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Trump Could Reshape High Court for Decades with Next Nominee; Trump the Disrupter on Display on the World Stage; Democrats Demand Change at Immigration Agency; 28-Year-Old Democratic Socialist Outs 10-Term Congressman; Trump to Announce Supreme Court Pick July 9. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired July 01, 2018 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[08:00:13] JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): A big retirement and the chance to reshape American law for a generation.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have to pick a great one. We have to pick one that's going to be there for 40 years, 45 years --

KING: Plus --

PROTESTERS: Where are the kids?

KING: Immigration protests coast to coast.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't understand why this administration won't support mothers who just want a better life for their children. This needs to change!

KING: And the political newcomer sent shockwaves through the Democratic Party.

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D), NEW YORK CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: I think that we're in the middle of a movement in this country.

KING: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters, now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS, I'm John King. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing your Sunday.

A consequential week ahead for President Trump, a second Supreme Court vacancy just 17 months in. This one with the potential to rewrite American law on abortion rights, affirmative action and more.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: Whomever the president picks, it's all too likely they are going to overturn health care protections and Roe v. Wade. We don't need to guess. President Trump has said time and time again, he would appoint judges that would do those two things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Plus, disruption everywhere you look. General Motors warning the Trump trade war will spike prig prices and kill jobs. European allies see a retreat from Western values into the arms of Vladimir Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We love the European Union and countries of the European Union, but the European Union, of course, was set up to take advantage of the United States. Sometimes our worst enemies are our so-called friends and allies right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And Democrats face an identity crisis of their own. Immigration one issue driving anti-Trump fervor and a stunning primary upset gives this year of the woman a compelling millennial twist.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OCASIO-CORTEZ: We won because we organized. We won because I think we had a very clear winning message and we took that message to doors had never been knocked on before. We spoke to communities that typically had been dismissed and they responded. Women are at a time when they are feeling emboldened and that we know that justice and we know that representation is not going to be handed to us. We have to fight for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us this Sunday to share their reporting and their insights, Rachael Bade of "Politico", Michael Shear of "The New York Times", Michael Warren of "The Weekly Standard", and Seung Min Kim of "The Washington Post".

We begin this Sunday with dramatic images and the debate over whether they show us just anger at the president, or an anger deep enough, widespread enough to change the politics of immigration. Take a look -- tens of thousands out in force in hundreds of cities from coast to coast, protesting White House immigration policies.

Among the complaints, that the administration first separated families and now too slow to reunite those families who were separated when they were crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, another complaint that Congress failed to take steps to protect the so-called Dreamers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The actions of this administration towards these children and families go against what this country stands for. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're fighting for humanity at this point. And

everybody needs to start rising, they need to get involved and however they can.

UNIDENTIFIED BOY: If I was separated from my family, the people I loved, I don't know what I would do. It's probably the worst thing that could happen to me.

UNIDENTIFIED GIRL: I don't understand why they are being so mean to us children. Don't they know how much we love our families? Don't they have a family too?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Now, the administration is no longer separating families as part of its zero tolerance border enforcement, but the anger at the White House is moving more and more prominent Democrats to embrace a dramatic change.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D), MASSACHUSETTS: We need to rebuild our immigration system from top to bottom, starting by replacing ICE with something that reflects our morality and --

SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND (D), NEW YORK: When you have moms and children being ripped apart at the border and ICE standing by and sticking those children in places that have concrete floors with wire and cages around them, you know ICE has gone off the rails.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand, both potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates. Where are we in this debate? If you look at the rallies yesterday and we can show you on the screen, they were everywhere, the biggest crowds were in blue America, let's be honest about that, the biggest crowds were in big cities urban America in the coast where Democrats do best. But there were fair amount out in red America as well.

Donald Trump is president in part because of his immigration politics.

[08:05:01] Are we at the moment where the Democrats can take this as their issue or is it just a blue America is getting bluer and putting more pressure on the Democratic Party?

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: I think they -- I mean, they certainly had a moment to seize with the family separation issue. I mean, if you look at the polling, this is something that the more than 70 percent of Americans opposed and obviously a larger swath of the Democratic Party oppose.

But the shift in the messaging here by some of the party to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency could be a moment where they perhaps, you know, kind of give up the hold that they had on immigration issue for last couple of weeks because that is a very controversial idea. You're not going to see Democratic leaders embracing that idea any time soon.

And the problem with that messaging, the messaging -- or the messaging of abolishing ICE, when you kind of paint it in a binary issue, have ICE or not, that's an argument that President Trump wants to have, as we saw in his tweets yesterday.

MICHAEL SHEAR, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: It just completely plays into exactly the message that President Trump has been building since his campaign, which is to paint himself and his view of immigration as protecting the country vis-a-vis open borders, that's how he describes, you know, the Democratic Party. And to, you know, describe a policy of abolishing ICE without, you know, suggesting what would replace it, plays right into the idea of being open borders, just throw the border open, let people in.

And I agree, I think there hasn't been an issue as powerful that in 15 months that the president has been in office as the family separations which actually made him back down. I mean, he had the issue an executive order essentially backing down on that zero tolerance policy. And it -- I think there is a question about whether or not the Democrats have given that up.

KING: And, you see, again, hats off to the protesters whatever the issue, if you turn out in the streets, that's part of the American ideal. You see pictures everywhere, the issue is does the party overreact when they see this in the base, in the sense that -- to Michael's point -- where has it been on immigration issues that the president has without saying it, admit he was wrong and they overstepped in policy and change it.

And yet, now, he said in an interview the other day, he loves this issue. If you want to argue about ICE, bring it on.

RACHAEL BADE, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: Yes, I certainly can't remember seeing protests like this sense the health care debate, the repeal -- when Republicans are trying to repeal Obamacare, we saw a lot of energy on the left and there was a possibility that Democrats could use that politically, but this -- they've got to be really careful on this. I mean, if you're trying to pick up, you know, two dozen swing districts that are currently held by Republicans going out there and saying abolish ICE, abolish this federal agency that enforces, you know, immigration law, that's not going to help them pick those up.

It sort of reminds me of, you know, Republicans used to say abolish the IRS, abolish the IRS, and sure, it really rubbed up people on far right. But people know you can't abolish the IRS, it collects taxes. I mean, they might hate the IRS, but it's not going to win any swing votes and this could alienate swing votes.

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: I think Rachel is right where Democrats need to pick up seats. It's in suburban districts. And I think they had the upper hand, as you were saying about, with this family separation policy. Then the president sort of stumbled into a policy getting out of this whole idea of family separation and zero tolerance into something which was much more politically palatable while Democrats were moving so much more radically on the abolish ICE issue.

The question is not whether or not a lot of people turn out in deep blue cities, these protests are really the same probably group of people -- if you're not motivated to vote for Democrats against President Donald Trump in the midterm elections, I don't know what another rally in the city is going to do for you.

But those voters who are sort of on the fence in the swing districts, who might have been saying we really can't have any more of these Republicans after the family separation policy, now they are back on the fence again.

KING: And it's interesting, listen to John Lewis here, veteran of the civil rights movement, leading liberal in the Congress. Democrats understand there's a Supreme Court coming up and Republicans like tax cut plan. Suddenly, all of this talk of Democratic intensity advantage is in question in the midterm election year.

John Lewis thinking this year maybe immigration works for the Dems.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOHN LEWIS (D), GEORGIA: It's time for some of us to get in good trouble, necessary trouble.

(CHEERS)

We may have to turn America upside down to set it right side up.

(CHEERS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: But again, back to the ICE question, in the "Washington Post" yesterday, this quote from a White House official. This is a political sue site march for the Democratic Party. The Democrats have literally moved the immigration debate to the terrain of, should the country enforce our immigration laws, yes or no?

So, handed a political -- I don't want to -- handed a great political issue on family separation issue, one of which they have an advantage, and then they turn it into one of which the president thinks he does.

[08:10:06] KIM: I do think it's telling that even the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, who is a leading force of immigration issues within the Democratic Caucus, has urged in private memos, as reported by "The Daily Beast", that, you know, this call for abolishing ICE maybe isn't the best idea.

(CROSSTALK)

SHEAR: But, you know, it is a generational thing, too. People -- Democrats in Congress who are veterans and who have been through these fights before are much more pragmatic and that's the tension in the Democratic Party, is the pragmatism versus the idealism. And out there in the country, you know, among millennials, among younger people, among first time candidates, you know, they don't want pragmatism, they want idealism and they want to say what they believe.

And that's where I think the ICE abolishment --

KING: And part of the energy idealism and the anxiety and the anger at the Democratic establishment from the base they can't get anything done because they don't have power. You have a Republican president, a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and attempted immigration legislation, several attempts this year had collapsed and president trying to rewrite history over the weekend with a tweet.

Here's a tweet from Wednesday, House Republicans should pass the strong but fair immigration bill known as Goodlatte 2, in their afternoon vote today, even though the Dems won't let it passed the Senate, that was Wednesday. Yesterday, I never pushed the Republicans in the House to vote for the immigration bill, either Goodlatte 1 or 2, because it could never have gotten through -- gotten enough Democrats as long as it's a 60-vote threshold.

Now, he can make the case he didn't lobby them, he didn't twist their arms, he demand their votes. So, he can say factually he might be OK there but come on.

BADE: I heard about this tweet from a House Republican who texted me screen shots of both tweets and said what gives. There were a number of House Republicans that voted for this thing and granted it only got 121 votes which is very embarrassing for Speaker Paul Ryan because the president said I'll be on your back 1,000 percent, was the exact quote.

But, you're right, he never fully embraced this and a lot of Republicans knew about that, so they didn't know how to vote. In fact, they were at the White House right before this vote and about two dozen Republicans there and one of them, Austin Scott, a Republican from Georgia, said Mr. President, the last time you want d us to pass your spending bill and then you threw us under the bus and said how dare you send me a bill like this. And so, they actually pressed him on concerns about this.

KING: Right, he also held a rally for the Obamacare bill then called it mean.

SHEAR: And first one was in all caps. I mean, come on.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: And to the point we're making, the president already up. He's in Bedminster, New Jersey, for the weekend, at his golf property, already up and tweeting. The Democrats wants to abolish ICE because they're for open borders.

So, the president sees this issue playing is way. We'll continue the conversation.

Up next here, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sent a message, is it that one Democratic congressman fell asleep or that the entire Democratic Party better wake up? But, first, politicians say darndest things with a geography lesson of

sorts for the commander-in-chief.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDIAN: So, I ask you, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are you going to be nicer to the president?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Well, you know, the president is from Queens and with all due respect half of my district is from Queens, I don't think he knows how to deal with a girl from the Bronx.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:01] KING: If don't know it already, get used to this name, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked the system this past week, and she shocked herself.

(BEGIN VDIEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's right here. She's looking at herself on television right now. How are you feeling? Can you put it into words?

OCASIO-CORTEZ: Nope. I cannot put this into words.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: She's 28, a first time candidate and the big winner in a primary against a veteran congressman viewed until Tuesday night as the likely heir to Nancy Pelosi.

The Democratic leader prefers to think of this as an isolated incident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: The fact that in a very progressive district in New York, it went more progressive than -- well, Joe Crowley is a progressive but more to the left than Joe Crowley is about that district. It is not to be viewed as something that stands for everything else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's Nancy Pelosi's view.

But Ocasio-Cortez who says maybe/maybe not if she would support Pelosi as a speaker, insists her shocking win is part of something bigger and the Democratic leadership she says must take note.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OCASIO-CORTEZ: I think that we're in the middle of a movement in this country. There are a lot of really exciting races with extremely similar dynamics as mine, not just one district.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Who's right?

BADE: She's right, Pelosi is differently has wishful thinking right there. I mean, this was a clear message to the top Democratic leadership in the House that Democrats want change and their hierarchy and they want the establishment out and new blood at the top and they are ready to see somebody else lead beyond Pelosi.

Consider this, there are 20 Democratic candidates challenging Republicans in swing districts where they have come out in ads or interviews and said I will not vote for Nancy Pelosi to be speaker if we take back the House. If the Democrats take back the House, they will probably only have a majority of five to ten seats which means that Pelosi could only lose a handful of Democrats if she wants to maintain the gavel or take the gavel to become speaker. And if all of those candidates stick with their word and vote against her to become speaker, there's no way she can do this. And she's got a big problem.

KING: She has a problem and she's -- look, she was speaker. She has been the highest ranking woman in American politics for a reason. She knows how to organize and she's good.

But even this has her a bit back on her heels. Try to listen to her explain this away. Again, her answers the day after day after the day after -- let's see what she says a week and a month now, but in the days after, Nancy Pelosi challenged, she says, hey, wait a minute.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: If the Democratic Party is increasingly younger, more female, more diverse, more progressive, should the Democratic House leadership look that way.

PELOSI: Well, I'm female and progressive, I'm -- and the rest. So, what's your problem? Two out of three ain't bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: You know, sometimes you go at your best answer.

[08:20:00] And she has to do the math. But to Rachael's point, if there's a giant blue waves and Democrats win the House by 20 seats, Nancy Pelosi will be OK. She still is the party's premier fundraiser. She still has a lot of loyalty in the caucus.

However, if they just squeak by and a whole bunch of candidates promised in their TV ads I won't vote for her, she's going to have to negotiate either a temporary speakership or one or two years, two speakers, or she may have to go.

SHEAR: Well, look, it also says something not just about the leadership in the Congress but about the country and where the party is and it reminds me of when Eric Cantor got beaten in his primary. He of course was the majority leader so similar kind of dynamic in terms of leadership. And what we all wrote at the time was that it signaled -- and what it did signal was this intensifying conservative nature of the House -- of the Republican Party and the House conference of the Republican Party that created problems. It created a real tension between different factions of the Republican Party.

And I think that's where you're headed potentially with the Democratic Party here where part of the party is shifting far left to Nancy Pelosi's point, maybe that's the really progressive districts, but to the extend you end up having a majority, a bare majority, but you have different factions that really can't get along, I think it's going to bedevil this party for a long time.

KING: And so, you watch then, whose maneuvering, who has ambition, Joe Crowley out of the way, again, 50-something, thought of as the heir apparent to Nancy Pelosi. So, Seth Moulton knocked off another friend of Nancy Pelosi in a primary in Massachusetts a few years ago, he now is looking at the House leadership saying, how about giving us young guys a chance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SETH MOULTON (D), MASSACHUSETTS: I think it's time for an entire new generation of leadership in the Democratic Party. I mean, we've got to look ourselves in the mirror and realize that Trump may be terrible but if we can't beat him, if we're literally in the worst position as a party since the 1920s, which is where we are today, then we've got to make reforms ourselves. And I think a new generation of leaders will come from many different corners of the party.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: I think the question is, is it more about the generational issues or is it more about ideological issues?

KING: Right.

WARREN: I don't know the answer to that. I think that the one benefit that Nancy Pelosi has in a divided party is that you have people in the swing districts saying I'm not going to support Nancy Pelosi, but those are districts where the Democrats are going to be more moderate, trying to reach Trump voters. And then you have people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were coming from the progressive side of things. That kind of split.

We saw this on the Republican side of things. You had the Freedom Caucus on the one hand, and mainstream partnership on the other hand, in a way can it benefit to a very limited extent leadership because the opposition is divided.

KING: And as you raise this point, the Democrats are having this internal debate and the Republicans are watching it too. They are watching those candidates who say I won't vote for Nancy Pelosi and 20 houses Democratic saying Medicare for all.

Listen to Rush Limbaugh here. He says Republicans should be saying this party is going too far left.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO HOST: The reason they are not happy about it is because the things this woman that beat Joe Crowley stands for represent about 15 to 20 percent of the thinking of the country, maybe 30 at the outside. There's no way they are going to win the White House with this and they're not going to win back the House with this woman's agenda with the Bernie Sanders, this isn't going to happen. And they know it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And they know. I mean, there's no question the energy in the party her upset victory, she didn't spend that much money. Yes, Joe Crowley was lazy, yes, Joe Crowley was arrogant about the district, but something happened here.

The question is, is it in Queens and San Francisco, or is it across America?

KIM: And that's why we're going to be watching. There were a couple of -- one sleepy primaries that are going to be a lot more attention paid to in the coming weeks, we have Pressley in Massachusetts challenging Michael Capuano, and even Tom Carper who we think is safe, he does have a primary challenger in the Delaware primary. It's in September. There's a lot of time.

KING: Keep watching this from playing out.

Up next for us here, another Supreme Court pick and a chance for the president to shape the next generation of American law.

(COMMECIAL BREAK)

[08:28:15] KING: Welcome back.

Chaotic? Yes. Confusing and confounding are also words easily and fairly applied to the Trump presidency. But do not forget consequential.

The president this week interviewing finalists for his second Supreme Court vacancy in just 17 months on the job. This one to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, almost always the swing vote on a court that is as narrowly divided on the big legal issues as the country is on the big political questions.

The president has a list of 25 names and says he has five or six favorites among them, and he says he will announce his pick one week from tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It is a group of very highly talented, very brilliant, mostly conservative judges. From day one, I've heard outside of war and peace, of course, the most important decision you make is the selection of a Supreme Court judge, if you get it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Justice Kennedy tipped the balance of the last time the court considered Roe v. Wade and his vote decided the Constitution protected same sex marriage. The new justice could bend the court more to the right, assuming the president can win confirmation in election year and in the Senate, even more narrowly divided than when Neil Gorsuch squeezed through.

The president would like a few Democrats and already courting them. Priority one, though, moderate Republicans who view Justice Kennedy as just right and worried the president's list tilts too hard right.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: I view Roe v. Wade as being settled law. It's clearly precedent and I always look for judges who respect precedent. I always look at judicial temperament, qualifications and experience, the ABA rating, and their respect for the rule of law and the Constitution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We throw big adjectives around too much sometimes, a Supreme Court battle in an election year for the Kennedy seat. in the Trump presidency -- we can use the adjectives this time.

[08:29:47]

KIM: Yes. And you can't understate how significant this is for everybody involved -- for the President, for Senate Republicans for which Mitch McConnell -- this is his Super Bowl right here; and for Senate Democrats who really have to -- this is their one chance to really get their base to care about the court.

What we've seen for the last several years, perhaps the last decades is that conservatives are just better at this court issue than Democrats in terms of just getting the base involved, getting their base excited.

This is why Mitch McConnell's maneuver to block Merrick Garland in the final year of Barack Obama's presidency worked to his benefit because this wasn't an issue that galvanized Democrats but now with potentially the future of Roe versus Wade on the line, Democrats, this is their chance to really get their voters excited.

And that's why you're seeing the Democratic messaging on the Supreme Court already focusing on not only abortion but the future of the Affordable Care Act. You see that health care is the top motivating factor for Democratic voters right now and Chuck Schumer and the Senate Democrats are going to make sure they hear about health care and the Supreme Court all the way through the confirmation vote.

WARREN: One thing you're hearing from conservatives in the last couple of days is finally we get to fill the Bork seat, the Robert -- the seat of Robert Bork. And conservatives -- it was supposed to happen and Republicans view that as ground zero.

That fight where Robert Bork was blocked, Ginsburg was nominated that couldn't happen. So Anthony Kennedy eventually and you talk about his decision in Casey versus Planned Parenthood -- this feeling that that was ground zero for all of these politicized Supreme Court battles. And finally Republicans have a chance to right what they view is wrong.

They've been preparing for this for 35 years, preparing to -- whether it's, you know, having people who learned about their judicial philosophy from the likes of Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia.

I hear, you know, what Senator Collins says, this is something that Mitch McConnell is working very closely with the White House on. They are going to make sure that they have a nominee. I would be less concerned about those Republican senators and more interested to see which Democrats do cross the line and --

KING: And just to that point, let's just show during the week we'll talk about some of the nominees -- the potential nominees and their positions, the cases they've heard in the case of Mike Lee the Senator.

Let's focus and stay on the politics and these senators to watch. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins -- the two, you know, moderate Republican women, age 51 and 49, you can't lose a Republican. But if you do, you've got to -- these are Trump state Democrats up for re- election this year, Joe Donnelly in Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp North Dakota, Joe Manchin West Virginia, Claire McCaskill Missouri, Jon Tester Montana -- that's the President's pool of you need to vote with me, don't you?

SHEAR: Yes. And I think one of the things that you're going to see is that the Democrats are going to try to make the case that to their base, that these two important issues as someone said, abortion and the Affordable Care Act, is something that you have to be united on, that you can't -- because what the Democrats need is to hold their entire -- you know, all 49 and then they only have to peel off one Republican.

And, you know, I talked to a Democrat who's helping to lead this fight and they said look, we know how hard that's going to be. We know how much pressure there's going to be on some of these red state Democrats. What they are hoping is not that they can ultimately block the nomination for good but that they can do something similar to what they did 30 years ago with Bork, which is to say if the President puts forth somebody who's really conservative, maybe if we can pull this hat trick off and just get one Republican and hold everybody, we can force the President to put somebody slightly more moderate and slightly more like Kennedy.

KING: But this has been, whether it's the Gorsuch pick, the first Supreme Court pick, this one now or the other judicial picks -- this is the one area where the White House has a process and a system. They'd been methodical. They've communicated with the outside interest groups unlike other issue. Any other -- others that have gone off the rails whether it's health care, whether it's immigration constantly -- this one has stayed on.

You have some great reporting today about how the President goes about this including this. "Trump insists upon an extraordinarily well- qualified nominee with a superlative resume. The President is especially drawn to contenders with name brand degrees such as from Ivy League universities -- Harvard or Yale.

He also wants to see a portfolio of solid academic writing though this adviser acknowledged Trump does not care to read it; he simply wants to know it exists."

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's --

KING: Priceless.

F1: -- classic Trump right there but you're completely right that White House counsel Don McGahn and his team -- I mean this is the thing that this White House is excellent at. I mean not only with Supreme Court confirmations with Gorsuch being confirmed last year but with the big pipeline of (INAUDIBLE) nominees that, you know, the White House and Mitch McConnell have been shepherding to the Senate.

And we reported not only that tidbit but that, you know, Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump were on the phone before the Kennedy retirement talking about the prospect of a Kennedy retirement and immediately after.

[08:35:07] Don McGahn started making phone calls to key senators right away. He brought up six key senators to the White House on Thursday evening. And you're going to see a lot of attention paid on swing senators, a lot of coordination with leadership. Coordination with these deep pocketed outside groups who can provide that air cover for, you know, red state Democrats to support whomever Trump picks up. So it will be quite the battle.

KING: And in an odd way, the President says he's going to work off his existing list, right? So the names have been out there. And so that allows the White House if there are some things that anybody wants to whisper about anybody's past or anybody's record, it's been out there as opposed to naming a pick and then having to deal with that on the fly.

BADE: Yes, the President -- one of the main reasons why a lot of Republicans who didn't like him, you know, during the 2016 election that they voted for him was because he had this list of judges that, you know, a lot of Republicans said they could support.

I do think it's interesting that we're going to see Republicans potentially have to talk about social issues that they have tried to bury for a long time. You know, Republicans like to talk about economics. Abortion has sort of taken a back seat. LGBT issues -- they don't often, you know, bring these up. They'd rather talk about economics and tax cuts.

They're going to have to talk about that and I think that that's where potentially Democrats even though they're going to have a hard time stopping this, they can use that to their advantage in the mid-term elections.

KING: Even Lindsey Graham, a conservative, says he's pro-life. Said it in an interview airing on "Meet the Press" today that he thinks Roe v. Wade is (INAUDIBLE), it's the law of the land, it's a precedent.

But -- but you may not overturn Roe v. Wade, there's a lot of state restrictions, the viability questions because of medical advances in technology. This one sometimes politics is just for show, this politics matters.

WARREN: I'm just happy Harvard and Yale are going to get a chance.

SHEAR: Yes, finally. Finally.

WARREN: Finally.

KING: Finally.

Up next, the new world disorder -- ahead of a big overseas trip, the President plays nice with Putin and picks new fights with traditional U.S. allies.

[08:36:54] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: The President settled on a summit date with Vladimir Putin to begin this past week. As it ended, he dropped a stunning wait and see when it comes to the agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you hope to achieve -- Mr. President?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to talk about Ukraine. We're going to be talking about Syria. We'll be talking about elections. And we don't want anybody tampering with elections.

We might even be talking about some of the things that President Obama lost like Crimea -- that could come up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think the U.S. would recognize Crimea as part of Russia?

TRUMP: We're going to have to see.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Yes, it happened on President Obama's watch but it was Russia's Putin who again took territory from another sovereign nation. And to even float the idea of giving that a U.S. blessing is unacceptable and unsettling to key U.S. allies, not to mention Congress.

And the disruption didn't stop there. The President attacked the European Union, was quoted as saying NATO is as bad as the NAFTA trade deal he despises. And the "Washington Post" reports his displeasure with Germany's chancellor includes discussing U.S. troop levels there. The "Times of London" frames it as President Trump's war on the western world order. This overseas trip comes at a fascinating time where you literally have just about every European leader from the western alliance saying what is going on here.

BADE: Yes, I think we're -- a lot of people on the hill and our allies are really worried we're going to see a repeat of what happened at the G-7 where the President meets with his allies then flies off to, you know, praise a dictator that imprisons and kills his own people here.

I mean look, the fact that he said that NATO is like NAFTA and he's trying to bullock (ph) NAFTA and clearly wants to end NAFTA, this is largely problematic for the United States. I think we're going to see defense hawks on the Hill freak out about this.

I think the President last year, he said he wouldn't commit to article -- what is it - article 5 of NATO which says an attack on one is an attack on all. That actually prompted a rare rebuke from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who said NATO -- this is one of the most important treaties in world history.

So I do think a lot of people are nervous and we're going to see our allies keep careful watch about what he says about Crimea especially, but also people on the Hill.

KING: The Crimea is stunning -- whether you're Bernie Sanders or Ted Cruz -- expand the spectrum if you want. If you're asked would the United States ever recognize the Russian land grab in Crimea, the answer is no, absolutely no. Damn no, isn't it? Not we'll see.

SHEAR: Right. The question -- the question isn't that. The question has been and the debate has been how to respond to that and do you respond with, you know, sort of in more military ways, or is it really just a diplomatic effort.

But, you know, this is where President Trump has blown up conventions that are not partisan conventions. They are kind of world diplomatic order conventions that both parties have sort of, you know, consensus had been reached over many, many decades. That's what he's been --

(CROSSTALK)

KING: The President of the European Union saying, "Despite our tireless effort to keep the unity of the west, trans-Atlantic relations are under immense pressure due to the policies of President Trump. Unfortunately, the divisions go beyond trade. It is my belief that while hoping for best we must be ready to prepare our union for worst case scenarios."

Now working for this president means you try to go out and say what the President really means. Here's John Bolton, the national security advisor, on a Sunday show today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN BOLTON, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: I don't think anybody out to have a case of the vapors over the discussions we have at NATO or the G-7 versus discussions with Putin and Kim Jong-un. They are very, very different.

[08:44:59] The President treats them differently. He understands what the strategic interests are. And that's what he's trying to pursue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Forgive me, Mr. Bolton but the record is the President is a lot kinder to Kim Jong-un who U.S. intelligence say still working on his nuclear program, by the way, and Vladimir Putin than he is to Angela Merkel or Emmanuel Macron.

WARREN: The President's world view, all of this, you know, supposedly nonpartisan agreement in the western order is the problem. And that he has a sort of strange affinity for these strong men across the world for the way that they get things done.

I mean I listen to sort of his criticism of for instance Russia's incursion into Crimea on Obama's watch. He's also criticized what happened in Syria on Obama's watch. But it's interesting that he actually sort of reaches very similar end conclusions from a different perspective.

He like President Obama would like to see less U.S. Involvement in the Middle East and it just comes from a different perspective.

KING: Fascinating time.

Our reporters share from their notebooks next, including a follow the money question about the Russia meddling investigation and presidential aides who need lawyers.

[08:46:04] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Let's head one last time around the INSIDE POLITICS table, ask our great reporters to share a little something from their notebooks to help get you out ahead of the big political news just around the corner.

Rachael.

BADE: John -- if it's summer, it is appropriations season and even though we're a couple months out from the government running out of money we're already seeing the President and House Republicans increase their assault on the Senate filibuster to try to pressure Senate Republicans to get rid of the filibuster and basically pass a whole bunch of GOP priorities that Democrats will never vote for.

There was a meeting at the White House this week where the President and House Republicans tried to make a case to a bunch of Senate Republicans that they should get rid of the filibuster. Basically they argued that you did this for the Supreme Court and look what happened. We have a great justice; we'll have a lot of victories at the Supreme Court. We're expecting more. You should do the same thing for appropriations. And they actually won a convert on this, the Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby apparently told the President ok, I can back this even though Mitch McConnell is opposed to it and the President said where have you been?

And I just think that we're going to see a big assault on the filibuster in the coming months. I don't know that they actually get rid of it. I don't think they will but still, it's noteworthy.

KING: Can't wait for the tweets. I'm sure that's where we get the first word, the President's push there.

Michael.

SHEAR: So, few presidents have made as much news and much controversy because of the White House tumult and staff comings and goings as this president. We're about to enter one of these phases I think where you see a lot of staff turnover at the White House.

Next week we're expecting Bill Shine, a former Fox executive to take over as the sort of uber-communications chief to try to manage the communications of the White House better.

But even bigger, likely is that we're likely soon to see the departure of John Kelly who has been essentially invisible as chief of staff for weeks now. We've seen sort of neither hide nor hair of him. There's rumors almost every day that his departure is coming. Joe Hagan, his deputy chief of operations at the White House is already leaving.

And keep your eye ultimately on when Sarah Sanders leaves because while she says that she's there. She says that she's not going anywhere, she's been in the job, you know, close to a year now. She's been at the White House since the beginning. And if she leaves, you're likely to see an entire -- an entire turnover of her press staff which I think, you know, will mean that we as reporters in the country is going to have to get used to a whole new set of people to watch.

KING: Even Trump aides get Trump-exhaustion.

SHEAR: They do.

KING: Michael.

WARREN: Well, it's July 1st which means we just finished the second quarter which means we should be looking for some financial disclosures from political groups. And one that I'm going to be watching is the Patriot Legal Expense Fund Trust. This is the name, the convoluted name for essentially what is a legal defense fund for Trump associates from the campaign or the transition or the administration who are caught up in some of these Russia investigations to help pay for their legal expenses.

But it's a pretty unusual organization. It's registered as a 527 PAC (ph) which means it could take unlimited donations. We'll find out who donated those. They have to disclose that. It's also not a trust; it's not specific to one person the way a traditional legal defense fund works.

And some Democrats are raising questions about the connection that this PAC will have with the Trump re-election campaign. At this point though, I'm just looking to find out who donated to this and who's getting the money. We haven't found any of those answers yet but we'll find them out in just -- just a little bit.

KING: Great question. Follow the money, always works.

Seung Min.

KIM: And because it is July 1st, that's when Canada is now going into the retaliatory tariffs on the United States. And that means the tariff battles continue to heat up in Congress.

And you saw Senate Republicans becoming more and more aggressive this past week against the President and his trade policies. You had Senator Pat Toomey and Bob Corker go to the floor demanding a vote on a measure that would put more congressional authority over the section 232 tariffs.

And they didn't get that vote yet but we know they are going to continue pushing for one. And if that vote happens, when that vote happens, it's going to be one that really puts a lot of Republicans in a tough spot. You know, endorse kind of their core ideology of free trade or you know, go along with the President of their party who is an incredibly popular figure with their voters.

You have Jeff Flake who is threatening to hold up circuit court nominees until he gets a vote on the tariff measures. So this is going to be a battle that continues to heat up and we'll just keep waiting to see what happens.

KING: It's a lot of fun to watch.

I'll close on a somewhat related note as Seung Min just noted. The President so far ignoring Republican complaints that his trade war could end up hurting the GOP in the mid-term elections. But he is trying to respond to another economic worry even though he twisted the facts in a tweet about it.

Gas prices are up about 60 cents a gallon over the last year and Republicans worry that might take a big summer bite out of their big tax cut.

[08:55:05] The President tweeted Saturday that he talked to the King of Saudi Arabia and that the King promised help. But the White House had to correct the record later to say the King did not promise anything other than to maintain the standard level of Saudi oil reserves and to keep in touch with OPEC partners about prices and the market. But no direct promise to add more fuel to the market.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS. Again, thanks for sharing your Sunday morning. Hope you can catch us week days as well. We're here at noon Eastern.

Stay right here. "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER" up next, including an interview with a key voice in the Supreme Court fight -- Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine.

Have a great Sunday.

[08:55:38] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)