want them to see me in a different way, and that's why i keep going. swimming has changed everything which i do. >> fit nation, "around the world in eight races," brought to you by aleve. all day strong, all day long. bra that covers you part way, so when it comes to pain relievers, why put up with just part of a day? 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[ tires screech ] any airline. any hotel. any time. go where you want, when you want with no blackout dates. [ muffled music coming from club. "blue monday" by new order. cheers. ] ♪ how does it feel the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. it's travel, better connected. the travel rewards credit card from bank of america. ♪ ♪ isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. great show. here you go. now he's added a new routine. making depositing a check seem so effortless. easy to use chase technology, for whatever you're trying to master. isaac, are you ready? yeah. chase. so you can. fromi wanted to seeved, this great country. my last wish is for you to do it for me, as a family. love, grandpa. ♪ let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together ♪ older grandaughter: it'll be alright. i know. grandson: how did you meet grandpa? grandmother: actually on a blind date. [ laughter ] i wish he was on the trip with us. he's sitting right between the boys in the back of the car. [ laughter ] ♪ america ♪ all come to look for america ♪ all come to look for america life's as big as you make it. the all-new 7-seater volkswagen atlas with america's best bumper-to-bumper limited warranty. >>> and today we wanted to remind you of something you might have seen already here on cnn, but now it's going viral online. it is an act of unthinkable bravery and human compassion that lasted just a few heart-stopping seconds. and you know what, we wanted to show you this again on father's day. i'm about to show you this man rescuing that little girl from certain death, and he did it by running through a hail of bullets. this is david eubank. he was with his aid group in mosul when isis started killing civilians, men, women and children. among the stacks of bodies, this little girl, still alive. watch what he does next. hold your breath with me. [ shots ] >> david eubanks saved the life of that little girl, whom he didn't even know, by risking his own life. this amazing video is being forwarded now all over social media. people are watching this. father of three. incredible, selfless act. david eubank. he's an american aid worker and former u.s. special forces officer. google him, find out what brought him to iraq. this little girl is alive today this little girl is alive today because he was there. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >>> top of the hour. you are in the "cnn newsroom." thanks for being with me on this father's day. i'm ana cabrera in new york and topping the hour with breaking news. the united states military has shot down a warplane in syria. it's the first time this has happened since the u.s. took an active role in the syrian conflict. the plane shot down was a syrian regime bomber that is said to have attacked coalition-supported fighters on the ground. and here's where it happened, near the city of raqqah, the isis stronghold in northern syria. our global affairs correspondent elise labott is joining us now. elise, again, this is a first in the war on isis, a syrian plane shot down by u.s. forces. what do we know about what happened? >> reporter: that's right, ana. well, of course, this comes as the u.s.-backed and coalition-backed syrian democratic forces are going against raqqah, that isis stronghold. what happened was at about 4:30 p.m. local time, the syrian regime forces were attacking those u.s.-backed syrian democratic forces. the u.s. offered this kind of show of force, flying low to the ground at a slow speed to, in essence, scare them off, and it did. in the me

. here is what attorney jay sekulow told cnn's jake tapper. >> the president is not a subject or target of an investigation. that tweet was in response to a "washington post" story that ran with five unnamed sources, without identifying the agencies they represented, saying that the special counsel had broadened out his investigation to include the president. we've had no indication of that. the president was responding to that particular statement from "the washington post," again, with five anonymous sources. again, without even identifying the agency. so no, the president is not under investigation, has not been. >> so the president said, "i am under investigation," even though he isn't under investigation? >> that response on social media was in response to "the washington post" piece. it is that simple. the president is not under investigation. >> just to refresh you, the president tweeted this on friday, and i quote, "i am being investigated for firing the fbi director by the man who told me to fire the fbi director. witch hunt." let's bring in athena jones, white house correspond

. >> reporter: one of the president's personal lawyers jay sekulow oddly insisted the president is not under investigation. then he all but admitted he can't be sure. >> you don't know whether -- >> no one -- >> you don't know whether he's under investigation or not. >> reporter: a contradiction he repeated on cnn. >> why you haven't picked up the phone to find out is a little odd. if i hired you i'd want you to make that phone call. >> well, you haven't hired us because we represent the president of the united states. >> reporter: the stonewalling continued in the white house briefing room, which was the scene of an off-camera no audio briefing where press secretary sean spicer provided more non-answers. can the president fire special counsel robert mueller? spicer, "i think the broader point here is that everyone who serves the president serves at the pleasure of the president." does the president have recordings of his conversations at the white house? spicer, "i will tell you i believe the president commented in the next couple of weeks. it is possible we have an answer on that

messages concerning the russia investigation. the president's personal attorney, jay sekulow, made the rounds on tv yesterday as well as this morning, repeatedly insisting the president is not under investigation, despite the president's tweeting on friday that he is under investigation. listen to this exchange between jay sekulow and chris cuomo earlier this morning. >> do you know mueller's looking at this, why didn't you just pick up the phone and find out if it matters so much to the president whether or not he's being looked at, find out. >> you know there's a difference between investigations, inquiries. there's a whole series of matters you look at. >> the white house press secretary sean spicer certainly will be asked plenty of questions about this topic in an off-camera briefing that is about to begin at the white house. our reporters are there. unfortunately, the white house has decided that we can't broadcast that briefing from the white house press briefing room live. they won't even let us use the audio. we will discuss that and more. meantime, let me bring in our pane

here that jay sekulow, the president's legal team wouldn't necessarily know whether he's under investigation or not because the fbi and the special counsel wouldn't necessarily notify his legal team. so, this is just more mixed messages. ana? >> all right. and athena, it is the same lawyer who just last weekend said president trump was going to address whether there are any tapes. still no answer. >> reporter: exactly, still no answer. and sekulow was asked with b that today, and he said, well, there was a lot going on last week, the president had that major address on cuba, announcing a change in cuba policy. there was also the shooting at the republican members of congress baseball practice. he talked about the assassination attempt of house majority whip steve scalise, who is still in the hospital. and so, sekulow says that the issue of the tapes was not the priority number one last week. he expects that could be addressed this week. but the bottom line is this is just one more example of deadlines that shift. we really don't know when we're going to get a clear answer on wh

$5 billion shy of becoming the world's richest person. and that amazon/walmart food fight literally is going to be one of those epic business stories for the ages. >>> 39 million households pay more on housing than they can afford. 39 million. that's according to a new report on the state of u.s. housing. experts recommend spending only 30% of your income on housing. one-third of american households spend at least that much, and nearly 19 million pay more than 50%. that means you are house rich, and you are one job loss away from financial catastrophe. look, there is tough. you have less -- this is tough. you have less to spend on food, health care, and transportation when you have so much in their house. tight inventory and high demand are causing home prices to rise higher here. so it's not necessarily the cost of other things going up but the cost of housing that's going up. it's good -- value of your home is going up. for many that means they are priced out. >> that is an extraordinary number of people. >> everyone, go home and think about that. am i spending more than 30% of my paycheck, am i paying more than that on housing? if you are, that's risky. >> what are you going to do about it now? >>> "early start" starts now with the latest breaking news from london. >>> breaking overnight, one dead, at least eight injured after a van slams into a london crowd. the police saying the attack is being treated as terrorism. >>> mixed messages from the white house and president trump. >> it's that simple -- the president is not under investigation. >> the president's own lawyer contradicting his boss. how the trump legal team is explaining the president's claim that he is under investigation. >>> good morning, everyone, welcome to "early start." i'm christine romans. >> i'm dave briggs. it's monday, june 19th. 5:00 a.m. in the east. we begin with the breaking news. at least one person dead, eight injured after a van ran over muslim worshippers outside a north london mosque. the incident now being treated as an act of terrorism. look at the pictures of the aftermath after midnight london time. witnesses describing a chaotic scene with people screaming for help from police and medics. at least one person has been arrested. a 48-year-old man described as the driver of the van. he was detained at the scene by members of the public. >> authorities are not saying if muslims were specifically targeted. we'll get the latest developments from cnn's phil black in london. where do we stand on this investigation? >> reporter: the police are saying that this bears all the hallmarks of recent terror attacks because once again a car has been used as a weapon. what they're not sure of or not being definitive on yet is the motive. it is beginning to look pretty clear. it was just after midnight. that's when the white van came down the road behind me. and witnesses say it swerved and seemingly deliberately plowed through people who were emerging from a mosque following late-night prayers during the holy ramadan season. eight people have been injured. one person has died. the police qualified that, too, saying they're not certain he died as a result of this attack. there were claims that an old man collapsed in the road moments before. that could help explain that. then bystanders ran in, pulled this man out of the vehicle, wrestled him down to the road. they say he was fighting, biting, scratching, and swearing the whole time saying things like, "you deserve this, you guys deserve this." there seems little doubt at that this was deliberate. it all comes down to what was the motive. all of the victims were muslims. the local muslim community is angry. they believe they were targeted significantly and purposefully. and they believe this is the latest escalation of homophobi homophobhomophobia -- sorry, islamaphobia, following the recent terror attacks in london. the one at parliament in march and more recently london bridge in early june. and of course, manchester, as well. they believe it has created a significant caldron of increasing hatred toward the muslim community. beau. >> phil black -- back to you. >> phil black, keep us posted from the scene if there are new developments. >>> it was pure chaos outside that london mosque just after the stroke of midnight. listen to this witness describe the carnage before he pulled the driver out of the van and helped subdue him. >> i suddenly turned right to the mosque. so i was -- then i was shocked. we were screaming. and he -- first a woman, old somalian woman, in her 60s. then another two moroccan or algerian guy, he drove a bus, hit another three, four, five, six, seven. suddenly the car stopped. we don't know -- we went after him. we managed to get him out of the car. >> reporter: where the investigation goes from here, cnn law enforcement analyst james galliano, retired supervisory agent with the fbi. good morning. >> good morning. >> there's an attempted murder charge, what does that tell us when whether this is terrorism or is not, does it matter? >> i think we have to look at this dispassionately as law enforcement. that's hard to do. this is a very visceral punch to the gut, if you will. especially coming on the heels of all the attacks that have happened recently in the uk. i think from the law enforcement perspective, naming it -- some people look at that and say it's just semantics. we have understand what the crime or violation might be and where the evidence may lead us. to call it a terrorist act, i think that's fair. i think they were measured, whether it was sadiq kahn or theresa may, in looking at the appropriate amount of time. looking at the witnesses' accounts of what the gentleman -- i use that loosely -- who jumped out of the car was saying, it's more a hate crime, relativism. somebody who saw something a few weeks ago and said i'm going to do something similar. >> when he was pulled from the car he was saying, "you guys deserve this, you deserve this," after steering through crowds of worshippers. people coming out from the mosque at the stroke of midnight, at the end of ramadan. they're being careful about saying what the motive is yet. clearly they will have to debrief this guy. tell me what we can expect next to the investigation. >> the good news is that the folks who were there -- you can understand their passions being enflamed after a car tries to o mow them down out of worship, here we have somebody who can be interviewed. not only are police conducting forensic analysis, going through his facebook page, social media platforms. if they've identified where this man is from, they're talking to associates, looking at where he lived and what his patterns of life were. most importantly, too, understanding that from the perspective of we have a spate of these things happening, and could this be somebody who's a copycat? copycats see something in the news. we're trying to educate folks, trying to give them information. and a copycat sees that and says, "i want to do the same thing." or they read fiction and want to do that. they could be a motivation. >> it fourth terror attack in the last few months. the third using a car. can anything be done to prevent these type of attacks? >> for law enforcement we use something called cooper's colors. we tell people there's four states of color. white, yellow, orange, and red. red is a heightened sense where you detect a threat. most people walking around in daily conditions in white, oblivious and unaware. i would suggest and most of law enforcement suggests at a minimum we're in condition yellow which says we're just aware of our surroundings. >> using a van as a weapon is a low-tech way to do major damage. we've seen this from nice to the christmas market in berlin. should there be -- should cities be thinking differently about how to protect large groups of people? >> i think, you know, after 9/11 and after a spate of different terrorist attacks on facilities, on infrastructure and buildings, we got smarter. and what we started to do was putting up concrete ballards which prevents vehicles like in the 1995 oklahoma city bombing from getting close enough for the maximum impact to take the building down or kill, you know, have massive casualties. i don't know. i don't know if some of these pedestrians thoroughfares, we want people to be able to walk and shop and enjoy life in the western world. it's getting difficult to do it safely. >> all right. james galliano, come back, we'll talk about this more as details emerge. >> will do. >>> to politics at home and confusion, contradictions from the white house over whether president trump is being investigated for obstruction of justice. the president's lawyer says he's not under investigation. that directly contradicts the president who is tweeting that he is being investigated. cnn reporting special counsel robert mueller looking into whether enough evidence exists to launch a full-scale obstruction probe. the "washington post" reporting such a probe is already underway. who's right? would the president necessarily know? more now from cnn's athena jones. >> reporter: good morning. mixed messages are something that have come to define this white house. numerous times we've seen the president contradict not only his aides and others who work for him but also himself. this is a case in point. on friday he tweeted what seemed to be a confirmation of a "washington post" report from wednesday that he is under investigation for obstruction of justice. it's the same report that the president on thursday called a phony story. yet on friday, he seemed to confirm it. now one of the president's lawyers, jay sekulow, is saying he is not in fact under investigation. the president was citing that "washington post" report when he sent out that tweet on friday. here's more of what sekulow had to say on "state of the union." watch. >> should we take that tweet from the president as confirmation that the president is the under investigation? >> let me be clear, the president's not under investigation. >> it president said, "i am under investigation," even though he isn't under investigation? >> that response -- that response on social media was in response to the "washington post" piece. >> you're saying that the president when he said that was not accurate? >> no. the president wasn't -- it was 141 characters. there's a limitation on twitter. >> the president thinks -- >> there should be no confusion -- president is not under investigation. yeah. >> it is confusing. >> reporter: so after months of white house officials telling us we should take the president's tweets at face value, we should consider them presidential statements, now his lawyer is arguing something different. it's important to note that the president's allies, lawyers, the folks at the republican national committee who have been defending him have repeatedly pointed to now-fired fbi director james comey's testimony that he told the president on three separate occasions that he was not personally under investigation. the problem there is that comey has not been charge of the fbi since may, six weeks ago. a very long time in washington and in the news business. the other thing that's important to note is that the president himself and his legal team wouldn't necessarily know whether he's under investigation because the fbi and special council's office wouldn't necessarily notify the president and his lawyers of that fact. you have one of the president's lawyers here asserting as fact something that he's not really in a position to know. >> all right. thank you for that. >>> meantime, it senate democrats are threatening a blockade to protest the gop health care plan. right now the bill is being crafted behind closed doors by republicans. democrats are demanding a fair and open hearing. if they don't get one, the plan is to bring the senate to a crawl by crippling the chamber with speeches and parliamentary procedures. democratic sources tell cnn they may begin implementing that blockade today. >> oh, boy. let's bring in cnn politics reporter eugene scott. good morning to you, my friend. >> good morning. how are you? >> let's see, behind closed doors, health care. if this sounds familiar to the american public, that's because it should be. here's mitch mcconnell in 2009. >> this massive piece of legislation that seeks to restructure one-sixth of our economy is being written behind closed doors without any input from anyone in an effort to jam it past the -- not only the senate but the american people. >> a sound bite he regrets. is this the only way to hash out health care? why is it being done this way once again? >> chuck schumer doesn't think it's the only way. he wants a meeting this week where both sides of the aisle can talk about where the bill is presently. but i think one of the reasons why the republicans are still having conversations among themselves is because according to the most recent updates and reporting, they still aren't completely on the same page about what it is that they want in this bill. i mean, there's been quite a bit of confusion among the republican party about what the base is asking for. and not just the base but conservatives of the president, as well. the president, conservative leaders, and conscious conservative voters -- and conservative voters, what they want in their health care bill. there's a desire to get on the same page before nay go public with that. i don't think the democrats like that approach. >> it clock is ticking here. if they want to fix this -- well, some would argue they're not fixing it. democrats saying they're making it worse. if they want to get something done, the clock is ticking here. what about the notion of a democratic blockade? and we heard all the big democrats talking about it this weekend. is that something that's feasible? will it start today? >> i think they would like it to. what i'm paying attention to is where are we moving forward in terms of bipartisanship after everything we saw last week and so much talk from both sides of the aisle asking that people come together and form some type of united front in terms of getting policies forward. how will they be able to get on the same page peacefully without criticizing one another in a way that becomes offensive and disruptive to this deal-making period. >> the big story on the sunday shows was the question of whether or not the president is under investigation for obstruction of justice. you saw the exchange between jake tapper and the president's lawyer. if you thought that was confusing, listen to this one with fox news' chris wallace. >> the president takes action based on numerous events including recommendation was his attorney general and the deputy attorney general's office. he takes the action that they also, by the way, recommended. now he's being investigated by the department of justice. he's being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and deputy recommended him to take -- >> you've said that he is being investigated after saying that you didn't -- >> no -- >> you just said, sir -- >> no, nothing -- >> you just said that he's being investigated. >> no, chris. i said -- let me be crystal clear so you completely understand. we have not received nor are we aware of any investigation of the president of the united states. >> sir, you just said two times that he's being investigated. >> he did. he did say it twice. chris wallace did not make that up. >> he did. >> almost 20 years later, here we are having another debate over what the definition of "is" is. how important is that, and do the two sides, not two sides, the president and his lawyers needs to get on the same page. >> certainly, i think what's really important that people have to remember is that last week the president tweeted, "i am being investigated." that's what he said. so this goes to i think what much of his legal counsel was saying regarding him needing to be careful with twitter if he's trying to communicate to the american people what's happening because when you say things like "i am being investigated," you cannot be upset when people believe that you're being investigated. and i think an important point that's been made repeatedly is that it is possible that he's being investigated and has not yet been notified. >> right. >> so to say that i know everything that's happening over there is just not true. it's not how these things work. >> the reporting from the "washington post" is the most sort of dramatic in that it says that he is under investigation now for obstruction of justice. that investigation is underway. our reporting at cnn is that bob mueller and his team are looking into whether an obstruction of justice probe is warranted. >> right. >> either way, poking around there, that's what we know. all right. >> yeah. we've seen lots of interview requests happening. there are so many questions that still need to be answered. >> more questions for you in 30 minutes. >> get a cup of coffee, and come back. >>> bill cosby's legal team claiming victory. >> mr. kocosby's power's back. it has been restored. the jurors, they used their power to speak. >> so what is next after a mistrial is declared in the comedian's trial? 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caught up with the champ -- patrick snell caught up with the champ. >> i never got nervous. i was always confident, very in control of my game, in control of the way i was thinking, walking up to the golf ball. i felt like every shot i was going to hit was going to be really good, and every putt, i. like it was going to go in. to get my name on the trophy with the greatest players that's ever played this game is pretty neat. it's special. i couldn't be happier now. >>> history was made in the wnba incredible. diana tarasi becoming the all-time leading lay-up scorer. the phoenix mercury guard set the mark. nba legend kobe bryant was on land to witness the accomplishment and pay respect. diana has won four olympic gold medals. three championships each in the ncaa and wnba, now the 35-year-old legend has etched her name in the record books. >>> lebron james spent father's day weekend celebrating one of his children. he threw 10-year-old bryce an epic birthday bash. field painted with bryce's name. >> no way. >> there was football, soccer, and of course basketball. and lebron went beast mode. dunking on the kids. he didn't hold anything back. after working up a sweat, the kids -- king james and his wife, blasted him with water. look at this. one heck of a party thrown by king james, guys. it was a great father's day for him. i hope you had a great one, dave, and all of our "early start" viewers out there, as well. >> it wasn't that good, man. i think he needed a boost after the nba final. dunk on some kids, that will make you feel better. >> letting out frustration. >> thanks. >> thanks, buddy. >> you're welcome. >>> 29 minutes past the hour. a van crashes into a crowd of pedestrians in london. one is dead, eight injured. we'll have the latest. sometimes., washed up, never. new age perfect rosy tone moisturizer from l'oreal. created to flatter your skin tone. flattery will get you everywhere. with lha and imperial peony extract. science, it's a wonderful thing. increases cell renewal. boosts skin's rosy tone-instantly. new age perfect rosy tone by l'oreal skin expert/paris. we've still got it and we're still worth it. when this bell rings... ...it starts a chain reaction... ...that's heard throughout the connected business world. at&t network security helps protect business, from the largest financial markets to the smallest transactions, by sensing cyber-attacks in near real time and automatically deploying countermeasures. keeping the world of business connected and protected. that's the power of and. a lower a1c is a lot witabout choices.tes but it can be hard sometimes, 'cause different sides of you struggle with which ones to make. well, what if you kept making good ones? 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romans. 33 minutes past the hour this monday. let's begin with breaking news. at least one person dead, eight injured after a van ran over muslim worshippers outside a north london mosque. the incident being treated as an act of terrorism. take a look at these pictures of the aftermath taken just after midnight london time. at least one man has been arrested. a 48-year-old man described as the driver of the van. he was detained. there he is there. he was detained at the scene by members of the public. >> now authorities are not saying if muslims were specifically targeted, but london's mayor is calling the incident a horrific terrorist attack. let's get the latest from london and cnn's phil black. it sounds from the eyewitnesses that they were, in fact, targeting muslims. good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, david. there's no doubt the community here believes they were targeted specifically. police say they are treating this as a terror attack because it looks and feels like the city's other recent terror attacks. the third time this year a car has been used as a weapon. there are differences. this wasn't a high-profile target in central london. this was in the city's north, outside a mosque in the very earliest hours monday morning. the crowd was just leaving the mosque after observing prayers for the holy month of ramadan. that was when witnesses say the white van swerved, deliberately plowing through people. as you touched on, people watched this unfold. more than that, they intervened. people ran in, grabbed the man, pulled hem from the vehicle and wrestled him to the ground. we are told by the people who intervened that he resisted the whole time. he fought back. he bit, punched. he scratched at them and told them things like, "you deserve this, you guys deserve this." they were then able to hold him on the ground until the police arrived. and more than that, keep a very angry crowd away from getting close to him, as well. the police say what they're trying to determine now is the motive. what drove this man to do this. that will ultimately determine just what crime he is charged with. as i said, the community is pretty clear. they believe there has been rising hate and anger and bigotry toward the muslim community of london in the wake of the earlier terror attacks here in the capital. back to you. >> phil black live in london. thank you. >>> it was a grim scene outside that london mosque. listen to this witness describe the carnage right before he pulled the driver out of the van and helped subdue him. >> suddenly turned right to the mosque. i was shocked, and we were screaming. and he -- first a woman, old somalian woman, in her 60s. and then another two moroccan or algerian guy. he drove a bus, hit another three, four, five, six, seven. then the car stopped. we went after him. he managed to get him out of the car. >> for the latest on this apparent terrorist attack, let's bring in cnn law enforcement analyst james galliano, a retired supervisory special agent with the fbi. we know this man, this 48-year-old, was a driver being held on an attempted murder charge. that's the procedural part for the authorities there. we're told they are investigating this as a potential terrorist attack. on the scene, there were some worshippers and some members of the public who were there who felt like it took a little long, too long to call this a terror attack. talk to me about how difficult it is, you know, the public pressure from people who wanted this labeled a terrorist attack right away. >> i think that that's understandable. what you have to be cognizant of in issues like this where you have an event or an incident, an attack where everyone's passions are enflamed and what we understand in law enforcement and the military understands, during critical events, your ability to understand time as a relative means, it's difficult to do. sometimes a police officer or someone in combat will shoot their weapon 20 times. they'll be asked afterwards did you fire your weapon? no, i didn't. how long did it take the ambulance to get there? it took 30 minutes, in actuality it was two minutes. i think it's fair to say sometimes the eyewitness accounts you have to understand that. i can understand the frustration. this comes on the heel of the recent london attack on the bridge. and i can understand that. i think we've got to be common and -- calm and cool and collected. understand that it's too early to tees pth motivation. motivation is critical here because as you talked about in the charging piece, you have two pieces to a crime. you have the actual incident or the event, the crime itself, and then you have to have a criminal mind, a mens rea. that's where the motivation goes to. >> an extraordinary act by the eyewitness who instead of running away ran to the van, pulled this man out of the seat, and held him down until the police got there. is this the type of response we need to see more of in the wake of these horrific car attacks? >> we've come to expect that with our law enforcement that these are folks, men and women, that go to the sound of the guns, per se. to see somebody do that who's a citizen, it's heartening. unfortunately, we can't put a police officer on every corner. so the first line of defense is really people that are aware of their surroundings, not in condition white. they're aware of their surroundings. and to intervene so that this gentleman did not get away, or cause more carnage. keep in mind, a van, 4,000, 5,000 pounds, that's 2, 2.5 tons. when it's hurtling down the road, we're lucky that the casualty count is so low. >> these low-tech terror weapons, a rented van, rented car, stolen truck like we saw in the nice attack, should we be doing more to protect the public from these? >> again, we go back to the continuum. do we want civil liberties, do we want to live in a free and open society, or do we want to be 100% safe and secure? and the only way to do that is to have a police state which we're never going to have in the west. >> you make the point that people could be more aware, though. >> absolutely. >> usually we are -- in the west, we are walking around in a state of no concern. >> condition white. right. that's something i think now that as more of these events happen and people realize it's not just a matter of being on a plane that gets hijacked or being in a highrise or building that's a target because it's an iconic building or because it federal assets, people recognize that walking around times square or coming out of a mosque, a service like that, they have to be at least in condition yellow which says you can enjoy your life, but just be aware of your surroundings. >> james galliano, thank you. >> thanks. >> thank you. >>> here at home, more confusion and contradictions from the white house over whether president trump is being investigated for obstruction of justice. the president's lawyer says he is not, he is not under investigation. that directly contradicts the president who is tweeting that he is being investigated. cnn is reporting, our reporting is that special counsel robert mueller is looking into whether enough evidence exists to launch a full-scale obstruction probe. the "washington post" is reporting such a probe is already underway. who's right? would the president necessarily know? we get more this morning from cnn's athena jones. >> reporter: good morning, christine and dave. mixed messages are something that have come to define this white house. numerous times we've seen the president contradict not only his aides or others who work for him but also himself. and this is a case in point. on friday, he tweeted what seemed to be a confirmation of a "washington post" report from wednesday that he is under investigation for obstruction of justice. it's the same report that the president on thursday called a phony story. yet on friday he seemed to confirm it. now one of the president's lawyers, jay sekulow, is saying he is not under investigation. the president was citing that "washington post" report when he sent out the tweet on friday. here's more of what he had to say about all of this on "state of the union." watch. >> should we take that tweet from the president as confirmation that the president is under investigation? >> let me be clear, the president's not under investigation. >> it president said -- the president said, "i am under investigation," even though he isn't under investigation? >> that response on social media was in response to the "washington post" piece. >> you're saying that the president when he said that was not accurate? >> no. it was 141 characters. there's a limitation on twitter. >> the president thinks -- >> there should be no confusion -- no confusion. the president is not under investigation. >> it is confusing. >> reporter: after months of white house officials telling us we should take the president's tweets at face value, consider them presidential statements, now his lawyer is arguing something different. it's also important to note here that the president's allies, his lawyers and the folks at the republican national committee who have been defending him, have repeatedly pointed to now-fired fbi director james comey's testimony that he told the president on three separate occasions that he was not personally under investigation. the problem there is that comey has not been in charge of the fbi since the beginning of may. nearly six weeks ago which is a very long time in washington and in the news business. the other thing that's important to note is that the president himself and his legal team wouldn't necessarily know whether he's under investigation because the fbi and special counsel's office wouldn't necessarily notify the president of his -- and his lawyers of that fact. you have one of the president's lawyers here asserting as fact something that he's not really in a position to know. christine, dave? >> athena jones, thank you very much. >>> let's bring in politics reporter eugene scott. this weekend the president and his wife and his wife's parents and his son went to camp david. the first time he's gone on a weekend someplace that wasn't, you know, his own branded property except for the trip, the foreign trip that he took. and we're told -- there they are leaving marine one. his kid behind him. my kid loves those shoes like that, too. kids who are 11 wear like the craziest color shoes. mine does, too. what we are told is that this president is still really fired up about these investigations and gets angry. listen to what senator marco rubio said on nbc this weekend. >> one thing that we've learned i think from the testimony of multiple people is that the president is fired up about this. he -- from every pronounce. we have seen, he feels strongly that he did nothing wrong, and he wants people to say that. that in no way is going to impede any of the work from continuing. it's going to happen. this is going to move forward. we're going to get the full truth out there. and i repeat, i believe that is the best thing that can happen for the president, for this administration. >> even for the cameras with r&r at camp david, it seems as this president is as obsessed with this investigation as angry about it. >> certainly. i think one of the main credit sistine chapels that the trump administration has -- main criticism that the trump administration has of the mainstream media is that we spend so much time talking about the administration. if you monitor the president's tweets, he spends so much time talking about the investigation. almost daily -- >> and breathes life into developments every day. >> especially by tweeting things like "i am being investigated." the american people who he says he wants to communicate with via his twitter, that lets them know that this is something that they should be concerned about, as well, because he is. >> and that tweet was difficult to explain for the president's lawyer. went on "fox news sunday" with chris wallace. listen to this exchange. >> takes action based on numerous events including recommendations from his attorney general and the deputy attorney general's office. he takes the action that they also, by the way, recommended. and now he's being investigated by the department of justice. he's being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general, deputy attorney general, recommended him to take. >> you've said that he is being investigated after saying that you didn't -- >> no. >> you just said, sir -- >> no, he's not being investigated -- >> you just said that he's being investigated. >> no, chris. i said that -- let me be crystal clear so you completely understand. we have not received, nor are we aware of any investigation of the president of the united states. >> sir, you just said two times -- >> immediate period -- >> -- that he's being investigated -- >> crystal clear should not have to apply. how much more sense are the president's tweets making this case and investigation? >> based on that interview alone, extremely. i mean, the reality is he said, "i am being investigated." his lawyer at least twice said " "i am being investigated." the american people will take him at his word as to what he put out there. >> does it matter? >> it matters some people. it doesn't matter to others, right? the reality is these investigations are serious. and they're ongoing, and conclusions have not been made public yet. i think that's an important point to stick on, focus on. i think there are people say, well, nobody has found anything. just because it hasn't been revealed to you doesn't mean that it hasn't been revealed. >> it seems the eye has been taken off the ball. which is russian interference in our election. >> right. i think this could be a huge part of it. and that's what i think special councsel and team is trying to figure out. >> eye off the ball in policy. you have tax reform -- i don't know where tax reforms stands now. i know there are republicans who want to get something done. but the clock is ticking on that. it's also ticking on the repeal and replace for health care. that's happening behind closed doors. that was a big storyline among democrats. talking about a blockade of senate business so they could slow this down. what are you hearing? >> sure. what i'm hearing is that the democrats really want to meet with republicans, a senate-wide meeting, because there's frustration that republicans are meeting amongst themselves. not being public of where they're going, questions remain unclear. the democrats don't know what this is. senator mcconnell was hoping there would be a vote by july 4th. ten business days. the likelihood of that happening, i think it's low. we've seen bigger things happen in a shorter amount of time. i think if they want to make this progress before the fourth of july, there will have to be way more communication between both sides of the aisle. >> republicans only need two votes in the senate to get that bill through. eugene scott, we don't know if that. hall. >> thanks for being here, thank you. >>> the bodies of seven u.s. sailors recovered from the "uss fitzgerald." the latest on that. 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is he being looked at? is he not being looked at by the special counsel? this is not a meaningful legal situation. what you call it, is he being investigated, being looked at, this is confusion that the president created by his own tweets. he said something. we all act on what he said because he is president of the united states. and a phone call away from any type of information about what's going on with this investigation. there is no mystery for a president of the united states about what's being looked at. but his lawyer said one thing, he said another. and now everybody's confused. really it's a window into why the tweets can be a blessing and a curse. now on the legit legal action of whether this is obstruction, we have a great thing today. we have alan dershowitz, big brain from harvard, and jeffrey toobin, big brain from cnn, they've been bumping on this. they'll be on the show, they'll litigate the issue. i will be the judge complete with -- >> a gavel? >> silver gavel. which happens to be a very press teens legal award that -- prestigious legal word that very few people have. i happen to have one in my office. i wear a robe underneath my suit every day. it's part of a secret sekt thct i'm in. did i say that out loud? >> be careful of the gavel, camera. >> ow. >> thanks, guys. we'll see more on the markets. >>> the "money stream" next. time's up, insufficient we're on prenatal care.es. and administrative paperwork... your days of drowning people are numbered. same goes for you, budget overruns. and rising costs, wipe that smile off your face. we're coming for you, too. for those who won't rest until the world is healthier, neither will we. optum. how well gets done. the future isn't silver suits anit's right now.s, think about it. we can push buttons and make cars appear out of thin air. find love anywhere. he's cute. and buy things from, well, everywhere. how? because our phones have evolved. so isn't it time our networks did too? introducing america's largest, most reliable 4g lte combined with the most wifi hotspots. it's a new kind of network. xfinity mobile. >>> we welcome our viewers in the united states and around the >>> this is new day. it's monday, june 19. a van plows into northern worshippers in north london. >> the alleged attacker is in police custody. he was detained bibi standers until authorities arrived. this is the third vehicle attack in the u.s. in the last four months. let's begin our coverage with cnn's phil black live at the scene in north london. what's the latest, phil? >> as you said, it's treated as a terror investigation because it's so similar to the other attacks. again, a car has been used as a deadly weapon. a key difference, though. this isn't a high-profile target in central london. this is north of the city, a crowd leaving a mosque in the early hours of north london at the end of ramadan. that's when witnesses say they saw the van swerve into the crowd and plow into people. we've spoken to people who got involved and stopped it from escalating further. take a listen. >> suddenly it turned right to the mosque. i was shocked and we were scr m screaming. first a woman, 60 and another guy. he hit another three, four, five, six seven. suddenly the car stopped. we ran after him. managed to get him out of the car. >> so we got exclusive video of the man that they say they wrestled out of that vehicle. ma man you heard from there, some others, pulled him out of the car. they say he put up a real

told me to fire the fbi director. witch hunt." one of the president's personal lawyers, jay sekulow, widely insisted the president is not under investigation. then he all but admitted i can't be sure. >> no one has been notified that he is. >> you don't know whether he's under investigation or not. >> reporter: a contradiction he repeated on cnn. >> why you don't pick up the phone and find out is a little odd. if i hired you, i would want you to make that phone call. >> you haven't hired us because we represent the president of the united states. >> reporter: in a white house briefing room, there was a camera where secretary sean spicer provided more non-answers. special counsel robert mueller, spicer said, i think the broader point here is that everyone who serves the president should serve the president. spiceer said, i will tell you i believe the president commented in the next couple of weeks. it's possible that we have an answer on that by the end of this week. >> he has been asked about those tapes, and if they exist they be produced. >> jared kushner is touting the administration's i

now by a member of president trump's legal term jay sekulow, chief counsel from the american center for law and justice. jay, good to see you as always. happy father's day. >> good to see you. happy father's day to you, jake. >> thank you. should we take that tweet from the president as confirmation that the president is under investigation? >> let me be clear the president is not under investigation as james comey said in his testimony the president was not the target of investigation on three different occasions. the president is not a subject or target of an investigation. that tweet was in response to a "washington post" story that ran with five unnamed sources without identifying the agencies they represented saying that the special counsel had broadened out his investigation to include the president. we've had no indication of that. the president was responding to that particular statement from "the washington post" again with five anonymous sources and again, without identifying the agency so no, the president is not under investigation and has not been. >> so the president s

that? why did the president tweet i am being investigated? is jay sekulow saying trump was just reacting to news coverage? if so, why is trump deriding fake news if he believes the news? more importantly, who should you believe? is it true that the president is yelling at tv sets in the white house? why is he still watching so much tv anyway, isn't he busy? and where are the tapes? wait, are there tapes? why hasn't he cleared that up? what is the president hiding? why are white house briefings getting shorter and more limited? why hasn't trump given any interviews for five weeks? why aren't his aides all over tv defending him? are you as confused as i am? the news cycle can be bewildering but i think it's useful sometimes to watch what the president is watching. we know he loves sean hannity's show on fox news. he even retweeted a promo of the show on friday. and hannity's message night after night is that the media, the american media is trying to overthrow the president. >> the media has become completely unhinged. they're suffering from trump derangement syndrome. the truth d

analyst and criminal defense attorney, paige pace. we just heard from jay sekulow on "new day." is this the kind of position that a lawyer wants to be in, that your client did not say or did not mean what he said? >> absolutely not. that's the last thing you want to deal with as a lawyer. you want to remain focused on the investigation. what i found very interesting about what jay sekulow said this morning, he kind of walked back what he said this morning. initially he was adamant that the president is not under investigation. now he's saying we haven't been told we're under investigation. of course, you cannot be told you're under investigation and still be under investigation. i would expect that's exactly what's happening right now. they don't want to ask that question because they doesn't want to hear the answer. >> he doesn't know. we don't know. we certainly don't know that he's not under investigation. that's the legal reality. what's the political reality here, kaitlyn? this combative lawyer speaking out on his behalf, is this a good look? >> trump seems to like this kind of thi

>> this is "new day" with chris cuomo and allise allison camara. >> republicans are now 4-0. they won georgia's special election. they won south carolina's election. karen handel winning the most consequence house race in history. so the democrats failed. will they learn lessons from that? we will see. >> we will see. and also republican leaders in the senate plan to unveil their health care plan tomorrow. but how will they quell the frustrations being vocalized by some in their own party about the secretive nature of this entire process. >>> plus, why won't the white house say whether president trump believes russia hacked the u.s. election. a lot to cover during n"new day here. ooh, those democrats waking up this morning, they're hurtin'. >> oh, yeah, they are licking their wounds this morning. that is for sure. this has been a major loss for democrats, not just for jon ossoff. they poured so much time and money into his campaign, some $20 million-plus. again, major loss for ossoff and it points to major problems for the democrats going forward, not just leadership issues but an agenda issue as well going forward for them. make no mistake about it, a big win for handel. a big win for the president as well. he came down to the district to hold a fund-raiser for handel, even though handel down played what she could the national implications of the race and the president. but last night it was all about handel and the president. >> and a special thanks to the president of the united states of america. >> is there were chants of "trump trump trump" at that victory speech last night. you know, you heard chris mention at the top of the hour, 0 for 4 when it comes to democrats and these special elections. democrats were unable to try to take a seat there in south carolina where ralph norman ended up being the winner there. he also had aligned himself to donald trump. that race ended up being much closer than some expected but close just doesn't cut it when it comes to politics. brooke? >> jason, thank you. . >>> meantime, white house press secretary sean spicer will not say if president trump believes that russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election saying he hasn't talked to him about it yet. how's that possible? joe johns live at the white house with more. joe, how is that possible? >> reporter: anybody's guess, quite frankly, brooke. sean spicer, well, he was back in front of the cameras for the first time in eight days but lacking on some of the answers, including to one subtle question about russia's involvement and interference in the last election. sean spicer now five months into this administration still can't say where the president stands. white house press secretary sean spicer refusing to say whether president trump believes russia interfered in the 2016 election. >> i think i have not sat down and talked to him about it specifically. >> reporter: dismissing the unified assessment of the nation's intelligence community. >> it's very disturbing because this was a serious attack on our democracy and at the top of the united states government there ought to be a level of concern. >> reporter: spicer's refusal to answer this basic question adding to the mounting credibility issues facing the president's spokesman. >> i have not had an opportunity to have that discussion. i have not asked him. honestly, i haven't asked him. i can get back to you. >> reporter: president trump has addressed the issue with varying responses. >> as far as hacking, i think it was russia but i think we also get hacked by other countries and other people. i'll go along with russia. could have been china. >> reporter: but mr. trump does not appear too concerned given former fbi director james comey's testimony that the president never asked him about russian election meddling. attorney general jeff sessions reflecting this in testimony last week. >> i've never received any detailed briefing on how hacking occurred or how information was alleged to have influenced -- >> meanwhile, "the new york times" raising questions about why the president's fired national security advisor general michael flynn continued to sit in for the almost daily intelligence briefings from cia director mike pompeo for three weeks despite concerns across government that he may have been compromised by the russians. >> we told them that we were giving them all of this information so that they could take action. >> reporter: pompeo, ha was appointed to his position by the president in january, refused to answer questions about whether he knew his own agency's concerns last month. >> i can't answer yes or no. i regret that i'm unable to do so. >> reporter: this as the white house faces growing pressure on how it will respond to the death of otto warmbier. >> it is a total disgrace what happened to otto. that should never, ever be allowed to happen. >> reporter: president trump implicitly casting blame on the obama administration. >> frankly, if he were brought home sooner, i think the result would have been a lot different. >> reporter: and tweeting, without elaboration, that china's efforts to help north korea have not worked out. however, you might want to interpret that presidential tweet. it is likely to be part of the conversation this morning as the secretary of state meets with his chinese counterparts. the president later today expected to fly off to iowa for a campaign style rally. chris and brooke, back to you. >> thanks, joe. appreciate it. >>> let's bring in our panel, cnn's senior political analyst, ron brownstein. cnn political analyst april ryan. and associate editor and columnist at real clear politics, a.b. stoddard. so, professor brownstein, when you look at the numbers leer, what is the tale of the tape in these democrat losses in south carolina and, of course, georgia? >> i think if you look across the board, president trump picked four republicans from pretty republican districts for his cabinet and republicans held all of those seats. so there is an element here of holdi holding. on one hand i think republicans particularly saw in georgia one encouraging sign. they polled republican leaning voters who were ambivalent about president trump by making this less of a referendum on him and more on who do you want to see as speaker. on the other hand, you look across the board at all of these special elections, democrats ranch better than they did just a year ago in 2016. in georgia 6, karen handel wins by 4 1/2 points. that says when you get to places less inherently tilted toward the republicans where president trump's approval rating is closer to the national average of around 40% than what it was in this district at 50%, those kinds of changes put those seats as risk. democrats have a shots at the house. they have no guarantee of the house. in that way we are pretty much where we started before these four elections happened. >> democrats were hoping for a shot at the georgia 6 because the president only one by one, one and half percentage points. though this is a ruby red district. a tweet by a republican -- business as usual isn't working. time to stop rehashing 2016 and talk about the future. the future. 2018 mid-terms. how do democrats turn it around? >> brooke, democrats have to find their footing. they have to find some energy. there's been a lot of resist movement activity. there's been a lot of -- we are not happy with this -- but it did not translate in the polls last night. and brooke, in another interesting piece, ossoff did not get fulton or dekalb, his base. so there needs to be some kind of reset. there needs to be i guess like myth romneitt romney had that e sketch moment. they need to figure out who they are. there is disease in this nation. the base is just not energized right now. >> so, a.d., when you win, it's easy. no real reason to diagnose success. but when you lose, you get into the acronym for failed. future always involves learning. what are the lessons for the democrats? >> well, i do think that they can comfort themselves with what ron was talking about, that they grew their numbers so much in a district that was long-time republican district and they're really making strides. but close is no cigar and i think they do have to listen to congressman molten and focus on a policy agenda. they do have an energized face. but when all of the millions from social media for the georgia 6 race come out of the district, it is a problem. though he spoke like a moderate and played down his criticism of president trump, focused on local issues. they're going to have to think about candidates espousing a policy agenda that gets back to winning back some of the working class white voters in some of these districts where they're really stretching themselves from a blue district into a purple or red one in order to take back those voters notion year. i think they have to realize you can't just get national excitement behind these individual races because people in california are upset with trump and sending a big collection. that's not going to cut it. >> ron? >> i want to add real quick. i agree. look, if you look where trump and the republican party is, the biggest opportunity for democrats is in these white collar, more affluent better educated districts. but this is a reminder that not all of those districts are the same. in the election last year hillary clinton won only 28% of college educated whites in georgia as opposed to almost double that in a place like colorado. they are going to have to move beyond that into more of the blue collar places probably, even though most of them might be white collar. they are going to have to be able to compete across the spectrum to win back the house in 2018. >> a.b., we're going to have ron johnson out. we're going to have senator ron johnson on. one of the few republican senators who say, yeah, i know what's in the bill, it is a good bill, we're going to move forward with it. what are the big selling points for them and how do they explain this secrecy that has so many within their own ranks upset? >> well, it is hard to explain the secrecy. it doesn't take a lot for john mccain to criticize his leadership in the clips that you've been playing this morning but it certainly took a lot i think for senator mike lee of utah, who's been in the working group, to step out and say, people in the working group who are supposed to be drafting this bill and doing these -- handling these negotiations have been left out. >> he's frustrated. >> that is really a real high level of sort of resentment that they would take that public against their leaders. so the secrecy will always be a big attack surrounding this bill. the components of the bill will be explosive no matter what because it will irk trying to find a balance between what is a soft landing for states where they expanded medicaid. are tax credits sufficient enough to cover the cost of the new kind of coverage for people who are older or sick. will people be priced out of the new kind of coverage, what ezra was talking about, whether or not premiums in the end go down. republicans will own the outcome so they're really scared of this compromise from both sides. but the secrecy decision obviously was they made a decision that both choices were bad, to come out and take this public would expose them to criticism for all the interest groups in the democrats and maybe even president trump which ended up happening anyway. so they took it behind closed doors hoping that in the interest of speed they can get beyond this because republican leadership sources have told me if this fails by the end of july before the august recess starts, they're bailing on this for good and moving on to taxes. >> so, as we follow that, april ryan, it is your day job to sit in that briefing room each and every day and ask tough questions of the press secretary. you've heard the line, "i don't know," "i can't respond," "i haven't talked to the president about that." you got that on a couple issues. but when the press secretary was asked specifically yesterday about russian meddling in the 2016 election when you know all of the president's intel chiefs have said, yes, it was russia, why can't they say yes? >> because there is an investigation going on. and they have a lot of time before it really comes down to the president having to say something, brooke. they're trying to be very judicious in what they say and when they say it and how they say it. it is a strategic tactic. we all pretty much know where the president is when it comes to russia. but right now they're trying to hold tight and keep it so they don't cause themselves any more pain. it's about credibility. it's about where sean stands. sean is siding with the team in not giving the information that we are looking for in russia. >> grab some water. sorry i caught you -- >> choked up. >> -- on this issue. it is a tough job. it is a tough job. we appreciate you asking all those tough questions and coming on. thanks to all of you this morning. republicans, they have blasted democrats, as we have been talking about health care. they've blasted them for not being transparent when it came to obamacare in '09 and 2010. why are they rushing to passion the bill that really no one's seen? we'll talk to a senator who has been part of the health care group working on this. what they know next. as moms, we send our kids out into the world, full of hope. and we don't want something like meningitis b getting in their way. meningococcal group b disease, or meningitis b, is real. bexsero is a vaccine to help prevent meningitis b in 10 to 25 year olds. even if meningitis b is uncommon, that's not a chance we're willing to take. meningitis b is different from the meningitis most teens were probably vaccinated against when younger. we're getting the word out against meningitis b. our teens are getting bexsero. bexsero should not be given if you had a severe allergic reaction after a previous dose. most common side effects are pain, redness or hardness at the injection site; muscle pain; fatigue; headache; nausea; and joint pain. bexsero may not protect all individuals. tell your healthcare professional if you're pregnant or if you have received any other meningitis b vaccines. ask your healthcare professional about the risks and benefits of bexsero and if vaccination with bexsero is right for your teen. moms, we can't wait. so when i need to book a hotel to me tharoom,vacation. i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it, with great summer deals up to 40% off. visit booking.com. booking.yeah! eyet some cards limit where yout earn bonus cash back to a few places. and then, change those places every few months. enough with that! with quicksilver from capital one you've always earned unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. welcome to unlimited what's in your wallet? pcountries thatk mewe traveled,t what is your nationality and i would always answer hispanic. so when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. i'm everything. i'm from all nations. i would look at forms now and wonder what do i mark? because i'm everything. and i marked other. discover the story only your dna can tell. order your kit now at ancestrydna.com. >>> senate majority leader mitch mcconnell promising a vote on health care as early as next thursday. the problem is -- nobody really seems to know what's in the bill, even in his own party. we get that they're eager to get something done before the july 4th recess, but is this the way to do it? to make the case, republican senator ron johnson, the chairman of the homeland security, and he is part of the working group trying to hammer out the health care bill. so you're on the two important committees here really if you look at it. senator, always good to have you on "new day." thank you for being here. what do you make of this process? is it fair criticism to say it has been very secretive? >> well, first of all, the decision was made to do this through reconciliation. i don't necessarily agree with that but that was the decision made. so you've got a bill that had to be crafted by republicans. from that standpoint it's been a very open process within the republican conference. somebody's got to write a bill. now leadership will write a bill. what i've told leadership very clearly is i'm going to need time and my constituents are going to need time to evaluate exactly how this will affect them. i personally think that holding a vote on this next week would definitely be rushed. i can't imagine, quite honestly, that i'd have the information to evaluate and justify a yes vote just within a week. >> what do you make of that? obviously you have senator mccain being snarky about it but saying that he's not going to vote on a bill that he hasn't seen. you're hearing that from paul, you're hearing that from cruz. mike lee went even further and he's one of the guys tasked with drafting it and he says, "i don't know what's in it, i share your frustration." >> i'm in this working group as well. the purpose of the working group isn't to actually write the bill. it is to really discuss all the issues. it is very complex. in two meetings i saw the wide spectrum of opinions within the republican conference trying to fix this mess of obamacare. my suggestion was let's break this into two parts. let's pass something to stabilize the insurance markets that are literally collapsing under obamacare. that was my counsel two months ago. unfortunately, we didn't do that yet. but that's the minimum thing we have to do. that's the minimum legislation we have to pass, is something to stabilize the markets that are collapsing because of obamacare. >> is part of your idea to have the federal government put through the subsidies that the president is threatening which is having an effect on the destabilization? >> i don't like the fact that these markets are collapsing, that premiums have doubled under obamacare and if we don't do something they'll skyrocket again but that's the reality we're facing. coming from the business world, i kind of am big into reality. that's the reality we have to deal with. i think it is our responsibility to stabilize those markets, pass something that we really don't like, but i think we should do that first and foremost. >> the speculation is that the secrecy is, in part, practicality, how to get it done quickest, but also pragmatism, that mcconnell and maybe others don't want people to know what's in here because you've got that huge price tag of lives -- 23 million people who may lose care, and that caps may be reintroduced into how much care you can get, and that pre-existing conditions may well be compromised. you know that that's not going to go over well with big groups of your constituents so you are doing it in private. >> first of all, the house passed their bill. that's been out in the public demain. the senate is using that as a framework. again, within the republican conference it's been a very open process. now we're going to draft a bill and that will be made public. i want to fully vet it in the public. i want to make sure that my constituents have enough time to provide input. again, i'm not going to criticize the process unless we start taking the vote way too early -- >> that's what your leader is telling you he wants to do. >> well, you know, that will be a decision he'll make. but i've told him unless i have the input from my constituents and have the information i need to justify a yes vote, i wouldn't be voting yes. >> so you think there is a good chance mcconnell will put this up for a vote if he's got guys who are good soldiers but pragmatic like you who say, i'm not going to vote for it if i can't sell it? >> i'm not going to speak for the leader whatsoever. what i will say again is these markets are collapsing. we do have to pass something to stabilize them and from my standpoint, the whole goal of our effort ought to be to fix our health care system. that's a really tall order because obamacare has really messed it up. >> you think it is worse now than it was before obamacare? >> absolutely, it is worse. >> even though the rates have increased and premiums are less? >> no. chris, premiums have doubled under obamacare. >> but the rate of increase -- the rate of increase during this period of aca is less than it was before it and you have so many millions more covered in ways that they weren't covered. >> chris, on the individual market -- that's primarily what obamacare is. on the individual market, premiums have doubled. i don't think that's ever happened in our health care history where premiums on the health care market have doubled, in some cases tripled. that's because obamacare is incredibly flawed. >> you're being a little self-selective with the data, aren't you? some of those markets have cratered, but there are complex reasons for that. some of those states haven't taken advantage of the law. they didn't want to. they set themselves up for failure. and in other ones you have some endemic problems you need to address. >> obamacare is primarily addressing the individual market. nowhere near the number of un uninsured. about 20 million people. of that, about 10 million are on the individual market. more than half of those already had the insurance. i think close to 16 million on medicaid. half of those already qualified for medicaid. obamacare was all about the individual market. it has really messed up the individual market. that's what they have to fix. for a long time i've been saying what our efforts need to be directed toward is repairing damage caused by obamacare. then work on restraints, cost, improve access. you do that through consumer driven free market competition. that's what actually works. if i really target a metric, it would be how much of every elt had care dollar is actually paid for by the patient. in the growth of health care costs, that's a much longer discussion we'll undertake here in the next couple weeks. >> people need to look up two things for themselves. one, what was the rate increase before the aca and what is it now. >> individual market. >> but all the different markets matter. that's how you determine overall cost. senator, thank you formakering the case, as always. >> have a good day. >>> the white house refuses to answer simple questions from reporters. what's behind the constant string of non-answers to the plez president's thinking? david objectionle rod is next. z. . . . . . >>> white house press secretary sean spicer having a tough 250itime answering a simple question five months into the trump presidency -- does the president believe russia meddled in the u.s. election. sean spicer has repeatedly been unable to answer this question. >> i have not asked the president since the last time we spoke about this. >> i haven't spoken to him about it on the reason. >> i don't know. i honestly haven't asked him that specific question. >> i said i have not had a discussion with him about the question. >> i haven't talked to the president specifically about this. >> i have not had the opportunity to have that discussion. >> i have the no askt asked him. >> i have not asked the president. >> david axelrod, you know very well that brady press briefing room is like a stone's throw from the west wing. help us understand how -- and we have president trump on record initially talking about russian meddling. now totally backing off and unable to answer the question. what's up? >> well, look. that -- it may be a stone's throw away but i think in that white house it also could be the grand canyon for the relationship between the spokesman and the president. i don't mean their personal relationship. i have no reason to believe he's not talking to the president. but, look. the hardest job in america is to be donald trump's spokesman, because only donald trump speaks for donald trump and we saw that -- we've seen that so many times. we saw sean spicer and the vice president and others go out, for example, and explain why the president fired james comey only to be contradicted by the president on national tv. i think that's what happened is that sean spicer's decided to pull in his horns and simply plead ignorance rather than making declarative statements and then being proved wrong later. >> but is this an improvement, axe? this is just jazzing the media. everybody knows he talks to the president. everybody knows he's aware of his position. so why offer up an answer that just becomes an attack on your own credibility. >> because i think he would rather do that than offer up an answer that becomes a huge controversy, no, the president doesn't believe that, or say, yes, he does believe that, and have the president offer a contradictory statement. look, chris, we know he is a short-timer. they are looking for a replacement. it tells you something about how undesirable that job is that they apparently can't find someone who's willing to stand up there and play that role. i mean you have to be in cirque de soleil to be a spokesman for donald trump for all the twisting and turning and unbelievable kind of maneuvers you have to make to try and survive there. i think sean's just running out there waiting for someone else to come up there and take a beating. >> yeah, he definitely didn't deny it when he was asked about what he was up to next. these reports. what about the georgia six, david? i stayed up way too late watching you on tv in the wake of the big karen handel victory. you see the numbers on the screen. you have congressman molten -- time to stop rehashing 2016 and talk about the future. where is the future of democrats? who is going to win? >> yeah. look. i think seth molten is a great guy and great young leader in the democratic party. i'm not sure that that's what this was about because ossoff i think was talking about the future. i don't think he was a particularly good candidate for this district, a 30-year-old unknown who didn't live in the district. i think his best chance was to win back in the first round when the republicans were fractionated and disorganized and you had a chance to take advantage of that. he got their attention in the runoff and they came with everything they had in a district that the republicans have held for 40 years. this was a big night for the republicans because they averted what would have been a disaster to lose that seat that newt gingrich won back in the late '70s and republicans have held would have been an unmitigated disaster for the republican party. but let's also recognize that there have been four runoffs. democrats have lost them all, republicans have won them all, but they've all been solidly if had republicans districts. this was a plus-nine republican district. they won in another district last night in south carolina. that is a plus-nine or ten republican district and they won by a little more than three points. the question is what happens when you get into districts that are more competitive than these districts were. and we don't know the answer to that yet. so i mean democrats will do what democrats do and there will be a lot of finger pointing about messaging and so on. i think the democratic party ha is to gh out and recruit candidates and compete in districts which they can actually win which are districts, for example, where republicans are in office and hillary clinton won. those are the districts that should be focusing on. >> message matters obviously. you want to find the right messenger. that's probably going to take a turn toward policy for the democrats. makes this health care situation that much more important. what do you make of the state of play on this health care bill right now? yes, it's been too secretive. even the republicans are clamoring about that. but at the end of the day, if they pass something, that will be delivering on that republican plo promise to undo the aca. what's the democrat play? >> i think delivering on that promise, chris, is what's motivating mitch mcconnell. he does not want to be blamed by the republican base for allowing the repeal and replace effort on the affordable care act to die in the united states senate. so he's trying every which way to get his factions together and find 50 votes in that chamber to pass this bill. it is not clear, as we sit here, that that will happen. i do think what happened in georgia last night in a strange way made it a little bit easier because they would have been in full panic on capitol hill, republicans would have, if ossoff had won that race in georgia. nonetheless, there are big, big issues dividing moderate republicans from conservative republicans, the same divisions we saw in the house, only he has less running room because they have fewer republicans in the senate. i think mcconnell is trying to force the issue. he doesn't want republicans to go whom over the holiday break and hear from their constituents. he doesn't want to unfurl this bill until they have the details of it because he knows it is going to be highly controversial and it is a very -- it is a very narrow pass he's trying to navigate. it is also a very cynical play. the fact is the affordable care act had ten months of hearings and a lot of public discussion. this is quite something. this is historic in its secretiveness. >> all right, axe. appreciate your take, as always. >> thanks, david. >>> all right. so one of the hottest companies in the country, really in the world, is uber. its founder and ceo is now out. why? what does it mean? next. so you miss the big city? i don't miss much... definitely not the traffic. excuse me, doctor... the genomic data came in. thank you. you can do that kind of analysis? yeah, watson. i can quickly analyze millions of clinical and scientific reports to help you tailor treatment options for the patient's genomic profile. you can do that? even way out here? yes. even way out here. >>> file for 5 things to know for your new day. president trump and fellow republicans celebrating a win in the most expensive house race in u.s. history. karen handel defeatng democrat jon ossoff in the special election in georgia's sixth district. >> senate republican leaders plan to unveil a draft of their secret health care bill tomorrow. a vote could come as early as next week. >>> tropical storm cindy along the gulf coast. 70 million people are under a tropical storm warning. that storm could bring 15 inches of rain. >>> jared kushner in jerusalem trying to kick-start middle east peace talks. he is meeting with the prime minister of israel before traveling to ramallah for talks with the palestinian president. > >>> the man who held build uber and turn it into a transportation giant all over the world is resigning as ceo in the face of a revolt by the company's investors. >>> so, special counsel bob mueller meeting with the senate judiciary committee today. he has been making the rounds to kind of draw the lines between what congress and he should investigate. obstruction of justice is a big one. can he make the case. >>> but first, the family dog may soon have a high-tech way to be man's best friend. researchers are developing technology to help dogs fetch for assistance when their humans have medical emergencies. it is the latest in "teching care of your health." >> reporter: this border kcolli is testing a device that could ultimately have dogs call 911. the dog taps a color pattern and signals help. >> this uses infrared technology. this allows the screen to get a little messy but still be functional and be able to be used. good boy! >> reporter: researchers are finding ways to help all dogs, big and small, to communicate when their owners needs help. >> my owner needs you're attention. please follow me. >> reporter: dogs naturally as puppies can pull things, they can touch things with their noses. they can hold things in their mouth. they can bite things. we just taught them, okay, you're going to do that behavior you already know on the sensor that you are wearing. for people with certain medical conditions, the technology could be a life saver. a person with diabetes can have an episode where they become very disoriented and they might not be able to make a phone call or call 911. so it is extremely important that the dogs can do that. these creatures are man's best friend for a reason. ♪ [...rumors of the new discovery...] what if we lived in a world like that? (crowd applauding) ♪ we know a place that's already working on it. ♪ >>> today bob mueller will meet with senators today. with me today, ken cuccinelli, the former attorney general and president senate conservatives fund. it is good to have you with us, ken. thank you for helping us out. >> chris, good to be with you. >> thank you. let's start with something that doesn't really deserve much debate. would you be surprised if bob mueller is looking at this issue of the context of the dismissal of james comey? >> well, at least to check the box. the starting problem with that is the president has the authority to fire the people who work for him. but when the president says after he fires james comey, you know, i really want -- i was really mad about this russia investigation, that obviously raises the question. but comey's testimony i think actually made it harder to make an obstruction case against the president. the intent element is required and it's got to be substantial. and remember, within less than 48 hours andrew mccabe, acting director of the fbi, testified before the senate that comey's firing stopped and slowed down nothing with respect to the russia investigation. surely the president had to know that was the case. >> well, we don't know what he knew, first of all. and we don't know what his intent was, as you say. but you basically have a list of a pattern here. i mean my initial question to you is because the idea that the president's not under investigation. jay sekulow comes on, that's what he wants to argue about. it seemed a silly thing to pursue. of course mueller is going to look at this. i think he would get a lot of criticism, and rightly so, if he didn't look at it. that doesn't mean he could make a case. but the fact that he's not looking at it because he hasn't informed jay sekulow because he is looking at it? that's absurd, isn't it? >> yeah. no. look. investigators do not typically tell the people being investigated -- >> right? >> -- that they are in fact under investigation. there's no duty to. there is a point where grand juries might be used when people are identified as targets. that's doj practice. >> but that's way down the road. way down the road. we're nowhere near. i would never suggest anything otherwise. >> and it is correct to say that mueller has got to list all the possibilities and at least look at them closely enough to check off them as to whether they did or didn't happen, whether it is possible to make a case. >> so we agree, of course he is investigating it. what he does with it is a very separate issue. let's talk about that quickly here. the idea of making a case. not easy. i don't think anybody would argue otherwise if they were doing it for non-partisan reasons. but, the "i hope" statements. you've talked about this before. so i did a little research. there are federal courts of appeals that have found similar "i hope" statements to be enough to trigger obstruction. it depends on the context and what kind of pattern behavior may have been at play. wouldn't that be a concern here? >> i was just going to say, it depends what it's combined with. >> it wasn't just firing. of course he can fire as the head of the executive. but he can't fire anybody for any reason. and when you look at what happened with co-nmey in the context of what he asked in letting the flynn thing go, going to dan coats, going to the dni, and then firing comey. when you look at it all together, it does seem suggestive at least to go down the road of what was the intent, was it corrupt intent. because obviously that would be the check on the power to fire, would it be not? >> right. and it would be at some level. you do trigger a constitutional question about whether there can be any restrictions on the president's ability to fire people in the executive branch. >> you really think that's a big question about whether or not he can fire? really? >> well, it will be for constitutional lawyers. i mean, look. if this were to proceed -- let's take a worst case scenario and say that enough other information comes up to suggest -- because, as you said, we can't know what he's thinking. we're going to see the use of circumstantial evidence to decide that he had that intent. if worst case scenario. and then you trigger the question, the constitutional question of can we proceed down this road at all. the obstruction cases you're talking about in federal courts are correct, but they aren't against a president who had the authority to direct the executive branch -- >> but the authority's not unchecked. we both know that. i'm not talking about nixon. remember the trouble that nixon got into by saying -- >> it's an untested legal question. >> it is. but i'm just saying conceptually, the idea that he can fire anybody for any reason just doesn't make any sense. if he said to a prosecutor, if he said to the fbi, no more drug cases, but only against my friends. and you didn't do that so i'm going to fire you, nobody would question whether or not that was wrong. right? i mean even with pardons where you have almost plenary authority to the president. if he was exchanging them for money, we'd say that's wrong. so you have to look at why he did it, right? >> sure. right. but as you noted earlier, i think we can reasonably expect that the only kind of evidence we're going to have here is circumstantial other than statements like, can you lay off mike flynn, the day after he was already fired. that was actually i thought the most serious thing on this obstruction front to come out of the comey testimony was the personal testimony about that request. but of course, it was made the day after mike flynn was already gone. so this is going to be a very speculative area, especially for those of us on the outside who don't have access to the investigative information. until we hear some kind of conclusion from bob mueller. >> you were an a zbchlt and you we an ag and you were a damn good one and you were aggressive. if this fact pattern came to you about the governor, let's say, you wouldn't just dismiss it out of hand because he was your state's chief executive. >> look, we had a fact pattern about my governor and we did look at it. >> that's why i asked you. >> we proceeded down the state law. i expect muler to check all of the boxes within his jurisdiction. i assume the meeting today with the senate is to define the boundaries of who's investigating what. i mean one of the big complaints by both republicans and democrats over the last 20 years has been when these special counsel or independent counsel take on a case that they, on their own authority, expand their jurisdiction massively. that's where mueller could get in a lot of trouble. things that might get outside the russia collusion box, he should hand over to other doj investigators so they can carry them and stay focused on the main question before him and that's russian collusion and whether it happened or not. because america is going to benefit from knowing the answer to that. >> right. no question about that. we need more fact and truth in this situation. this question certainly would fit in the box. despite what the president tweeted, bob mueller is neither bad nor in conflict on this issue. so let's hope he does the job the right way. ken cuccinelli, appreciate you here making the case, helping us out. always a pleasure. this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges. new mass transit. new business friendly environment. new lower taxes. and new university partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. learn more at esd.ny.gov i discovered a woman my family tree, named marianne gaspard. i became curious where in africa she was from. so i took the ancestry dna test to find out more about my african roots. ancestry really helped me fill in a lot of details. when heartburn hits fight back fast with new tums chewy bites. fast relief in every bite. crunchy outside. chewy inside. tum tum tum tum new tums chewy bites. z286oz zwtz y286oy ywty >>> it's time for "the good stuff." a community in california helps a teenager get the surgery she needs. paige was active her whole life, but that all stopped when she was diagnosed with scoliosis. her spine quickly progressing to a 70-degree curve. >> you lose your mobility, your whole lifestyle changes. >> her doctor said she needs surgery and fast. but, it wasn't that easy. the problem -- didn't have the cash. >> $150,000 is something that you can't pull out of your wallet and say, let's go for it. >> but guess what? >> they did! >> when they decided to go for it? the community. word spread. they pitched in. and now paige has something she'll never forget. >> i'm hoping to get this procedure and live a long and happy life. >> isn't that what it's all about? >> love it! >> you find out somebody is in need. maybe you can't help all by yourself but together, what a power. >> love it. thank you. thanks for having me. al alison, not that you're tuning in to watch your own show, but happy birthday! >> john berman. >>> we have a lot of news. let's get right to it. new this morning, the president is claiming victory in a race he did not run and the democrats are claim iing it in a race the did not win. this is the actual winner in

russia investigation. we have a lot of topics to cover today. you heard jay sekulow the president's attorney say that when the president tweeted this "i am being investigated for firing the fbi director by the man who told me to fire the fbi director, witch hunt." he did not mean he was literally being investigated. >> sounded to me what the president was doing and this is the limitations of twitter, the context was he was sort of repeating what "the washington post" story was like. not oh i'm being investigated by -- in other words he's just taking a summary of "the post" article and repeated it as opposed to saying oh, i'm being investigated. now, i get it. that's a nuance, and you can roll your eyes back on it, but that's what jay sekulow was saying the president said. the problem with that is, it's twitter, and you don't have context, and very credibly could be seen as the president confirming that he's being investigated. that's the problem with the president tweeting. >> i think the president might be watching us today. as a democrat, an attorney i want to give him some advice

talk shows, jay sekulow, one of the president's private attorneys, told state of the union that was not true. >> that was in response to a "washington post" piece. it's that simple. >> with all due respect, the president said, "i am being investigated" in a tweet and people take his word on that, but you're his attorney. you're saying that the president, when he said that, was not accurate? >> no. the president -- it was 141 characters is the limitation on twitter, as we all know. there should be no confusion the president is not under investigation. >> reporter: but confusion and contradictions linger over the president's firing of fbi director james comey. sekulow concedes the president was under investigation. >> he's being investigated by the department of justice, so he's being investigated for taking the action that the attorney general and the deputy attorney general recommended that he take by the agency who recommended the termination. >> reporter: on cnn's "new day," sekulow still doing clean-up today, telling chris cuomo that he sdint think he's under investigation. >> do

attorney or jay sekulow, has hired a big white collar d.c. attorney and jared kushner is looking around potentially for a new attorney. he has a former colleague of bob mueller at a law firm, someone who worked in the clinton administration and there's been -- she's had pushback for working for him which is partisan politics but the idea that maybe jared kushner needs better counsel. this is monday. where will we be on friday? >> well, the amazing thing is your whole list there and everything we are talking about, none of it is health care, infrastructure or anything else and there's some major budget bills they have got to get through. the president is just, sure, you could say congress can do that, two things at once, whatever, they can just ignore the president. fact is, they can't ignore the president. >> i will be interested to also hear, you mentioned jeh johnson's testimony before the house intelligence committee. he's already privately met with the house intelligence committee, senate intelligence committee. when he goes out and speaks publicly, it will be interesting to

correspondent, dana bash. not only did jay sekulow defended him, in the past 24 hours plus, to say the president is not under investigation though the president's tweet says otherwise. what is the white house strategy you are hearing behind this full court press against the word investigation? >> i'm not so sure it's a white house strategy. seems to me it is a president trump strategy. that is get someone out there, get them on television, tell the world, i am not under investigation. sure, it contradicts the tweet, but, you know, it's certainly not the first time we have seen contradictory information or statements coming from this white house. this is a president who we know, if the comey testimony an memos are correct, has been ap lek tick since the minute he got into office, before he got into office, wanting the public to think and see he is not under investigation. this is a wrinkle in that notion. the more jay sekalow was out talking about it and the less republicans in congress and the republicans who work for the president in the white house feel they can focus on what they wa

investigation. listen to how jay sekulow one of the attorneys on the president's legal team explained this on "state of the union." >> should we take that tweet as confirmation the president is under investigation? >> the president is not under investigation as james comey said in his testimony the president was not the target of an investigation on three different occasions. the president is not the subject or target of an investigation. that tweet was in response to a "washington post" story that ran with five unnamed sources without identifying the agencies they represented saying the special counsel had broadened out his investigation to include the president. we've had no indication of that. the president was responding to that particular statement from "the washington post" again with five anonymous sources and again, without any identifying agency. no, the president is not under investigation. >> the president said "i am under investigation" even though he isn't under investigation? >> that response on social media was in response to "the washington post" piece. the president is not un

could have seen that. let's talk about what's going on with jay sekulow. jeff, we saw the president's attorney basically saying a couple contradictory things this weekend. what did you make of that? >> i saw jay sek urksekulow, wh really fine and good lawyer, feeling sean spicer's pain. he was unthere saying donald trump is not under investigation because donald trump does not want to be perceived as under investigation. >> despite having tweeted that he's under investigation. >> right, but of course he's under investigation. i mean, look at comey's testimony, look at the fact that mueller is now interviewing the head of the nsa rogers, the head of the dni coats. those are witnesses to possible obstruction of justice of donald trump. that's the only reason to interview them. you know, it doesn't mean donald trump is guilty, it doesn't mean he'll be charged with anything, but is he under investigation? of course he is. >> david, do you buy sekulow's explanation was a response to the "washington post" story, that it said he was under investigation. i think he said he employe

prompted the naming of special counsel. so in many ways, by tweeting this out initially, which was essentially based on nothing, the president sort of created his own worst situation. the worst outcome. this is what he had been hoping to avoid. in many ways he precipitated it. >> very interested. i know you're getting ready for the white house press briefing over there. sara huckabee sanders, the white house deputy press secretary, is going to be briefing you and all of the reporters. unfortunately, the white house has decided that the american people will not be able to see this briefing live. we're not going to be able to hear it live. neither cnn nor any of the other cable news networks, msnbc, fox, c-span. why have they decided they don't want the american public to see and hear this briefing live? >> reporter: that's right. again they've decided this is going to be an off-camera briefing. we're hoping to bring the audio to viewers later on after this has concluded. this is something the white house has been moving more toward, taking cameras outside of the briefing room, something that's traditionally been done on camera. and no longer having to answer questions to the american public. really gives these administration officials an opportunity not to have to have their faces on camera while they're questioned about things like why the president would float the notion of tapes that don't exist in the first place, or really any questions about russia which we've seen this administration dodge over and over again. of course, it is a blow to transparency. it's a blow to those viewers out there who fund this white house, who fund these people's salaries with their own taxpayer dollars for these folks not even to answer questions on camera. >> especially on an important day like today. the president's announcement now on twitter that there are no tapes or recordings of any of his conversations with the fired fbi director, james comey. also the senate -- the senate republican leadership has finally released their version of health care reform, repealing and replacing the affordable care act, obamacare. you would think that an important day like this they would want live coverage of what the white house reaction to all of these developments is. but they've decided, what, only after the briefing will we be able to play the audio only but no video. is that what i'm hearing? >> reporter: that's right. it's essentially embargoed audio until after the briefing concludes. you will not be able to listen live. and one of the things that's worth pointing out is obviously people who are watching this at home, people whether they vote for president trump or not, may not agree with every question we ask in a briefing. some may or may not be relevant to them. this is the point at which the administration has to answer not just to people who voted for donald trump but people who did not. as you mention, it's a critical day. not just in terms of the russia investigation, in terms of what is going on with these tapes, but in terms of a huge health care initiative. this is what president trump and other republicans ran on, repealing and replacing obamacar obamacare. you would expect the white house to put someone in front of a camera to answer questions about whether the president is happy about this bill. whether he agrees that this is not a mean bill as he described the houston? whether he believes that this is legislation that has more heart. that appears it is not something we're willing to do today, wolf. >> all right, i know that they're going to force our cameras to go down and show the floor, if you will. we're not going to be able to show live pictures of this briefing when sara huckabee sanders walks out. we'll touch base. we're anxious to get more details on the president's tweet that he posted. no recordings or tapes of his conversations with comey. we'll also get more reaction from the white house on the republican health care bill that's been released. i want to bring in our chief analyst gloria borger, chief correspondent dana bash, and cnn politics reporter eugene scott. let me read, gloria, the tweet, first of all. once again, to our viewers. president saying, no tapes, no recordings of his conversations with comey. even though he's the one in early may in a separate tweet who raised the possibility of records -- recordings or tweets. whooe here's what he posted -- "with all of the electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking, and illegal leaking of information, i have no idea whether there are "tapes" or recordings of my conversations with james comey, but i did not make and do not have any such recordings." as i say, he said the other day we're going to be disappointed, the news media, when he tells us if there are recordings because we would have liked to have had those recordings, presumably. this is the president who raised this possibility, and it was seen initially as a threat to comey, you better shut up because there could be recordings. >> maybe that's what it was. i mean, you have to ask the question, why did the president tweet this in the first place? was it as a threat to comey, or maybe there's another possibility. does he believe he's actually being secretly recorded in his own white house? recorded by law enforcement? we don't know the answers to those questions. the third thing to think about here is as we're looking at this empty podium is the president once again believes he's his own best spokesman. he didn't have his press people release this. he released this. the timing, of course, coincides with a briefing that we will not be able to see on camera because he once again wants to be his own spokesman here. and here's the tweet -- let me put it up again, in early may that the president initially posted. this is the tweet. let's get it up on the screen now. there you see. it "james comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" he's the one who raised this first, and it's now taken well over a month to get a final answer from the president. in his new tweet, "i did not make and do not have any such recordings." >> look, he was incredibly frustrated. we know that he doesn't maybe always use the take a deep breath and count to ten rule before he uses social media. he at the time, the context is he had seen probably a story out there not long before he sent that tweet that, you know, talked about a private conversation that he had with james comey. sarah's right. and we were talking about this. that because he didn't kind of withhold his own emotions and anger and frustration, okay, people get frustrated, it's understandable, but he didn't stop doing it on twitter. you have comey testifying publicly that the reason he got his memos out there was a direct reaction to that tweet. he said, oh, there's the president, you know, basically threat earning me. i better -- threatening me. i better get my side out first. then the domino effect has just continued over and over and over again. >> called self-sabotage. >> exactly. >> he could have clarified this a long time ago, right after that initial tweet of his and said, you know what, there are flow recordings. it's taken all this time. why do you think it's taken so long for the president of the united states to say no tapes? >> i feel like he thinks this is in the best interests of people to keep them waiting and keep them intrigued. it's almost a concept he perhaps picked up from being a in reality television. suggests to some that he doesn't grasp the seriousness of what this concern was. i think he could have made it clear as quickly as possible when he mutt it out that -- when he put it out that that perhaps was not the best thing to do. that's not something he has a track record of doing. it will be interesting to see what changes come from here, from his communications department after he see that's this perhaps was not received -- he sees that this perhaps was not received as well as it could have been. >> he's never going to see that. donald trump doesn't admit that it was a mistake. as dana and sarah pointed out, this original tweet led to a whole chain of events that have not, one would argue, worked in the president's favor because of the appointment of a special counsel. i don't think donald trump will ever say, oh, i made a mistake. in fact, i think he's revel iin in this, to a certain degree raising the prospect that perhaps he is being taped in the oval office given the number of intercepts that had been publicly repealed. >> i think the no idea part of the tweet is worth paying attention to. i think he made it clear, he said, "i didn't record it, and i don't have any tapes, but i have no idea if tapes exist" which implies that perhaps someone else could have them. we don't know now. >> can i say given the number of unanswered questions we have from this white house, of this white house about all things that and other issues that the president has thrown out there and not followed up on, i have to admit i was kind of expecting the week to end without the answer on whether or not he did the tapes. he actually did decide to tweet it. and so, you know, we can cross this off the long list of unanswered questions that we have. >> his lawyer, a private lawyer, said over the weekend there would be an announcement on the tapes by the end of the week. and sean spicer said something similar. i want to bring in evan perez, justice correspondent. what are they saying there about the original trump tweet which was seen at least by some as a veiled, maybe not so thinly veiled threat to comey to shut up? >> well, you know, wolf, part of the issue here is that if there were -- the president raised the possibility that there were these tapes, it created a legal issue for him. he has to -- he would have to turn that over obviously to any investigation that is ongoing. certainly the members of congress had already written letters to the white house asking for those tapes to be turned over if they existed or anything that memorialized the conversations. certainly robert mueller, special counsel, would want to have access to those. those are government records. they're supposed to be preserved, and they need to be turned over because there is an ongoing investigation. so i think the reason why you heard jay sekulow bring this up and sort of address this in past few days is simply because they were under some kind of legal pressure there that they had been created, frankly, by the president's own tweet. and really the other important part of what has happened now is that with the president's clarification today, is that essentially this means that it's his word versus the word of james comey, right? we're not going to have some kind of neutral party here which is in a recording that really could -- that really put to the final end here what happened in those conversations. that's an important thing because it makes it so much harder for investigators. both in robert mueller's special counsel's office, and also in the senate and the house which are also doing their own investigations for us to get to know what exactly happened in those interactions. >> we have done, evan, several of freedom of information requests to various government agencies including the secret service asking if there are tapes, and tell our viewers, i think all came back in recent days and said they have no -- no recording devices there. >> they have no recording devices. that's what they came back. it wasn't a surprise, per se, because everybody seemed to be completely flummoxed when the president raised this issue in the first place with his tweets. it wasn't a shocker that they tweeted, the secret service had no record of it, none of the other agencies could say they had anything like this. if there was some kind of recording, it would have personally perhaps been made by the president using his phone or perhaps some kind of tape device which we know he's used in the past. during his private sector days. so that's the way it stood. and it was a matter of time for him to have to either put up or shut up about the recordings because it was a big, big part of this investigation now if there were -- if there were recordings of them. >> when you say put up or shut up, tomorrow is the deadline. the house intelligence committee had asked for any recordings if there are recordings by tomorrow, right? >> right. there were deadlines put forward by these committees. again, these are committees that are chaired by republicans. it's not like just democrats are hunting and asking for things. the president created this uncertainty, and so the committees which are chaired by republicans wanted access to that information. >> i want to go sara murray at the white house. you're in the briefing room. they're going to be forcing our cameras soon to stop live coverage of the upcoming press briefing that's about to begin. the deputy press secretary about to brief reporters on this and the health care bill that the republicans introduced in the senate. but you're getting more reaction to the final word from the president. i'll put it up again, his tweet he just posted. let me read it for viewers who may be tuning in. "with all of the recently reported electronics surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, i have no idea whether there are "tapes" or recordings of my conversations with james comey, but i did not make and do not have any such recordings." what additional reaction are you getting? >> i think one of the things we're hearing, one of the things my colleague, jeff zeleny, is hearing is this was a misstep by president trump to suggest that these tapes existed and to sort of leave that notion hanging out there for so long. this is also what we've been hearing from others close to the president who have suspected for weeks that these tapes don't exist. that the president essentially put this out there, friends of his believe, to try to intimidate james comey. to try to get him to tell the truth, in the president's view. and james comey eventually went and testified under oath about his conversations with the president. he provided a number of details from the memos he kept. and he said all of this was a result of the president's tweets, a result of that notion that there may be tapes of their conversations. there are many people close to the president who feel like this was not a great move on his part. they feel like it was a mistake. they feel like in many ways he misjudged the environment he was in. he was acting like a businessman approaching a lawsuit where he was now the president of the united states dealing with an investigation that was being overseen by the fbi as well as a number of committees in congress. i think there is a bit of dissatisfaction from some of trump's allies. i'm willing to bet that we will not see the president out there saying that this was a misstep or saying this was a mistake. he does not tend to do that. obviously we'll see what sara huckabee sanders says, but that will not be a reaction we're expecting to get on camera today. >> here's what intrees me. i -- intrigues me. i want to get your reaction. if you read the tweet he says, "i have no idea pregnanter th - whether there are tapes or recordings of my tapes with james comey, but i did not make such recordings," he has had weeks to look at this. he's the commander in chief and president of the united states. and he action angeknowledges no no idea if there are recordings or tapes? that sounds strange to me. >> reporter: it is a bit strange. luckily for the president, a number of news organization vs. done some of the legwork on his behalf and gone to a number of government agencies and said, hey, do you know of any recording systems in the white house? any new recording systems installed? are you aware of any? one of the requests went to the secret service. they responded by saying, no, we've not aware of any new taping systems. i think maybe the president leaves the door open to the fact that i guess comey could have been recording his side of the conversation. obviously in some ways he did. he reported them in memos. but there don't seem to be tapes of the interactions. i think there is another instance of the white house essentially not getting to the bottom of something they don't want to talk about anymore. we've seen it over and over in these briefings, them punting questions they don't want to answer. >> stand by. the deputy white house press secretary is about to begin -- unfortunately, they're not going to allow any of the cable news networks to broadcast it live. we would, of course, taken that live. they will later allow us to air some of the audio of this briefing, but no video. for some reason they decided the american public should not be able to get reaction to this tweet from the president about no tapes or reaction to the senate republican health care bill which has just been released. we'll get back to you shortly. i want to bring in laura coates, our cnn legal analyst. it all started early may with that original tweet when the president said, you know, comey better hope there are no tapes before he leaks information to the press. >> we do know that. we know that set the ball in motion at that point for james comey to in the middle of the night begin to remember that he had memos of his own that could verify his recollection of what he talked to the president of the united states about which then set in motion the appointment of a special counsel. and so when the president made the statements, i know the assumption is that social media is not somehow a presidential statement, perhaps shouldn't be taken that way. in fact, it was the most presidential and led to a turn of events that has placed the magnifying glass of the russian collusion investigation squarely on top of the president. and his statements about there not being tapes, i don't think it's a big surprise to many that there may not have been tapes. he's been hedging for a long time. but the shock of it is the lack of foresight and wherewithal to understand what the role of that statement may have been in the overall investigation that was already ongoing in terms of the russian counter espionage attacks. >> going to be a lot more on this story developing. certainly more reaction coming in throughout the day. the president tweeting, "i did not make, do not have any such recordings" of his conversations with the fired fbi director, james comey. we're going to get back to all of you. i want to turn to the other big story we're following right now -- health care. the republican bill is now officially out. republican leadership in the senate. they have finally revealed their plan to repeal and replace the affordable care act. the plan has been shrouded in secrecy and drafted behind closed doors. now it's out in the open. so let the debate begin. >> when legislation does come to the floor, it will present the senate democrats with another opportunity to do what's right for the american people. they can choose to keep standing by as the failing law collapses and hurts more americans, but i hope they will join us instead to bring relief to families who struggled under obamacare for far too long. either way, either way it's time to act. >> simply put, this bill will result in higher costs, less case, and millions of americans will lose their health insurance. particularly through medicaid. it's every bit as bad as the house bill. in some ways, it's even worse. the president said the senate bill needed heart. the way this bill cuts health care is heartless. >> we're going to get reaction to the republican health care bill in a moment. first, let's take a closer look at what's in the so-called discussion draft released by senate republicans. joining us from new york are cnn "money" senior writer tammy lubee. what are the highlights? what's in and out of this bill? >> the bill largely mirrors what's in the house bill. it eliminates the individual mandate. it suspends funding for planned parenthood for a year. that was all in the house bill, as well. but there are some significant changes. it maintains the cutting -- the deep cutting. medicaid. however, it would extend medicaid funding for the expansion population for one year, and then it would phase down the funding more slowly over sleethree years instead of steep cliff. that's going to be a plus for some moderates. what's really also going to hurt a lot of krvconservatives, they going to be unhappy, because it keeps the obamacare subsidies largely in place. the house wanted to convert it to age-based subsidies. the senate continues to make it a more income based and geographic-based subsidy. the conservatives are not going to be happy about that. some of the moderates will be happy about that. on pre-existing conditions, it maintains some more of the obamacare protections for pre-existing conditions. those who have the conditions will not have to pay more for their health insurance. however, they may find that they can't get comprehensive policies because the plan would allow states to waive out of what's called the essential health benefits which requires insurers to cover ten essential health benefits such as medications and hospitalizations and other things that are important to people who need medical care. >> all right. there's a lot we need to unpack from all of this. we're going to be doing that here not only this hour but throughout the day and evening, the days and weeks to come, as well. tami, thank you very much for that reporting. >>> let's get reaction now from capitol hill to all of the late breaking developments. democratic senator richard blumenthal of connecticut is joining us now. he serves on the senate judiciary committee. senator, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. good to be with you. >> so let's get to the -- one breaking news development. minutes ago we did hear from the president in this tweet that as far as he knows there are no recordings, no tapes of his conversations with the fired fbi director, james comey, there you see it right there with all of the recentlyrected electronic -- recently released electronics surveillance saying, "i have no idea whether there are tapes or recordings of my conversations with james comey, but i did not make and do not have any such recordings." what's your reaction? >> as well thethere are v been have been a lot of surreal and strange comments from donald trump since he became president, but he seems to outdo himself. this certainly is at the top of the list. the recent certainly is that he is the commander in chief, as you observed earlier in this show. he has access to all of the most sophisticated electronics surveillance and monitoring equipment in the world. the intelligence community can certainly tell him whether there have been any kind of electronic surveillance of him since he's been in the white house and perhaps before. so to say he has no idea is absolutely preposterous and really an insult to the intelligence of the american people. i called for a subpoena of these tapes by the intelligence committee some time ago. unfortunately it wasn't done. the special prosecutor may issue subpoenas simply to verify whether or not there are any tapes because the president saying he has no idea simply is not enough. >> some have suggested that that original tweet the president posted in early may in effect warning comey don't leak information because you better hope there are no tapes, they've suggested that could have been witness intimidation on the part of the president. do you believe that? >> it certainly smacks of intimidation and threats. when it was issued at the time, in the context, involves potential intimidation and is part of a larger unfolding obstruction of justice case that no doubt the special prosecutor is investigating actively. he'll have to consider that tweet as so many other tweets will be relevant, too. >> you said on cnn last night, senator, that you think there may have been others at the white house involved in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. i want you to elaborate. what did you mean by that? >> there are a variety of staff at top levels but also at lower levels in the white house, who may have been involved in conversations with each other or with the president about the conversation with comey to let flynn go, or the conversation with comey, as well, asking for a pledge of loyalty. these kind of conversations need not involve knowledge about the whole scope of the potential conspiracy but simply a part of it. the law of conspiracy is very broad. a co-conspirator need not know the full scope of the conspiracy or all of the action that's are taken. -- actions that are taken. or with donald trump or members of his staff. so the law of conspiracy and the fact that the special prosecutor's investigating is very important. >> senator, i want you to stand by for a moment of we've got sara murray, our white house correspondent in the white house briefing room right now. i just want you to explain why unfortunately we're not going to be able to show the white house briefing live to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. >> reporter: we are now about two minutes away from the white house briefing. we just got the announcement over the loud system. again, this is an off-camera briefing, something that the trump administration is doing with frequency in a way that we did not see in previous administrations. normally someone would stand at the podium to my left. they would brief the american public. it would be on camera. it would be on the record, and we'd be able to bring it to you live. that's not the case under this administration. we are expecting sara huckabee sanders to come out. we are expecting to get audio from the briefing. it's going to be embargoed until after it's over. that means there will be no live coverage for us to bring you. again, this isn't -- there is breaking tradition. it's something new. huckabee is coming out now. >> unfortunately, you saw sara huckabee sanders walk up to the lectern at the podium. the white house rules are that none of the cable nor broadcast networks are allowed to carry this briefing even though it's a briefing that's very, very important on a day where there's a new republican health care bill that affects tens of millions of americans out there. one-sixth of the economy. a day when the president tells the world that as far as he knows there are no tapes or recordings of his conversations with james comey. unfortunately, the white house won't allow us to bring that briefing to our viewers here in the united states and around the world live. we'll get audio of it later. we'll get a report of the briefing but can't show it live. it's strange to me, especially as a former white house correspondent, why an important day like this they don't want the american public to see this live. those are the white house rules that cnn, fox news, msnbc, c-span, all of the broadcast networks, abc, nbc, cbs, we all have to live with those white house rules. let's hope they change the rules. let me get a quick reaction from senator blumenthal. what's your reaction to this decision by the white house that we can't show the american public this briefing live? >> i never thought, wolf, in america that i would see broadcast news excluded from a white house briefing. i'm in total disbelief and shock, not just as a public official but as a citizen. frankly, there's a pattern of secrecy and concealment here in this white house, secret conversatio conversations, conversations with diplomats and bankers. frankly, the health care plan which was shrouded in secrecy. we now know why -- they were probably ashamed and embarrassed about it. with this pattern is so -- but this pattern of secrecy is so antithetical to american values. i want to say that as a citizen and as a public official, that when the history of this area is written, the free press and independent judiciary will go down as our heroes because they've tried to -- the secret dealings with the russians and the emoluments and payments going to governments. we know so much simply because the free press, including cnn, has been so dogged and determined to get the truth to the american people. >> senator, thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you. >>> let me bring back our panel, globia borger, our chief political analyst, with us. our chief political correspondent, dana bash, cnn politics reporter, eugene scott. also join us, justice correspondent evan perez. i want to quickly get your reaction, all of us are journalists. we've worked covering the white house over the years. it's pretty surprising. there are gag else that they do at the white house that are off camera, usually in the press secretary's office where they want to review certain issues. when the press secretary goes into the briefing room where there are a lot of cameras, usually almost always they allow us to take that live if we want to. >> you know, the press secretary and the staff of the white house work for the american public. the job of the press secretary is to tell the american public what the president is thinking. and what the white house is thinking. today, as you point out, is a heavy news day. i would say that just minutes before this briefing was originally scheduled to begin, the president tweeted about the tapes. and i think that that leads us to believe that the only person who can speak on camera perhaps for this white house is now donald trump himself. and perhaps that's the way he wants it. there are important stories here. the tape story is an important story since the president over a month ago said pra month ago th perhaps there were tapes. now we've learned there weren't. there's a new conspiracy theory started by the president regarding the tapes because he implied unless there's another taping system that i don't know about. and we have a health care bill that is important to millions, as you point out, that has been produced by the senate. i think the american people deserve to see what the white house is saying about it from that podium. >> they certainly do. and you know, i'm wondering -- we're being watched not only in the united states but around the world, what viewers in europe or asia or africa or south america are saying who have always looked up to the united states as a home of the free press. they're wondering what is going on. >> or countries where you have leaders that are rightly berated by our state department and former presidents for backsliding on a free press, who are looking at what we showed there which was pretty remarkable. if we can kind of think about the imagery that we showed on cnn. sarair isara murray doing a liv. the press secretary walk information to talk to the podium, in which we usually stop to listen, and we're cut off. we've covered the white house. there have been many, many times where there have been off-camera briefings. that's okay. but not at the expense of and in lieu pretty much across the board of on-camera briefings. it's not about whining, it's been television production. it is about transparency, end of story. >> your reaction, eugene? >> yeah. my first thought is that many of the questions that journalists ask the trump administration in these brief regulars questions that the american people asking them. they've contacted us directly via social media. we get questions all the time in our tweets, ask this, ask that. we have an administration led by a man who said he enjoys social media because it allows him to get directly to the voters. this press briefing is another opportunity to get directly to the voters. him not allowing us to show people who are watching, hoping to hear from his administration what he has to say about all of these issues we were hear about today harms him more than it helps him. >> it does come on the day when the republicans have finally released their health care bill. i want to get to that in a moment. let me -- let me evan perez, justice correspondent, weigh in. it was the president in theficial tweet back in may, what, six weeks or so ago, where he raised the possibility of tapes. in this tweet as we've been pointing out, he's saying, i have no idea whether there are tapes or recordings of my conversations with james comey, but i did not make or do not have any such recordings." as gloria's saying, is he raising the possibility of another conspiracy out there against him? >> i think he's trying to have fun with us, wamolf. he knows that this is the kind of thing that will keep us coming back. this is like a reality tv show and so the president wants us to keep coming back i guess for the next episode. that's what's happening. i don't think there's another recording system. certainly james comey, the fbi director, indicated that heeft the interactions and immediately tried to memorialize them in these memos that he's since shared. that's the only way we know what might have happened is from those conversations and if the president ever gives under oath a response to that and is ever questioned by the committees on the hill or by the fbi and robert mueller, the special counsel. those are -- that's how we'll get to the bottom of what exactly happened, whether or not the firing of james comey -- that's really the big question here. that's what the tweet was about. whether or not the firing of james comey was an attempt to interfere with an ongoing fbi investigation, that's something that is still very much ripe in the air for us to answer. the president basically today is telling us that it's going to be his word versus the whether or not there's any other proof that the fbi is able to cobble together. >> i think there's also a question now that the president says there are no tapes that he knows of, was that tweet an effort to intimidate comey? it had the absolutely opposite effect effect, one would argue, because it led to the chain of events to the special counsel, but it the tweet an intimidation of the former fiber director? >> we have -- former fbi director? >> we have breaking news. a senate gop source says at least three republican senators are expected to publicly oppose the senate's health care proposal later today. as you know, there are 52 republicans, 48 democrats. 46 democrats, two independents, who side with the democrats. if they lose three, the republicans, no democrats are going from to vote for this republican health care bill. it's over at least for now. >> it's over. that's right. i've been looking at my phone, forgive me, trying to report on this. phil mattingly got this reporting. we might hear from these three even potentially in a group very, very soon. like the next half hour or so to know what's going on. we'll know more about how to interpret the opposition then. but assuming it is conservatives which we beliet is conservatives, the question is going to be whether they are not gettable or whether they are -- this is a smart tactic. it's not just the bill take it or leave it. there are going to be amendments during the debate process next week, and the question is whether or not the people who are opposed, never mind the people on the fence, the people saying, huh-uh, can be brought to yes with any kind of changes that will not end up losing the moderates on the other side of the republican spectrum. >> it's interesting because by our reporting, we have about 12 republican senators who it's unclear where eventually they stand. there you see them up there, some moderate republicans, some conservative republicans. for different reasons, they're on the fence. a senate republican source telling us at least three republican senators are expected to publicly oppose the senate's health care proposal later today. as dana says, it could be very, very soon. if they stick to that, at least for now, it's over even though the house passed a health care bill. if the senate doesn't do the same, it dies at least for the time being. >> absolutely. frankly, it's not that suppliesing considering what's come -- surprising considering what's come out of the bill. there are things that conservative lawmakers wanted that the bill doesn't meet. and we've heard complaints say that it's too close to obamacare for those who want to see a complete repeal of obamacare. i think what's also interesting is this isn't a new argument. this is what people have been saying in the more conservative components of the republican party for months since we've been talking about this. >> can i say for people maybe watching, looking at the screen, trying to figure out what at least three republican senators means. the math is that the republicans can only lose two and still get the bill passed -- >> if they lose two, it would be 50/50. the vice president mike pence, he would break the tie, and it would pass. if they lose three, it's over. >> exactly. >> you know, you have the conservatives saying, wait a minute, this is too much like obamacare. we don't want anything that resembles obamacare. then the moderates are worried about medicaid for their constituents who use this medicaid expansion in their states, who say we need it. it's difficult to figure out how you get around that, at least how you get around that in four or five days, and this is all before, of course, we get the cost estimates on what this bill is going to cost and how many people would be left uninsured. >> and remember, just -- tactically, politically, philosophically, if you have these conservatives who we believe are likely to come out, the rand paul, mike lee, ted cruzes of the world, we don't know what they're going to say, but assuming it is on the conservative side of the republican party, they don't feel like they have anything to lose. >> sure. >> they have enough of a reservoir with conservatives as people who have fought the fight to repeal obamacare, and if they go to constituents and say i didn't do this because it didn't do what we promised it would do, it's hard to imagine them not feeling the heat from people in their states. unlike moderates -- >> they may feel vulnerable. the moderates do feel vulnerable. they do having to lose like dean heller of nevada, for example. they're going to oppose it for different reasons. they're going to be out on the line. and their constituents are saying we need this, we need this medicaid money. >> one factor that is involved in all of this, i've been told by rare yours republicans, they -- various republicans, they were caught by surprise when the president the other day, e jeug, said that the bill that passed the house and was championed in the rose garden at the white house by the president, president later told senate republicans that was a mean bill. he used the word "mean," and said publicly last night, earlier he said privately, the senate's got to spend some more money. they have to have heart in their legislation, in their bill. and that was not very satisfactory to a bunch of republicans wondering well, where exactly does the president stand, can they rely on him. >> not thea all. this press conference would have been a perfect opportunity for the white house to explain what the president meant exactly, what he would have wanted to see in this bill to make it less mean. we know that chuck shurms thinks what is represent -- chuck schumer thinks what is represent sudden meaner than what the president saw. what the republicans are doing to make changes is not yet clear. but it's very clear, i think, that it won't happen by july 4th. >> can i just say something -- this white house has essentially ced ceded everything to congress. when you look at what happened on the health care bill in the house written by paul ryan, et cetera, the president got involved in the late stages of i it. you look at this bill, white house staffers only went to the hill to be briefed on it last night. this president has ceded an awful lot of authority to the leaders of congress on the major substantive issues that he ran on, and we don't know if he'll be that way on immigration, for example. but as it pertains to health care reform, this is a huge matter, and it has been written behind closed doors in the senate, not by the white house, not with input from the white house so far. we'll see what happens after. >> my understanding is that that is very much by design, that mitch mcconnell, the republican majority leader said, mr. president, white house, we've got this one. let us take care of this one. >> it's -- >> the house got mucked up. >> that's right. it's interesting to me that -- ran as a strong leader, strong executive, has essentially said to the congress, you do this. you do this. i don't want to get involved until i absolutely have to. >> go ahead. >>> >> i think what's odd is that people in trump's base, they look at the leaders in the republican party and say those are our people, those aren't the people that are going to put forth the agenda that you campaigned on that we voted for. they're looking at this guy who they thought would take over the white house and advocate for them, and he's passing the ball to people who make them go he's not one of us. ryan's not one of us. mitch mcconnell is not one of us. trump, what are you doing to us? the people who put you there? >> the when the president says he wants this health care bill to have more heart, spend some more money, don't worry about it, it reminded me during the campaign, you remember this, he often would say, "i'm not going to cut social security. i'm not going to cut medicare, and i'm not going to cut medicaid." this bill, the republican bill in the house, republican bill in the senate, does cut medicaid. i think we have a clip from the campaign. let me play that clip. as i recall, the president often said, i know this will irritate, this will irritate some of my base, this will irritate some conservatives, but the president said this is what i believe, that medicare, medicaid, social security, should not be touched. we'll get that clip. you remember that? >> i absolutely remember that. i remember doing an interview with donald trump almost two years ago, that was a big part of his discussion. him saying that, he used to say, i'm not going to throw people on the streets. people were probably -- some of the people in the republican base aren't going to like that. and then he built on that notion throughout the campaign saying i'm not going to cut entitlements. tweeted, saying i'm the only one on the stage the day after a debate promising not to cut entitlements. whether he knew it in his gut or had the sense or somebody explained the demographics, it turned out that a lot of the people who rely on those kind of government benefits come from trump country. >> yeah. >> right. >> i have the clip. let me play the clip now. then we'll continue this. watch. >> save medicare, medicaid, and social security without cuts. have to do it. [ applause ] get rid of the fraud. get rid of the waste and abuse. but save it. people have been paying in for years, and now many of these candidates want to cut it. >> i'm not going to cut social security like every other republican. and i'm not going to cut medicare or medicaid. every other republican is going to cut. even if they wouldn't, they don't know what to do because they don't know where the money is. i do. >> you weheard him. he said it -- he has a haerkear and he's not going to throw people on the street. >> you see what's happening with the health care bills which have, you know, states could have opted in or out of medicaid subsidies. and now this senate version that gets phased out by the year 2021, that is what is giving some moderates real heartburn here. they know how much their constituents depend on medicaid. so i think if you look at it as a presidential promise, you'd have to say, well, broken. what we don't know because we're not watching this presser is whether the president believes the senate bill does have enough heart for him. maybe the white house doesn't know the answer now because they just saw this version last night. we're not knowing the answers to these questions. hopefully we'll get them later. >> we are being told that later one of the senators who will come out and oppose the current republican draft that was released today in the senate is senator rand paul of kentucky. ly doesn't like it. >> yeah. that is not a surprise. he has said he -- you can't get him to yes on this. no matter what they brought out of that room, given the fact that he had a pretty good idea of what the broad parameters are. rand paul was already going to be a no. i don't know that he's ever going to be gettable. presumably if he's joining up with people, he's not joining up with people in the left of his party. he's joining up with people who are more of his sort of philosophical comrades in arms, which are republicans -- excuse me, which are the true conservatives. >> the ones who think it's too much like obamacare. >> right. >> everybody, stand by. there's more breaking news coming into cnn. we've got to take a quick break. we'll resume all of our special coverage right after this. i'm ryan and i quit smoking with chantix. i tried to quit cold turkey. i tried to quit with the patch; that didn't work. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. for me, chantix worked. it reduced my urge to smoke. compared to the nicotine patch, chantix helped significantly more people quit smoking. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you've had depression or other mental health problems. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. the most common side effect is nausea. i'm so proud to be a non-smoker. ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. many insurance plans cover chantix for a low or $0 copay. g new cars. you're smart. you already knew that. but it's also great for finding the perfect used car. you'll see what a fair price is, and you can connect with a truecar certified dealer. now you're even smarter. this is truecar. you myour joints...thing for your heart... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. tech: when you schedule with safelite autoglass, you get time for more life. this family wanted to keep the game going. son: hey mom, one more game? tech: with safelite, you get a text when we're on our way. you can see exactly when we'll arrive. mom: sure. bring it! tech: i'm micah with safelite. mom: thanks for coming, it's right over here. tech: giving you a few more minutes for what matters most. take care! family: bye! kids singing: safelite® repair, safelite® replace. >>> the white house press briefing has just wrapped up. the reason we weren't able to watch it live here on cnn or on any of the other cable news networks or broadcasts is because the white house decided to bar the news media from airing the briefings live for the american public for people who may be watching around the world as well. the white house has, however, now given us permission to air audio, audieno only, from the briefing now that it's over. here's the white house deputy press secretary. >> this morning, the senate released a discussion draft of its healthcare bill. the president looks forward to seeing a finalized bill on his desk so that we can finally repeal and replace obamacare before it completely collapses. just yesterday, at insurer announced that it's pulling out of obamacare. anthem is leaving the exchanges in indiana, the state in which the company was actually born, and is currently head quartered. and also in wisconsin. finally, i want to welcome alex pfeiffer to his first white house briefing. alex is young, so he may need some help from a few of his colleagues to help him with this process. and with that, ladies and gentlemen, i'll take your questions. >> i'm just curious about the president's revelations by way of twitter that he has no knowledge of any tapes, doesn't have any tapes, doesn't have possession of any tapes. what can you tell the american people about why he decided to sort of make the inference, at least, at some point, that maybe there would be tapes? >> look, i think the president's statement via twitter today is extremely clear. i don't have anything to add beyond the statement. >> can i follow up really quickly on the wall. i was at the rally last night, the president seemed to get great reaction to the idea that the wall was moving forward, and he mentioned the possibility of solar as a means to not only pay for the wall itself but also to enhance the wall. can you sort of help me unpack that idea. is this something that he's been kicking around for quite some time? he said it was the first time he'd made it publicly known. >> i think it's something he's considering, certainly nothing final, but just an idea that he is considering and reviewing. nothing more than that at this point. >> i have a health care question but i just want to follow up on kevin's questions on the tapes situation. i get that the tweet is speaking for itself but i'm curious why it took so long, 41 days, for this to be laid to rest. the president is recording any oval office conversations. >> you guys asked for an answer. he gave you one. he said he would have have it to you by the end of this week, which he did and beyond timing of that, i can't speak anything further. >> and on the oval office recordings. >> i think his statement is pretty clear. >> i'm asking more generally. >> not aware. >> no oval office recordings that you're aware of. >> not that i'm aware of. >> is the president confident that he will have something to sign in the next few weeks? >> i don't think we're as focused on the time line as we are on the final product. we're looking for the best bill possible, and we're going to continue being part of technical assistance and providing that with both house and senate members as we work to get the best bill we can. >> and on that final product, the senate bill analysis so far cuts medicaid, it doesn't look like it will cut deductibles for folks. does that have enough heart? does the president think that is a bill that is not mean? >> i haven't had that conversation but i know he made a statement earlier that said this is a negotiation so he's going to continue that process with both house and senate members and his administration until we get the best bill that we can. >> so sarah, what was the president doing with this? he let it go on for 41 days as hallie referred to. that tweet 41 days ago seemed to be, you know, very kind of ominous message to comey, he better hope there are no tapes. and then he was asked repeatedly during the intervening weeks whether or not the tapes existed. you were asked many times. sean was asked. why -- why the game? what was he -- what was he doing? >> i don't know that it was a game. again, he's answered the question. he gave a time line and the frame that which he would and he did that. he said by the end of this week and he's done that. >> but do you have a sense for what was behind the original suggestion from him 41 days ago that there may be tapes? >> look, i think it was pretty clear in that original statement that he hoped for his sake and that was, i think, the very intention, and he's laid out his position on whether or not he personally was involved in that in his tweet today. >> thank you, sarah. back to the original tweet. did the president intend to threaten james comey with that tweet? >> not that i'm aware of. i don't think so. >> and so why, again, why was -- deadline to be this week to clear it up? >> i mean, that was -- has been laid out, i believe, also by congress. they wanted an answer by the end of this week. peter. >> sarah, if i can, the tweet ultimately, according to james comey, led him to share the memos publicly, which led to the hiring of the special counsel, robert mueller, which ultimately led to the reports the president himself is being investigated for possible obstruction of justice. does the president regret the tweet? >> i don't think so. >> broadly, he said you can't say whether there's any oval office recordings but he did say that i did not make and do not have any such recordings. did he ever have recordings of conversations with james comey? >> again, not that i'm aware of. >> on health care, the president said when he first became a candidate, he tweeted the republicans who want to cut social security and medicaid are wrong. a robust economy will make america great again. so if cutting medicaid was wrong when he was a candidate, why is it right in the new republican senate bill? >> i don't believe that the president has specifically weighed in that it's right to cut medicaid. i know one of the big parts of discussion is giving states flexibility, and again, the president hasn't weighed in specifically on any specific measure in this bill. and as he said earlier today, this is a negotiation between the house and the senate and we're going to play a part in that. >> to be clear, the president stimbelieves -- >> i'm sorry, guys. one at a time. >> does the president still believe as he did as a candidate that there should be no cuts to medicaid? >> i haven't had a specific conversation to see if there's an update to that but i do know that he wants to protect that as much as possible. david. >> what will the white house be doing with the senate as this health care bill moves forward. you mentioned technical shings. what does that entail. >> i know members of omb, treasury, and certainly members of the hhs and senior staff have been involved in the process. they're going to continue to do that. this has been one of those things where, from the very beginning,

, trump's recent addition to his legal team, jay sekulow, got into it in a string of tv appearances and contradicted the president, denying that trump himself is under investigation. so how he would know that is unclear. >> now, under your theory, the department of justice, through its special counsel office, would be investigating the president for taking the action that they recommended him to take. >> well, a couple of things. i'm not arguing the substance. >> i just want to be very clear on what that is. >> the president of the united states says that's not true. he said he was going to get rid of comey no matter what the a.g. said. >> if you're going to spend so much time on this, why don't you pick up the phone and get the answer. >> you're asking me to pick up the phone on an investigation that we don't know exists. >> so the president said, i am under investigation even though he isn't under investigation? >> that response on social media was in response to "the washington post" piece. it's that simple. the president is not under investigation. >> then, he seemed to be saying th

director. witch hunt." but today jay sekulow private attorney hired by the president disputed that statement. i'll show you part of his interview with cnn's jake tapper on "state of the union." >> let me be clear the president is not under investigation as james comey said in his testimony the president was not the target of investigation on three different occasions. the president is not a subject or target of an investigation. that tweet was in response to a "washington post" story that ran with five unnamed sources without identifying the agencies they represented saying that the special counsel had broadened out his investigation to include the president. we've had no indication of that. the president was responding to that particular statement from "the washington post" again with five anonymous sources and again, without identifying the agency so no, the president is not under investigation and has not been. >> so the president said "i am under investigation" even though he isn't under investigation? >> that response on social media was in response to "the washington post" pi

attorneys, and jay sekulow being the latest one. they seem unwilling in stopping him. >> he's the client. he's in charge. the client does what he wants. lawyers can only give advice. and donald trump, big television watcher, saw us night after night during the campaign saying, oh, it's all over. you know, the "access hollywood" tape, his comments about john mccain, megyn kelly, he was right and we were wrong and he won. i think he has an understanding of communication with the public that is better than his advisers, better than his lawyers. it certainly doesn't make a lot of sense to me. but the truth is, every minute we are talking about these tweets. we're going to talk about health care later in the program but was it calculated to distract attention? it beats the hell out of me. i do not know. >> as a presidential historian, presidents have often felt cut off. donald trump is certainly someone who likes that interaction with people in large auditoriums, not necessarily one on one but in large crowds. and twitter allows him, as we've said before, to bypass the nightly news and

investigated, period. here is what attorney jay sekulow told cnn's jake tapper. >> the president is not a subject or target of an investigation. that tweet was in

think that this is a media spin. one comment from jay sekulow. you can just move on. you know, you heard earlier senator rand paul talking about this is a sideshow tomorrow. we have a really credible person looking into this. i think it's -- the congress, usually very much in favor of congressional oversight. i don't think you're going to hear anything new tomorrow from attorney general sessions. i think director mueller is an incredibly capable guy who will get to the bottom of this and washington needs to move on. >> kind of a bizarre moment early this afternoon. the president met with his cabinet and went around the table and some of them effusively praised the president in a manner that i can't imagine you doing, david. >> listen, i'm a huge fan of the president. i come on national tv and praise the president. >> yeah, you do, but not in the manner. senator schumer, the democratic leader of the senate, the minority leader, had a little fun with it with his staff. take a look. >> i want to thank everybody for coming. i just thought we'd go around the room. lucy, how did we do on

, if there was a basis. >> so, you have that from jay sekulow, but on the newt gingrich bit, this is the same newt gingrich who tweeted in may that he liked the mueller announcement, saying it was a superb choice. what gives here? what's changed? >> well, you know, he clearly thought when mueller got appointed that that would be sort of an alleviator of pressure for the white house, saying, okay, now everybody can calm down because this is in the hands of a special counsel, and let that process go forward. now, after seeing reporting about the team that mueller's put together, i think gingrich is now trying to discredit not just mueller, or not so much going after mueller, but after the entire investigative effort that the special counsel's put together. here's the problem, kate, i think it's going to be very hard to make this kind of strategy work, and perhaps that's why we're not hearing it from republicans on the hill, but it's more sort of these trump surrogates and fans outside right now. and that's because even ken starr this morning, kate -- >> right. >> -- was saying bob muel

investigation. let's dig deep with our lan lifts. jay sekulow, one of the private attorneys, making the case the president is not under investigation, by robert mueller the special counsel, many tv appearances yesterday that continued this morning. clearly the president wants him on tv. >> well, and you can argue that by muddying the waters, which is i think what he did, that he helped the president because he did muddy the waters. and, you know, law enforcement sources are telling cnn and evan perez in particular, that the special counsel is gathering information on the president and considering whether there is evidence to launch a full-scale investigation. so, you know, you can parse your words anyway you want, but he is doing his research and he's doing his homework and it doesn't matter what you call it. >> lawyeruri, you're our justic department lawyer. is there any way to know whether the president is under investigation by mueller? >> no, not necessarily. in fact, the u.s. attorneys manual which governs justice department lawyers says explicitly that you're not supposed to contact a targ

a phony story, yet on friday he seemed to confirm it. now one of the president's lawyers, jay sec low, is saying, no, he is not, in fact, under investigation. the president was citing that "washington post" report when he sent out that tweet on friday. here's more of what sekulow had to say on soviet uni"state of t" >> should we take the tweet as confirmation that the president is under investigation? >> let me be clear, the president is not under investigation. >> the president said, "i am under investigation" even though he isn't under investigation? >> that response on social media was in response to the "washington post" piece. >> you're saying that the president when he said that was not crowd? >> no, the president -- it was 141 characters, there's a limitation on twitter. >> the president thinks -- >> there should be no confusion. the president is not under investigation. >> it is confusing. >> reporter: after months of white house officials telling us we should take the president's tweets at face value, we should consider them presidential statements, now his lawyer is argu