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Inside Politics
Priebus Out, Kelly In As White House Chief of Staff; GOP Backlash After Trump Zeros in on Sessions; GOP Senators' Attempt to Repeal and Replace Obamacare Fails; White House Shake Up; President to Sign New Sanctions on Russia; Trump's Travel Plans for August. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired July 30, 2017 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): A new White House chief of staff.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: John Kelly is one of our great stars.
KING: Can a marine general calm the West Wing chaos?
Plus --
[08:00:01] JARED KUSHNER, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR ADVISOR: I did not collude with Russia.
KING: Another staff shakeup won't end the biggest source of the president's anger.
And a thumbs-down by John McCain's a stunning defeat for the president and his party.
TRUMP: Let Obamacare implode.
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.
This week brings a new White House chief of staff. Discipline and order are General John Kelly's trademarks. But can he impose them on a president who deliberately invokes chaos the West Wing?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARK SANFORD (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: What he'll bring to bear is the chain of command in the military and well-run organizations. If he can do that, he's going to be successful. If you have these competing power centers that allowed to play out, I think we still have problems ahead of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: What next is a question with many wrinkles, including this -- are two big summer White House shakeups the last word or is there more turmoil ahead, including a push to oust or to move the attorney general?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SESSIONS, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I serve at the pleasure of the president.
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Yes.
SESSIONS: If he wants to make a change, he can certainly do so. And I would be glad to yield in that search of this, no doubt about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And what now for the Republican agenda? Score Obamacare repeal as a giant GOP promise broken and what could be Senator John McCain's last big act was a message to the president as much as it was a protest of today's polarized politics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Whether or not we are of the same party, we are not the president's subordinates. We are his equal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With us to share their reporting and insight this is Sunday: Margaret Talev of "Bloomberg Politics", Michael Bender of "The Wall Street Journal", Michael Warren of "The Weekly Standard" and CNN's Sara Murray.
Word there would be a new sheriff in town came Friday evening after a bloody and very public week of West Wing warfare. Retired General John Kelly, current homeland security secretary, starts tomorrow as the White House chief of staff.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Reince is a good man. John Kelly will do a fantastic job. General Kelly has been a star, done an incredible job thus far, respected by everybody. A great, great American. But Reince Priebus is a good man.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: You heard the president calling Reince Priebus a good man. He is gone now. Reince gone after seven months of constantly being called weak, ineffective and worse by the president. He finally took the hint or the shove and offered his resignation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REINCE PRIEBUS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: The president has a right to change directions. The president has a right to hit a reset button. I think it's a good time to hit the reset button. I think he was right to hit the reset button and I think it was something that I think the White House needs. I think it's healthy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: OK. He thinks it's healthy. He's gone. That's what you say.
The question is, what next? What changes? What changes? Can General Kelly, the anti-Trump in many ways -- he believes in order, believes in discipline, he thinks before he speaks -- can he change the behavior of the president's inner circle? And, more importantly, can he change the behavior of the president?
MARGARET TALEV, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG POLITICS: Yes. I mean, I think two things we need to see, precisely that, how will he impose order on both the senior level staff, the family and outside friends who influence the president or have just wide-ranging walk-in privileges, call-in privileges, conversational privileges? Will he seek to limit exposure to the president? Will he seek not to do that but to get kind of reports after the fact on what folks talked about? How broadly will that apply?
We all assume that the family, that Jared and Ivanka, can come and go as they please. Will this apply to Anthony Scaramucci? Will it apply to official -- you know, Steve Bannon, strategist, that sort of thing? We don't know yet that. And is that the most important thing or is it how he manages President Trump himself? Does President Trump want more self management or is that not what this is about?
SARA MURRAY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: But I think the bigger is, can you be a productive administration even amid all this chaos? The chaos doesn't necessarily bother Trump. What bothers Trump is that nothing is getting done what he wants to get done.
OK. So, maybe you still have these warring power centers. I mean, you know my theory in this. He's 70 years old. He's not going to suddenly stop calling his friends or stop inviting people to pop by in the West Wing. But if you can do that and not be making policy about transgender individual serving in the military on Twitter, without notifying the joint chiefs, without going through proper order, can you have a chaotic West Wing but still be a strong governing partner and be able to get you a legislative priority through Congress? Can you do tax reform?
If you have a little bit of back biting in the West Wing but are still able to execute on those priorities, I think Trump would be perfectly happy with that. I just don't know that that's something that John Kelly will be able to do either.
KING: That's a great question. We just put up on the screen, for those of you not familiar with his background. He's a retired general of the United States Marines. He's an American hero. He was retired eight months before he was tapped to serve by Trump.
[08:05:04] He was born and raised in Boston. He's a member of the Red Sox Nation. You got to give him points for that.
He served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He used to work with Leon Panetta when Leon Panetta was the defense secretary. He understands certainly the management of the Pentagon. The question is, he doesn't have a lot of political experience.
If you look at the top eight, or 10 or nine, or 12 people in the White House, there's nobody with Washington White House experience. Can he impose the discipline and, to Sara's point, get things done for this president?
MICHAEL BENDER, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: He should be able to impose the discipline. I think John Kelly is certainly capable of being an effective chief of staff. The bottom line is whether Trump will empower him.
I think that, you know, what John Kelly has working on his power right now is that he has the respect of the president. You heard him talking there about what a great man he is. I'm told that when these cabinet officials come in periodically for updates to the president, to the top staff, one of -- John Kelly has always stood head and shoulders above almost all the rest of the cabinet, has results all the time for the president. The president respects his record.
And something that Priebus struggled with from the start. He just wasn't able -- the president viewed him as weak from basically day one.
MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR WRITER, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Yes. So, I think the question is, how long does the president respect John Kelly? I mean, right now, he does have him at somewhat of a distance coming in for updates as a cabinet member, not somebody in the West Wing.
This is some -- you know, the president seems to respect generals. But he does have a general in the White House right now, H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser. And there is tension there between the president and McMaster. They don't always get along. In many ways, the president views McMaster, sometimes talking down to him.
So, if John Kelly comes across that way as well, as he tries to impose discipline, that's a relationship that could sour. So, that's I think a big question mark. But I agree with you, Sara, that we are dealing with a 70-year-old president who is set in his ways. I find it hard to believe John Kelly can do anything to change that.
KING: And who just hired a new communications director who stirred up a lot of this, in a way that I'm told General Kelly found distasteful, and I'm using a polite term, by coming out publicly. Anthony Scaramucci essentially was the last straw for Reince Priebus. He gave an interview to "The New Yorker" where he said, Reince Priebus, if you want to leak something, he'll be asked to resign very shortly, that was telling. Reince is a bleeping paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac.
And I also want to -- let me play a little bit of Anthony Scaramucci. I'm just -- I'm trying to figure out John Kelly's first, second, third day in the White House. He wakes up and he is watching the morning news and he sees something like this on a morning broadcast from Anthony Scaramucci.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: As you know, from the Italian phrase, the fish stinks from the head down. But I can tell you two fish that don't stick, OK? And that's me and the president.
I don't like the activity that's going on in the White House. I don't like what they're doing to my friend. I don't like what they're doing to the president of the United States or their fellow colleagues in the West Wing. Now, if you want to talk about the chief of staff, we've had odds, we have had differences.
When I said we were brothers from the podium, that's because we're rough on each other. Some brothers are like Cain and Abel.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
KING: If you come up through the marines and you understand military order and discipline, if you have trouble, you don't air your laundry in public and you don't air with the vulgar language that Anthony Scaramucci used if you go and look at that "New Yorker" interview. Can John Kelly go to the president and say, you need to stifle him? Can he go to Anthony Scaramucci and say, when you're going to go on television, you check with me? Will that happen?
BENDER: I think the president is the only one that can say that to Anthony Scaramucci right now. I mean, a handful of appearances we've seen from him, as a member of the White House, half of what he talks about is his discussions with the president, me and the president in the Oval Office, me and the president and the first lady out to dinner. And it's clear that he was given the go ahead to go after Reince and to talk about some of this publicly.
And there was quite a different Scaramucci the next day, was that Friday? It's hard to keep track. Every day is like three days in this administration.
KING: It was a crazy week.
BENDER: We didn't see him in public at all. We didn't see him on TV. We didn't see him in interviews. And when you walk by, the press said I'm not going to talk about it.
KING: If he doesn't know what he's getting into, General Kelly, and there are reports he turned the job down a couple of months ago. They told the president no, thank you, I have work to do at the Department of Homeland Security. This time, he didn't say no. Here's the president's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when all this was blowing up, before we knew General Kelly was coming in. She says, look, the president likes it this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: You know, I don't know if he has an opinion on what they should do between the two of them. I think the president, as always, enjoys healthy competition and conversation and he sees that as such.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TALEV: Right. So, here's the thing. There's a difference between General Kelly and Reince Priebus in terms of how they approach this job. As someone who has turned the job down several times and ultimately does it because he came up in the military brass and the commander in chief has asked him to do something, is coming at things from a different negotiating posture for the terms of his job than, you know, Reince did, because he wanted to be there.
[08:10:05] He wanted that job and he wanted the ability to kind of shape this historic presidency and also, to some extent, make it work with establishment Republicans who control Congress.
So, General Kelly has the ability to a greater extent to set the terms and he's certainly is being encouraged to do that but a cross section of people both inside and outside of the administration who watch this had unfold. So, he has no shortage of good advice from people inside and outside. And he understands this himself also. Again, if he has said no several times, the time you say yes is the time when you, to some at least, get to do it on your terms.
KING: And we'll come to the leadership style a bit later in the program, but what about the first week. I mean, day one, he starts on the morning, the president is up and tweeting again this morning, already criticizing Republican senators and how they approached health care, telling them to get back it.
Most generals don't like to go back on the battlefield unless the terms have changed. Do we have a better weapon, do we have more troops? Has the enemy done something to give us more ground? There's nothing that's changed on the health care debate. It will be interesting to see if he moves on that.
But let's take that in a minute. The president tweeting on China late last night, I'm very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade yet they do nothing for us with North Korea. Just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem.
That's a message that China -- there's also been a test of anti- missile defense system in Alaska over night. U.S. bombers flying over North Korea.
Now, this tends to happen every couple of weeks. North Korea tested a missile the other day. Is this just another chapter in point- counterpoint or are we moving toward something that General Kelly is going to have to deal with as White House chief of staff?
WARREN: I think this is something that the administration has been sort of preparing and moving toward its entire existence, six and a half, seven months. This is an issue in North Korea that, remember, that's what President Obama told President Trump on his way out the door, he said, this is the biggest issue you're going to have to deal with. There's serious people on the National Security Council who are thinking through new ways to deal with this issue.
It is something that General Kelly is going to have to deal with simply because, you know, whether or not, you know, the administration decides to push this, that or the other on Capitol Hill, other domestic issues, national security and foreign policy issues end up kind of dictating -- events kind of dictate what a White House is going to have to deal with.
KING: But the military people don't like the president tweeting about these things in the sense because it raises expectation you're going to do something.
MURRAY: Right. But you're not going to stop the president from tweeting. So, they're just -- I mean, John Kelly has got to know that going on. I'm sure the other people -- you know, military generals who are serving around the president have realized that by this point. Yes, that's annoying, but that's the president they've got, and then they're going to have to work around it.
But we do know that President Trump has actually spent a lot of time working on this and thinking about it behind the scenes. I mean, I think that's the counter point. It's not just that he just fires this is stuff out on Twitter and then they never have a conversation with the president going forward. We know that he took that advice from President Obama to heart and we know that he does view North Korea as perhaps the biggest threat right now, and frankly, he views Kim Jong- un as a crazy person.
And so, this is one of the things that is actually on the top of his to-do list day in, day out. I think that might make the generals feel better that he has spent time digesting this issue behind the scenes. He's not just tweeting about it blindly.
KING: And the other side, and the China side of it, it sounds like after months of essentially giving China a pass on his campaign promises about getting tougher on trade, sounds like the president is running out of patience on that. We will see.
Up next, we'll continue the conversation. Management style Trump triggers two telling revolts, conservatives warn the president to back up his attorney general and the Pentagon gets blindsided by tweets about transgender service members.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:17:53] KING: This past week will be remembered well for a lot of things. But one, as the week the president's unorthodox management style triggered an intervention of sorts from his own party and the conservative base. The president makes it abundantly clear he wishes Attorney General Jeff Sessions would quit. And it's just as clear he wants that to happen so that he, the president, gets more control over the Russia election meddling investigation.
Quote: Please cut it out, was the appeal from the former White House special counsel Ken Starr. That was in "The Washington Post". Starr went on to urge the president to, quote, listen to the growing chorus of voices who want you to succeed, by being faithful to the oath of office you took on January 20th and by upholding the traditions of a nation of laws, not of men.
Here are some more colorful twists on the same point.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: If Jeff Sessions is fired, there will be holy hell to pay. Any effort to go after Mueller could be the beginning of the end of the presidency unless Mueller did something wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Tough words from conservatives. It wasn't just Ken Starr. If you look around the conservative media last week, a lot of people saying, Mr. President, don't make us choose between you and Jeff Sessions because we will choose Jeff Sessions. In Congress, Lindsey Graham just one of many voices, he just says it colorfully, saying, Mr. President, don't do it. Don't force him out. We back Sessions and if you do force him out, you're not going to get a replacement.
Did that -- is it over? There's some talk now that with John Kelly moving over from Homeland Security to the White House, that maybe the president will say, fine, I won't fire Jeff Sessions, I'll just try to move him over to Homeland Security? Is that a feasible option?
BENDER: I don't think it's over. I don't think it's I mean, this was -- Trump is still upset about the recusal that happened months ago and maybe he has been distracted a little bit here for the time being. I don't think -- I don't think that Trump is over this yet and I don't think that Trump thinks that this is a political problem for him.
Yes, there are Republicans who are going or doing everything they can to stop him, you know, and from firing Sessions. But his political people don't see it as a problem. You know, Jeff Sessions is pure in the base, and he has a lot of fans, particularly in Washington, particularly among the conservative set in Washington.
[08:20:03] But his political advisers are telling him things along the lines of what Trump said back during the campaign, that he can walk down Fifth Avenue, shoot someone and the base would stick with him. The base is behind Trump, not Sessions.
KING: The interesting question to me, though, with a new chief of staff who's again, military disciplined, one of the grown-ups in the cabinet, I'm told one of the people who did not like the president publicly undermining his attorney general -- does he tell the president it does not serve you well to have an attorney general who when travelling overseas, does not interview and has to say things like this?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SESSIONS: Kind of hurtful but the president of the United States is a strong leader. I serve at the pleasure of the president. If he wants to make a change, can he certainly do so. I would be glad to yield in that circumstance, no doubt about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Be glad to yield in that circumstance.
Jeff Sessions called the president a strong leader there. A number of Republicans openly, and conservative commentators openly used the term weak about the president. They were trying to fire his own words back at him this week. What would -- was this -- I said an intervention of sorts. Was this a week we'll remember when the conservatives just said enough, Mr. President, or is it just them reacting and this too shall pass?
WARREN: I'm a little skeptical that the conservatives are just going to abandon the president, mostly because I agree that the sort of conservative set in Washington is more aligned with Jeff Sessions than they are with Donald Trump, particularly on this issue. But voters voted for Donald Trump. It's Donald Trump that they're behind.
And if this is seen -- it's seen by the president this way. If it's seen by the voters as the Mueller investigation is a bigger political problem than anything he could be doing, getting rid of Jeff Sessions or trying, you know, to get around and this investigation, they're going to stick with him. And I think that is probably the right view politically, if not sort of constitutionally.
KING: Is the turmoil over? You have Jeff Sessions just sort of twisting in the wind.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: A good laughter. I like that. I like that.
But if look -- if you just look at the turnover. Now, the FBI director James Comey was fired. Again, one of the reasons Jeff Sessions, we pay so much attention, the president talking about Jeff Sessions, because he fired James Comey, as eh president himself said, because he didn't like the way, at least in part, he was handling the Russian investigation.
Those other people you see in the screen, they all work in the White House. The communications director, the national security adviser, the deputy national security adviser, now the chief of staff, the press secretary. So, a number of them, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer, Katie, they were from the RNC, the establishment wing of the party and Mike Dubke as well. So, a lot of this is Trump purging the Republican establishment over six months. But that's a lot of turnover. That's a lot of turnover. When I say
-- you laughed when I said are we done.
MURRAY: Because the president is the president. He's not going to change the way he has run things and he is a chaos president. He's OK with that for the most part, as long as he's still getting things down. He's not going to stop tweeting. He's not going to stop pitting aides against each other. This is how he has run his business. It's how he run his campaign. That's how he wants to run the White House. Fine.
I mean, we know if you are traditionally, a White House chief of staff, you're not in that job for particularly long amount of time anyway. So, this might be the kind of presidency where we see him burn quickly through a number of staffers. But, no, I don't think that -- this is not the end of him being angry at Jeff Sessions. It's not the end of him pitting aides against each other.
KING: But the question I come back to is management style issue. And can a new chief of staff change him? In the sense that, again, a retired marine general will be the chief of staff, the active duty generals were annoyed beyond belief at the president this past because on Twitter, he announced the change in transgender policy, saying he was banning any transgender individuals from serving in any capacity in the United States military.
No heads up to the joint chiefs. The president tweeted it out in a series of tweets to which the chairman of the joint chiefs issued a statement saying there will be no modifications to the current policy until the president's direction has been received by the secretary of defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance. In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect. That's essentially the top general in the United States saying, I was just blind sided by the president. Everybody stand put until we figure this out.
TALEV: Absolutely. I think fundamentally, Kelly can maybe not change him, Kelly can help to manage him, or to constraint him, to direct him to advise him. But fundamentally, one thing that seems the president is struggling with is whether to believe that these various groups helped him to become the president, the establishment wing of the Republican Party, the wing led by Steve Bannon, and the Wall Street wing. Whether they're the reason he's president or whether he is the reason he's president.
And right now, he instinctively seems to be leaning to the idea he's the reason he's president. He's not thought really twice about jettisoning the establishment. There may be more to come.
And the question is, for General Kelly, can he use not just his experience but his ties to essentially other generals, to Mattis, to McMaster, to Tillerson, to help constrain the president and retool his thinking?
KING: Will the default always be which group made me president? How about I am president, how can I get things done? WARREN: Right. A quick note, Joe Dunford, very close with John
Kelly. In fact, he informed John Kelly that his son had died in Afghanistan.
[08:25:01] So, that's a relationship, two men who are very close. I think there could be some changes, at least in that narrow area.
KING: We'll keep an eye on that one. Up next, repeal Obamacare. For seven years, the Republican Party's rallying cry, well, it collapses with a thumb's down from Senator John McCain. So, now what?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to terminate Obamacare. We're going to replace it with something that's going to be great.
We're going to win with health care, replace and repeal that garbage known as Obamacare.
I'm going to ask Congress to send me a bill to repeal and replace, finally, Obamacare. It's a disaster.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
[08:30:06] Under Senate rules that bill can be passed with 51 votes -- 51. Not a big deal. Especially if we hold the Senate, and I think we will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Candidate Trump was right. Republicans did hold the Senate in last year's election. But he was wrong that repealing Obamacare could be quick and would be easy.
Getting a bill through the House, you might remember, was messy. You might also remember President Trump staged this big celebration at the White House, then pulled the rug out from under those House members who cast tough votes by calling the legislation mean.
The GOP's Senate effort to keep repeal and replace process alive, well, those efforts collapsed early Friday when Republican Senator John McCain walked to the well of the Senate, turned his thumb down, and cast the deciding vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), MAJORITY LEADER: I, and many of my colleagues, did as we promised and voted to repeal this failed law. We told our constituents we would vote that way. And when the moment came -- when the moment came, most of us did. It's time to move on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The question is, move on to what? Tax reform is no cakewalk. And millions of Americans have pressing health care questions now.
Here is the president's take.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Boy, oh, boy. They've been working on that one for seven years. Can you believe that? The swamp! But we'll get it done. We're going to get it done. You know, I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode and then do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That's the president on Friday, let Obamacare implode. And yet yesterday and again this morning he's tweeting something quite different. He wants Republican senators to come back at this. He's saying come back. Try again. Don't be quitters.
Here's one of the tweets he sent yesterday: Unless the Republican senators are total quitters, repeal and replace is not dead. Demand another vote before voting on any other bill.
Why? Why is the president so committed to pushing Republicans to keep trying when it's pretty clear from what we saw this past week they don't have the answers to these policy divides? And one of the reasons John McCain voted no, he told associates, was that otherwise you get a House-Senate conference committee. He thought three, four months from now we'd be having the same conversations. He wanted to essentially blow up the process.
Why? Why does the president want them to come back to this?
TALEV: I think there are a couple of different strategies there at play. But one is he uses the word "they" instead of "we". And I mean he's the head --
KING: They don't like that.
TALEV: He's the head of the Republican Party! So every time he says "they" instead of "we", he's putting distance between himself and the Republicans. Part of this may be an effort to go back to his own base and say I did everything I could. I told them to go to 51 votes. I told them, you know, throw everything you've got at it. And they're the ones who walked away from it. Part of it may be he loved to see them do the nuclear option so he could actually get some legislation passed beyond the health care legislation.
But I think there's a little danger in this game of "we" versus "they", or "they" versus "we", which is if he's already increasingly vulnerable to having Republicans turn on him, and then he does things like let go his chief of staff, who many of them like, or who is a connection to the main group of Republicans, threaten Jeff Sessions, all these different sort of legs of his base at the same time, then putting that distance between himself and them also gives them some freedom to put distance between themselves and him. WARREN: I think Margaret is right about the effort here by the
president to sort of shift blame to Congress instead of himself. I think it's important that we remember most of the problems with the Republican Obamacare repeal effort had to do with Congress, you know, sort of getting this actually a very broad, diverse ideologically, conference -- moderates, conservatives, people in between -- together.
But there was a presidential element to this. Did the president do any major speeches touting any of the policy initiatives of this new bill? Throughout the whole thing, no. In fact, every time I talked to the White House about what is the White House doing about this? They would say, you know, well, we're -- Mike Pence goes down to Congress to speak to the Senate luncheon every week. Well, I mean, that can do a lot of arm twisting on the inside. Clearly not enough. But the public campaign, the president was never a part of. And I think now he's trying to sort of correct the record, or maybe change history a little bit.
KING: So what does he do? For the people watching in the United States, that we're coming up on the season in which the insurance companies set premiums. We're coming up on the season in which insurance companies make decisions. We're not too far away from the end of the year, even though it's only -- you know, about to go into August, where people have to decide can I leave my job? What do I do when open enrollment season comes?
One of the questions is will the administration continue the subsidies essentially that go to insurance companies that participate in the Obamacare exchanges? The president tweeting yesterday if the new health care bill is not completed, bailouts for insurance companies and bailouts for members of Congress will end very soon.
[08:35:05] The House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to the Speaker and the Majority Leader saying there's actually parts of the Senate bill that deal with the insurance payments. So she said, well, the Democrats would support that. Take a piece of it out and support it. Yesterday she essentially challenged the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), MINORITY LEADER: This is the law. The Affordable Care Act is the law. And the funds that need to be there, the president has the power to release or withhold.
So where do we go from here? What we need to do is to make sure he does not sabotage -- does not sabotage the Affordable Care Act.
(CHEERING)
We need them to put forth the funds. We need them to do the outreach.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Would the president carry through with that threat? Stop the payments to the insurance companies? BENDER: He hasn't yet. And the way he talks about letting Obamacare fail, it's different from letting it fail on its own to pushing it over the edge, which would be sabotaging, withholding these payments.
The administration has talked about this issue as leverage in the debate. That's obviously changed now. Mitch McConnell's moving on. And it's really dangerous to predict, I think we've seen, what Trump will do on any given day here.
But the language he's used so far indicates that if he's going to let Obamacare fail, that he would let it fail on its own. But we'll find out here in the next couple of months.
KING: What do we make of the decisive vote by Senator John McCain? And before he cast it, he cast the vote that allowed the debate to continue. Then he threw his thumbs down.
I want you to listen, before we talk about it. This is what he said. He allowed the debate to continue but he said he had a message for his colleagues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Stop listening to the bombastic loud- mouths on the radio and television and the Internet. To hell with them. Let's trust each other. Let's return to regular order. We've been spinning our wheels on too many important issues because we keep trying to find a way to win without help from across the aisle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: I hope I'm wrong, but the senator is going home for chemotherapy, and what we saw last week from him -- that speech and the thumbs down -- could be his last big act in Washington.
What do we make of it? What was his message?
BENDER: Well, I think one of the striking things here is kind of what you were alluding to here -- you showed, on that screen, all the people that Trump has gotten rid of. He's essentially divorced himself from the establishment of the Republican Party, save Mike Pence, who we haven't seen -- who hasn't really been in power and brand (ph) hasn't been effective in Congress.
So what now? I mean, McCain is talking about that traditional conservatism of trusting each other, not giving into the sort of fringe voices on the outside. And Trump has basically removed everyone from inside his White House that has connections to that part of the party.
WARREN: I think McCain is also making a very prosaic point, which is -- and I think if you can go back, and a lot of congressional leaders would say that you just go back to January and start doing this whole health care thing through regular order, having committee hearings, that you might have actually gotten a consensus among Republicans and could have passed something. So there's a sort of very straightforward point McCain is making here,
which is this could have gotten done if had we done it the right way. And, hey, McConnell left it open. Maybe they could still do it.
KING: What we're doing ain't working. Let's try something else.
TALEV: He's also saying the Senate should give the president a run for his money. The executive branch has become too strong. It's time for Congress to get back in the game.
KING: That was pretty clear. We're not -- we're his equals. He was pretty clear about that.
Everybody, sit tight. Up next, the White House says the president will sign legislation imposing new sanctions on Russia. He didn't really have a choice.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[08:41:50] JARED KUSHNER, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: I did not collude with Russia. Nor do I know of anyone else in the campaign who did so. I had no improper contacts. I have not relied on Russian funds for my businesses. And I have been fully transparent in providing all requested information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner made that rare statement outside the white house this past week. Believe it or not, it was just this past week after his first of two days being questioned by congressional investigators.
It is the Russia election meddling investigations that fueled the president's anger way more than any Washington policy debate or West Wing personnel rivalries. Remember this, just a week ago from the president's new communications director.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: He called me from Air Force One and he basically said to me, hey, you know, this is -- maybe they did it. Maybe they didn't do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Maybe they did it. Maybe they didn't do it.
So consider this irony. The president this week will sign his first major piece of legislation, a law imposing new sanctions against the Kremlin for election interference. Election interference the president himself refuses to fully acknowledge and condemn.
He can't like that, but they have no choice. The White House announcing Friday night definitively the president would sign this legislation. The alternative was to veto it, and have the Congress override that veto, because it passed with such overwhelming majorities.
That can't say, shall we say, boost the president's spirits, that he's going to have to sign that.
TALEV: Well, that's exactly right. But the sort of corollary question is, is there going to be a signing statement -- I would bet on yes -- and what's it going to say?
And in -- on -- assuming there is one on that front, he will have not just his own legacy in mind but that of presidents who come after he does. Because if you're the executive branch, you don't want Congress constraining your ability to make movements on sanctions, which to some extent is what this does.
And you can imagine if it were Obama or Bush in the White House, that they would, like, this thing would never would've gotten this far. But because it's Trump and because the baggage that he brought with him from the campaign and the transition, this just became an unavoidable situation.
KING: It's a Republican Congress tying the hands of a Republican president.
TALEV: Yes.
MURRAY: Because they don't trust him on this issue. And that statement that Scaramucci made is why. I mean, the intelligence agencies are in agreement about Russian meddling. The chiefs that Trump put in to lead these agencies are in agreement about Russian election meddling. And it's just the president who refuses to believe it, because he refuses to believe that Russia was trying to help him. He thinks that it's an attack on the legitimacy of his presidency.
And now this has gone so far downfield, he feels like he just has no control over what's going on with the special counsel investigation. That's why when we say is the anger at Sessions going to dissipate? Is the risk that he could wake up one day and decide to fire Mueller going to go away? No, it's not. Because he's going to continue to see stories about how Mueller has hired white collar attorneys, about his finances, how Jared Kushner's finances, his children's finances could all get drawn into this. And that makes him more livid than anything, that he cannot stop this ball from going further down the field and that it could involve his businesses.
KING: Well, to that point, more livid than anything, the president sometimes goes on the road. They get him out of Washington. The event Friday with the police up in Long Island was scheduled before they knew they were going to lose the health care vote.
But during that event, the president talked tough on gangs.
[08:45:00] And then he went back to his greatest hits from the campaign, including some tough talk about immigration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have a simple message today for every gang member and criminal alien that are threatening so violently our people. We will find you, we will arrest you, we will jail you, and we will deport you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He also talked about the border wall again in that speech.
Is this just singing his greatest hits when he's at a speech out of town? Or are they worried about their own base and the president was out there trying to, you know, bring up his own base?
BENDER, I think they're always concerned about the base here. His approvals, right, are high 30s at best. And that is generally the base. Ad if they give up that -- give up any ground on that, what's left? I mean, that's his -- that's all his leverage right there.
WARREN: And I think he's sensitive, too, to the fact that there hasn't actually been a lot of movement on any of these issues. And so maybe, again, playing those greatest hits is a way to sort of toss a bone to the base or at least to say, look, I'm thinking about this even if there's nothing substantive. And he probably recognizes that.
KING: Another thing that happened -- I want to play a little more of that speech. The president spoke to Boy Scouts in the past week, and the Boy Scouts apologized after, saying the president used some coarse language and gave a political speech at what is supposed to be a non- political event.
Speaking to the police officers, the president said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And you see these towns, and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of the paddy wagon, you just seen them thrown in rough. I said please don't be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put your hand over -- like don't hit their head and they've just killed somebody. Don't hit their head. I said you can take the hand away, OK?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: The police department in that county and then the New York Police Department said that was reprehensible. They made clear that they thought, you know, they wanted to make clear that their departments do not condone that kind of -- Why does the president say these kinds of things I guess is the best question?
BENDER: He loves this. I mean -- and I wonder if any of those statements from the police, certainly the Boy Scouts, ever get back to Trump.
We were in the Oval Office on Tuesday for an interview. He insisted that that Boy Scout speech went well. And when I tried to suggest that maybe it was a little mixed, he was adamant I was wrong and that, in the room, everyone loved it.
KING: All right. Our reporters share from their notebooks next, including a look at the president's summer travel plans.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:51:39] KING: Let's close as we always do, head around the INSIDE POLITICS table, ask our great reporters to share a little something from their notebooks. Help get you out ahead of the political news just around the corner.
Margaret Talev?
TALEV: So as if General Kelly didn't have enough to do, enough challenges in this first couple of weeks, the West Wing is going to be largely closed for mandatory renovations for about half of August. And this is going to kick in just about days after he starts his new job. They're doing repairs to HVAC system, which is 27 years old but apparently, like in dog years, is really 81. So it needs to be replaced. There was a leak in the roof the other day. The got to do paint, carpeting, wiring, so all these offices are going to be moved temporarily to the EEOB. So on top of all the actual structural challenges, he's going to have some geographic challenges as well.
KING: We can add a few cameras to keep track of who's going in and out of the Oval Office.
Michael?
BENDER: John Kelly is just the first of several personnel issues for Donald Trump in this administration. He's got to figure out if he's going to rein in Anthony Scaramucci? Is he going to stop belittling Jeff Sessions?
But a couple of other points of tension here for Trump. Rex Tillerson is very frustrated that the White House is running more and more of the foreign policy out of the White House. And H.R. McMaster, he's not gelling with Tillerson, he's not gelling with Steve Bannon, and has been rebuffed by the president himself on a request for modest increases in troops in Afghanistan.
KING: Fun job. Fun job.
Michael?
WARREN: And it seems about 20 news cycles ago, but there is the question about Jeff Sessions and what is the president going to do about his attorney general? If he does fire Jeff Sessions and tried to get a replacement, the best possible option for him is to do a recess appointment. And this is something they're talking about in the White House.
And interestingly enough, two of the top lawyers in the administration are somewhat experts on this topic: Noel Francisco, who is in the Department of Justice right now, he's the nominee to be Solicitor General, and James Burnham, who's one of the White House counsel lawyers. They both argued in front of the Supreme Court two years ago actually against the Obama administration and their attempt to make recess appointments. Those were some people that I imagine the president is, you know, calling on for counsel on what to do if he decides to go ahead and do a recess appointment.
KING: I bet they took good notes about what the other side said back then.
Sara?
MURRAY: Well, the White House renovations might actually be coming at a pretty good time for Trump, because we're told that, yet again, he would like to get out of town, hit the road a little bit. We're expecting him to spend some time in August at, of course, his golf club in Bedminster. But we're also told he's going to be doing some more rallies. He's going to be hitting the road. He's going to West Virginia next week.
The thing to watch, though, is whether the president has learned any lessons from this health care defeat. What does he do when he is on the road? Does he try to sell specific agenda items? Does he try to sell specific elements of tax reform? Or do we get the same sort of kitchen sink, slam the media, rant about whatever you're feeling that day, and, you know, maybe do a little hat tip to tax reform along the way?
We will see if he has learned any lessons about having strong partners on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. August will be a good test of that.
KING: Great month to travel, August, of course.
I'll close with this. Watch the dynamic between the president and top two Republicans in Congress as we move into August and beyond. Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, while usually polite in public, have never been warm and fuzzy when it comes to President Trump. They view him as unpredictable, unreliable. And they think it's getting worse.
The president openly beat back one of the speaker's top priorities in tax reform. And he just forced Ryan ally Reince Priebus out as chief of staff.
[08:55:02] A long list of unwelcome tweets challenging Leader McConnell continued Saturday as the president suggested Republican senators are fools, and that McConnell just doesn't know how to make the best use of his power.
Allies describe both the Speaker and the Majority Leader as beyond frustrated with the president's behavior and increasingly worried they will pay a price for it in the 2018 midterms.
Keep an eye on that. That's it for INSIDE POLITICS again. Thanks for sharing your Sunday. Hope to see you weekdays as well at noon Eastern.
Up next, "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper.
