wall the congress. >> they are more interested in subpoenas than solutions. >> this is "new day" with alisyn camerota and john berman. >> we want to welcome our viewsers in the united states and around -- viewers in the united states and around the world. this is new day, it's friday. >> and the very last show we will do on this set. >> that's right. social security a sentimental day. this is the last show at the time warner center, and make sure to tune in monday for a big flashy studio. >> and p town is going to keep moving! absolutely. getting flipped over. >> there's a big question. are the tensions between iran and the u.s. all a result of a misunderstanding, according to the "wall street journal," u.s. intel shows that iran's leaders believe the u.s. was planning to attack them prompting teheran to prepare to strike back, and the u.s. believed iran was preparing to attack them. the u.s. claims to have images showing iranian commercial

vessels carrying missiles but kr cnn has not reviewed the intel. possible obstruction online one, the president's former national security adviser, michael flynn said people connected to the president or congress contacted him to discuss his involvement in the russia investigation in a way that could have affected both his willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation. this is according to a previously redacted legal filing by the mueller team just made public and new overnight, a federal judge is considering releasing a voice mail recording of at least one of these conversations. it does beg the question among many questions who in congress was trying to influence flynn's testimony. let's begin our coverage with cnn's joe johns live at the white house which could be a very dangerous misunderstanding with iran, joe.

>> this is an extremely risky situation, arguably the trickiest since the president took office, sending in a strike group and what it highlights is how military intelligence gets analyzed when the actors are the united states and iran, and the dangers that one party or the other might misread the signals. >> sources tell the "wall street journal" it could be both. one interpretation of u.s. intelligence suggestings the u.s. and iran may have misread each other's actions. iran's leaders believe the united states is promising to attack themme. we're learning new details about the intelligence that escalated

tensions, the united states claims to have images of iranian commercial vessels. cnn has not reviewed the intelligence that led to the u.s. assessment and the government has provided no proof the ships are carrying hidden missiles. after days of heated debate inside the white house, president trump is trying to cool tensions with iran. "the new york times" reports trump told acting defense secretary patrick shanahan he does not want to go to war. privately sources telling cnn trump is growing increasingly frustrated over the public perception his national security team is leading him into an armed conflict. the president denying infighting and insisting he's in charge. >> there's only one person that was elected to make those decisions. that was the president. he'll be the one who decides. >> sources tell cnn, he's grumbling to outside advisers

about his national security adviser john bolton. his hawkish reputation are concerning u.s. allies. congressional leaders getting their first classified briefing on thursday. >> and the responsibility in the constitution is for congress to declare war. i hope the president's advisers recognize that they have no authorization to go forward in any way. >> lawmakers are demanding answers. >> there are a lot of senators feel like they're in the dark and they dropped the ball on this. >> maybe it was all just a big misunderstanding, but one thing is clear it's not ironed out. the president has said he wants to talk to iran. iran's minister says he does not want to talk. >> thank you for the background from the white house. there are new details emerging about attempts to block michael flynn's cooperation with robert mueller, raising questions about obstruction from president trump's team. lauren fox is live on capitol

hill with more. lauren. >> reporter: we knew the details from michael flynn were peppered throughout the. a potential obstruction of justice came directly from a voice mail that michael flynn handed over. mueller wrote, those people could have affected both flynn's willingness to cooperate and the completeness of that cooperation. flynn giving mueller's team a voice mail from president trump's personal attorney to flynn's lawyer. he says if there's information that implicates the president, then we've got issue. we need some kind of heads up. and reminds flynn's lawyers of trump's fondness for his now convicted adviser. >> i think it's very clear that

this further supports the urgent need of the committee to hear from mr. mueller directly to get the fully unredacted report and all of the supporting materials. >> reporter: in the mueller report he indicates the voice mail could have obstructed the investigation. but he could not determine whether the president was personally involved. meantime, the white house continues to stone wall efforts by house democrats to look into possible obstruction. white house counsel pat called an attempt -- house judiciary chairman jerry nadler says your failure to comprehend the gravity of the special counsel's findings is astounding and dangerous. >> making it impossible to rule out impeachment or anything else. this flies in the face of 200 years of history and if accepted would go a long way toward making making the president, any president, a dictator.

>> but attorney general bill barr appearing to back the president and republicans in the house who are calling to investigate the origins of the mueller probe. >> if we're worried about foreign influence, we should be worried about whether government officials abused their power. >> another important deadline up here on capitol hill, house ways and means committee chair had subpoenaed for six years of the president's tax returns. that deadline is today. we zplf educated immigrant ed. likely dead on arrival and pass

a civics exam. >> under the senseless rules of the current system, we're not able to give preference to a doctor, a researcher, a student who graduated number one in his class from the finest colleges in the world. we discriminate against genius. >> one of the president's biggest supporters, senator lindsey graham, says the proposal is not designed to become law. he says it's more about party unity heading into 2020, the president's plan also does not propose any legal status for dreamers, young immigrants brought to the united states as children. democrats say that requirement -- that is a requirement for any immigration plan. >> the top republican in the house says he opposes alabama's new restrictive abortion ban. gop minority leader kevin mccarthy says the law should

include exemptions for rape and insi ince incest. it is a direct challenge to roe v. wade. senator susan collins called the alabama law, quote, terrible. collins, whose vote for justice brett kavanaugh virtually assured his appointment to the supreme court, said she does not believe the conservative-leaning judge would uphold alabama's bill. >> we're learning this morning that walmart, america's largest retailer is warning that the president's tariffs on china will likely mean higher prices for customers. walmart's cfo did not say which items will be more expensive, but he did say the company is developing strategies to try to mitigate cost increases in working with suppliers to manage the prices. analysts say the retail giant imports about a quarter of its merchandise from china. today is the deadline for the treasury department to turn over the president's tax returns to house democrats. meanwhile, we are learning more about just how much the president profited last year. cnn's cristina alesci joins us

with more. he made a lot of money, c cristina. >> he did, but this is a far cry from a full picture of the president's finances. this is top line. so president trump reports top line numbers without backing out expenses. so it has an effect of making the numbers look larger than perhaps what he actually pocketed. >> these are financial disclosures, not tax returns. >> exactly. we'll get to that in a second, but the financial disclosure forms do give us this top line picture, and based on that, we can see that his enemy actually declined slightly last year from $450 million to $434 million. what this form also shows is individual properties and how they've performed. so, for example, iconic mar-a-lago declined to $27.2 million from $25 million and his iconic d.c. hotel, which is also very controversial, pretty much

stayed flat. and to your point, we do not have exactly how much he pocketed last year, because that would be on his tax returns, which he's refusing to turn over. what this also doesn't tell us is how much taxes he paid and it doesn't give us any insight into any tax avoidance strategies that he would be using. >> but $434 million, is that typical for a president to make in one year? >> again, this is not exactly what he pocketed, it's not exactly -- >> but it's such a stunning number, we don't -- >> it is a stunning number, but we all know trump has a proclivity to overestimate and, you know, overexaggerate how much he's made, so, you know, so it is a lot of money. but we're not sure quite how accurate it is in terms of profit. >> got it. we need more information. >> yes. >> cristina alesci, thanks very much. one programming note, erin burnett investigates how president trump and his family do business. so tune in tonight for a cnn

special report, "the trump family business." it airs at 9:00 p.m. eastern, only on cnn. all right, cnn goes one on one with pete buttigieg on the campaign trail. what he is saying about his military service. this is the first time he's talked this in depth about that. why he says it sets him apart from some of his competitors for the nomination. that's next. it's tough to quit smoking cold turkey. so chantix can help you quit slow turkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking,

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leaders of the democratic party. for over two years, this president has broken the law... and nothing happened. you told us to wait for the mueller investigation. and when he showed obstruction of justice... nothing happened. when this president took money from foreign governments and blocked the release of his tax returns... nothing happened. and when his administration illegally refused to testify nothing happened. now you tell us to wait for the next election? really? really? really? this is why we volunteered, raised money, went door to door and voted in the last election. our founding fathers expected you - congress - to hold a lawless president accountable. and you're doing nothing. nothing. nothing. he broke his oath of office. he's defying you. he's laughing at you.

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looks like a big weekend ahead for the 2020 democratic hopefuls. former vice president joe biden will hold a rally in philadelphia as senator bernie sanders heads south. arlette saenz is live in washington with more. >> reporter: with the three weeks of his presidential campaign behind him, joe biden is now turning to a new phase of the campaign. and that starts in philadelphia. his campaign has announced that the headquarters for their operation will be based in the city. and tomorrow, he'll be holding a kickoff rally there in philadelphia, pennsylvania, a state that democrats lost to donald trump back in 2016. and one where biden sees an opening. he was born in scranton, pennsylvania. he was a senator right next door in delaware for 36 years. and there's a quinnipiac poll that was released earlier this week that shows biden in a head-to-possible matchup with

president trump, beating him 53% to 42%. his campaign has placed a lot of emphasis there in pennsylvania in these early weeks. now, biden is also leading most all of his democratic rivals in polls, as well, including bernie sanders, he's going to be on a tour of his own this weekend. he's going to be fanning out across southern states like north carolina, south carolina, georgia, and alabama, which has really become a focal point for democrats over the past week, as they signed an anti-abortion bill law in that state. and bernie sanders is trying to make inroads in these southern states, where he really struggled back in 2016. he's going to be announcing an education plan in south carolina, where he's trying to get more support from african-american voters this time around. john? >> all right, arlette saenz for us in washington, thanks very much. new this morning and first on cnn, presidential candidate and mayor of south bend, indiana, pete buttigieg, opens

up about his military service. buttigieg also discussing serving in afghanistan while he's on the campaign trail, but the 2020 hopeful rarely explains why he enlisted. cnn's jeff zeleny asked him. >> reporter: there's one chapter of his life that pete buttigieg often turns to. >> somebody who served in afghanistan. >> when i went overseas -- when i was packing my bags for afghanistan. >> reporter: the 37-year-old mayor of south bend, indiana, deploys his military service as both a sword and a shield, whether taking questions about his experience or quieting anti-gay protesters, afghanistan is also his answer. >> it's one more reason why it might not be a bad idea to have somebody in the white house who actually served. >> reporter: his time as an intelligence officer in the naval reserves and a six-month deployment to afghanistan makes his already gold-plated resume shine even brighter. yet buttigieg rarely talks about why he joined the service after graduating from harvard and studying as a rhodes scholar. turns out it was 2008 and he was volunteering for the barack

obama campaign in iowa, where he said he saw many young people signing up for the army or national guard. >> i might have dragged my feet on that forever if i hadn't that experience in iowa and saw that some communities were almost emptying out their youth into the military and some were barely serving at all. >> reporter: now he's one of three presidential candidates who served in america's longest wars in iraq and afghanistan, joining congresswoman tulsi gabbard and congressman seth moult moulton. after five years of reserve duty, he deployed to afghanistan just as president obama was announcing a troop withdrawal. buttigieg was part of a unit assigned to identify and disrupt terror finance networks. it was largely a desk job at the bagram air base, but he also worked as a driver and armed escort. >> look, it's not like i killed bin laden, right? i don't want to overstate what my role was, but it certainly was something that was dangerous. you know, people that i knew, unfortunately, were attacked. >> do you think you would be able to make this run as

credibly without this military service? >> well, i think at a moment when, obviously, people are looking for contrast, it helps me demonstrate the difference between how i'm oriented and how the current president is. >> reporter: jason mccrae still remembers the day he met buttigieg at their training in south carolina. he didn't know the man assigned to be his battle buddy was also an indiana mayor. >> one of my early members is he had an ear bud in and he was learning a language, i think it was dari. certainly, i don't remember other folks that were picking up a language at that point in time. >> but he was interested in afghanistan and was studying and consuming everything about it? >> yeah, for sure. >> reporter: the dozen people who served alongside buttigieg in the reserves and in afghanistan who spoke to cnn described him as mature and, yes, ambitious, but several said he was hardly alone on that front. >> to go through a deployment in afghanistan, it was probably less dangerous ways to check the box. >> reporter: mccrae and his wife, sue, are watching their friends campaign from afar with

interest. >> when i first met pete, it was just a wife going to say good-bye to my husband and we just happened to meet a battle buddy. >> reporter: so buttigieg mentions afghanistan at virtually every stop on the campaign trail. he does say it's time for a new u.s. policy there, noting that soldiers enlisting now were not even born at the time of the september 11th terrorist attacks. as for his own enlistment here in chicago in 2009, he said he was not doing that with politics in mind. he said, you never know if military service will be politically popular or not. jeff zeleny, cnn, chicago. >> okay. that was really insightful. we don't hear him talk much -- i didn't know the background of his military service. >> i didn't know the origin story. i didn't know it was while he was in iowa watching other people enlist, that that somehow inspired. >> what he did there, exactly, that was really interesting. is a misreading of intelligence leading to a standoff with iran. the revealing report as the tensions rise.

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"the wall street journal" is reporting that the u.s. and iran maybe misreading each other. "the journal" says leaders in tehran thought an attack from the u.s. was coming, and they began preparing for a counter-strike. the u.s. thought iran was preparing an attack and that led the trump administration to boost their military presence in the middle east. joining us to talk about all of this and more, we have joe lockhart, former clinton white house press secretary, rachael bade, congressional reporter for "the washington post," and peter baker, chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" and author of obama, the call of history, which we'll discuss more in a moment. joe, obviously, there's always misinterpretations. the fog of war, et cetera, et cetera. is there something -- is this how it works in the white house, that sometimes there are

misunderstandings or can be, or is this team around the president particularly ill-equipped to interpret the signs, because, as we know, john bolton is inclined, heavily, one way, and patrick shanahan doesn't have a lot of experience, or any, in the military? >> you do -- administrations that are fully competent do sometimes misread the situation, but this is endemic in this administration, where there doesn't seem to be a full-blown policy process that looks at all of these things, you know, if you look at any issue, it seems like there's one person whispering in the president's ear, you know, on immigration, it's stephen miller, on trade, it's peter navarro with a hard line. here it's john bolton. and what you miss when you skip the process is you sometimes fall into these dangerous situations, where someone's agenda is driving it, rather than the intelligence.

and the president has neither the respect for the intelligence process, i think, or the attention span for the intelligence process, to actually be the leader of this. so he gets led around, and he'll wake up, you know, one morning and say, how did we get here? i'm angry at john bolton. well, he's the president. >> you know, peter baker, your friend maggie haberman over at "the times" is reporting what are the president is really angry about is the reporting that's out there suggesting that john bolton is somehow manipulating the president or pushing things without the president's knowledge. the question is, is does john bolton have the authority within the administration to get the united states to do things that the president doesn't want to do? how much tension is there, really? >> yeah, there's nothing that gets under the president's skin more than the idea, certainly the public perception, anyway, that he's being led around by the nose by advisers. and of course, we remember that the first set of national security advisers in this administration were often

characterized as restraining the president's more bellicose instincts. here, you have the opposite. where, in fact, it's the president kind of putting the breaks on things. he's the one behind the scenes, you know, making light of bolton, saying, if it were up to john, we would be in four wars by now. but that dichotomy between a president who came to office on the promise of getting out of these middle east quagmires or these overseas wars that he thinks have been against the american interest and costly, both in terms of money and lives, and a national security team that he's put in place that is more hawkish, that is more of the traditional, more neoconservative side of the republican party. he's got to assert himself. i think he's saying, i'm still in charge, i'm the one that has to make these decisions. but it does indicate what an interesting and dynamic process you've got right now inside this administration. >> rachael, one of the really interesting things is hearing how many lawmakers including, and i would say particularly republican lawmakers, are so frustrated. they say that they are in the

dark. that they haven't been briefed. that they feel that they should have been briefed. they didn't know what the predicate was for the ratcheting up of tensions. i mean, including senator lindsey graham, who has said that people have not reached out to him and he doesn't know what's happening. >> yeah, there's a lot of frustration boiling up on the hill right now, both democrats and republicans. there's sort of been this scatter shot approach where the administration is briefing some members of congress, but not others. they briefed the senate intelligence committee yesterday, but canceled a hearing with the house intelligence committee. they briefed the republican leader of the foreign policy panel in the senate, but not the one in the house, which is led by democrats. so democrats have been accusing the white house of basically playing favorites with the republicans and keeping them in the dark. but when you have people like lindsey graham who said to reporters, i don't know what the heck is going on. i wish i had an answer for you, but i don't know, because nobody is telling me. so you hear that coming from the hill. you also heard speaker nancy pelosi yesterday, she's trying to sort of applaud the president

in his restraint and sort of encourage it, you know, from the podium during a press conference, she was talking about how the president opposed the war in iraq and sort of suggesting, i hope he continues in that. he was right on that. we should continue to see him use this restraint. so it's been interesting to see her, you know, while she's going to war with the president over investigates, to sort of applaud the restraint he has shown against some of his advisers at this point. >> i want to turn to 2020. president trump gave an interview to fox tv where he was asked directly what he thought about the marriage of pete buttigieg. and i think the answer is something of a rorschach test here, you see in it what you want to see. but let's play it. >> don't you think it's just great to see the fact that you've got a guy there on the stage with his husband and it's normal, it's not even -- >> i think it's absolutely fine, i do. >> but isn't it a sign of great progress in the country that that's just --

>> yeah, i think it's great. i think that's something that perhaps some people will have a problem with. i have no problem with it whatsoever. i think it's good. >> so when i saw that, i saw the wheels spinning in his head, joe, about how he can answer. because i actually don't think the president has any problem with gay marriage. his history would indicate it's an issue he's more or less fine with. but he was trying to calibrate in that answer, how do i say this without offending so many of the people in my base who do have a problem with it. and he said fine. the interviewer said, don't you think it's great? he said, i think it's fine. and then he went on to say, there are people who will have a problem with it. >> this is the problem, you hit on it, his history says he's pro-choice. his history says he's a new york moderate to liberal that realized, i can get to be president if i, you know, appealing to the far right. and you know, there's almost a hint in there of, you know, fine people on both sides. some people will have a problem with it. so what he was trying to do there was to say, hey, you

people who vote for me, you "some people," i get it, i hear you, but i'm going to say this thing here that's politically correct, but don't worry, i -- you know, don't think of that seriously. >> i hear the threading of the needle. i hear that. and peter, i don't know if you're as much of a student of body language as i am, but also, i hope you noticed that when he said, i think it's fine, he shook his head just like that, which is a tell. >> but it is a striking thing that here we are, not 12 years removed from -- more, actually, from the george w. bush second term campaign in which the republican candidate for president, the incumbent said that he favored a constitutional attempt banning same-sex marriage. now we're in a position where we're reading body language to see just how supportive you are or are not of same-sex marriage. at this point, it's a subtle issue in effect, even though there are a lot of people out there who still find it disconcerting, who are opposed

to it when the two nominees, you can presume, or the two parties will both be on the same side, more or less again as same-sex marriage. this is a president who's always been on the side of lbgt rights, the transgender issue in the military, the big sticking point has been for the last couple of years, but beyond that, he has not really tried to do any anything to roll things back. >> rachael, we owe you one. sorry, we're out of time. we have so much news in the show. so joe biden's campaign will be headquartered in pennsylvania and that state, of course, could be key to anyone's white house ambitions. so harry enton has the numbers to back up everything i've just said. soriasis, little things can be a big deal. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression.

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former vice president joe biden just announced that his campaign will be based in philadelphia. philadelphia, pennsylvania. highlighting how important pennsylvania will be in 2020, so is the state a must win if democrats want to take back the white house? the short answer is "yes." the longer answer from harry

enton. >> keep going -- >> let me be clear, this is not mime. you've got to stay stuff. >> i've got to stay stuff on television. granted, so many people are watching us in airports, they can't actually hear what i'm saying. let's take a look back from 2012 to 2016 on the presidential level. what we see is most of the states voted the same, except right in this region right here. the midwest, pennsylvania, sort of the midwest, and that's going to be the focus, because that is stereotypical of what happened between 2012 and 2016 that allowed donald trump to take back the white house. >> wait a second, orange means that it went blue, you're saying? >> so this -- orange means we went from obama to trump. these are the states that flipped right here in the midwest. and pennsylvania is stereotypical of that. so what the heck exactly happened? how did trump win pennsylvania? well, i would focus in on two things. number one, we saw that trump did better among african-americans than mitt romney did. that's not such a surprise given that barack obama, first

african-american, first major party nominee in 2012. you see this, a ten-point shift, but we also see this, down here. whites without a college degree. this was a huge shift. mitt romney won them in 2012, but look at this. donald trump in 2016, this is a huge, huge shift. this is a nine-point shift. and this is what drove -- this is working class joe. this is what he's trying to sell in pennsylvania, that he can get some of those back, at least keep that margin down. >> what do the numbers tell us about democrats in pennsylvania? >> so i think that this is -- this -- i went back and i looked at this. u.s. election, it's a great website. every democrat to win the presidency since 1960 has won pennsylvania, but it's even more than that. pennsylvania was more democratic than the nation as a whole from 1952 to 2012. that was not the case in 2016, where donald trump won the state by about a percentage point, despite losing nationally by about two percentage points. >> that's fascinating. the question is, has pennsylvania fundamentally changed for good, or are those people still there waiting to be

ignited by some candidates? >> that's exactly right. and look at this. this is what happened in the house vote in 2018. what do we saw? we saw nationally democrats won by about seven percentage points, when you take out the uncontested races. and pennsylvania, see that exact same thing, when pennsylvania voted like the nation as a whole. so this is very key. >> so it's a line right now. where do things stand between the president and former vice president of pennsylvania? >> this is a quinnipiac poll that was out this week. and look at this. joe biden, overwhelmingly ahead of donald trump. it's early days yet, but this is exactly the pitch that joe biden wants to make. they say, look, democrats need to win pennsylvania to win the presidency and i'm doing exactly that. there were also democrats that were also up, but this was by far your largest margin. >> in your last 30 seconds, what do you have to wow us with? >> you know, folks, sometimes you come to us from a studio and you don't really understand what's going on, so this is our last day at this particular studio, i got this nice picture of us together. the times that we spent --

>> it's an action shot. >> it was so lovely. and we even have this. this was me sleeping on a couch. >> you're not sleeping there. >> there are no couches in the new offices. >> i'm hoping if nothing else, we i can keep up the dance. >> wow, harry dancing with harry. >> and maybe we can dance together some time, the three of us. >> or not. >> harry enton, thank you very much for being here. >> what did president trump really think about donald trump's 2016 election victory. peter baker back with us to tell us why the former president took it as a personal insult. that's next. touch shows how we really feel. but does psoriasis ever get in the way? embrace the chance of 100% clear skin with taltz, the first and only treatment of its kind offering people with moderate to severe psoriasis

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♪ (buzzer) ♪ olly. this stings, this hurts. those were the words that former president barack obama uttered on election night after learning that hillary clinton hdonald tr

hillary clinton. joining us now is peter baker, author of "obama: the call of history." peter, great to have you back with us again. this quote from your book, obama may not have been on the ballot, but it was hard not to see the vote as a personal insult as he called it on the campaign trail. "this stings," he said, "this hurts." in fact, in the final days of the campaign, he made clear this was a referendum on him. >> he had been elected twice to the presidency. and the idea that the same public that had elected him twice would then turn to someone like donald trump was astonishing to him and it challenged his understanding of what he thought he had accomplished and where the country was. remember, donald trump wasn't just from the other party, wasn't just someone who had a different political philosophy, he was someone who had targeted president obama with this

birther conspiracy theory and obama couldn't conceive, as many democrats couldn't, and many people in the media, probably, too, couldn't conceive of the idea that the country could switch from a barack obama to a donald trump. >> one of the most interesting traits in the book that you highlighted, something that has existed since 2016, the simmering tension between obama world and hillary clinton world. and you get to this, to obama and his team, the real blame with the loss lay squarely with clinton. no one forced her to take hundreds of thousands of dollars from goldman saculf coas goldma forced to run a soulless campaign that tested 8-5 slogans before coming up with "stronger together." and only if president obama had gone public in stronger terms with the russian attacks in this election, things might have been different. >> there's some defensiveness on the part of president obama's team, the idea that they were being blamed for her campaign, in effect. on the other hand, as some of

them later acknowledged, the script that donald trump ran against was pretty much the same one that the obama people had run against her eight years earlier, sort of or trportrayin as part of the entitled, elitist status quo and somebody who couldn't affect change. remember, there is some overlap between president obama's support and president trump's support. about 9% voted for both of the field. because they were looking to shake up the system. hillary clinton was the one they took that out on in both of those elections. >> one of the things that is most interesting in this new edition is in the epilogue, you get into president obama's thinking now about the trump presidency. and you note that he was on the campaign trail in 2018, in the midterm election, he broke from a little bit of precedent and he talked about the current president as a liar. why that shift? >> that's exactly right. he had not really done that up until that point. he liked the idea that george w. bush had said back in 2008 when he took over, that he was going to leave the white house and

stay relatively out of sight, not make trouble for his successor by constantly opining on things. but when it came to last year's midterm, he sort of took off the gloves in a way no former president had done really since herbert hoover against fdr. i think the idea was, he just found a democratic party that didn't have a legal, didn't have a single leader that could focus that argument and he was very offended by the trump presidency, the things he was saying, as he said, the lying and the use of the military at the border and the other things that were going on last year. >> two of the places that the president campaigned hard, georgia and florida did not turn out well for the democrats. another thing you note, when you get to the economy, president obama's view of the economy he left behind for president trump, which he saw as improving and where it is now. and one of the things you note is that trump could do what obama could not. he could sell it. >> right. exactly. you could take the exact same economy, and there are some differences now, but particularly in the first year or so, the economy was pretty similar under trump as it was under obama.

but president trump doesn't hold back. he just sells it. he says, this is the better economy ever, it doesn't matter %-pn effect. consumer confidence is up, polls show more optimism about the economy. and that is something that president obama found difficult. he always remembered the caveats, yes, it's doing well, but don't forget about this, don't forget about the people who are left behind. he was never willing to give this unabashed sometimes overly optimistic view of things, because he also knew that people like us would call him on it and that mattered to him. it doesn't matter so much to donald trump. >> back to the russia investigation, in the fall of 2016, one of the things you write, and it really does seem pervasi pervasive, the feeling by the president in obama world that hillary clinton would win, that it was almost a certainty. and a lot of the decisions they made were based on that. >> that's right, exactly. in the president's explanation for why he didn't take a more robust public stance against what russia was doing was that if he did, president trump, then candidate trump, would accuse

him of trying to put his finger on the scale. that he was already talking about the possibility that the election would be rigged and president obama assumed that hillary clinton would win and didn't want to discredit or in many ways cast the legitimacy of her election into doubt by providing ammunition to donald trump. obviously, that was based on a miscalculation. and he's not the only one to think that hillary clinton was likely to win. but it did shadow and affect his account, his actions. >> peter baker, great to have you on cnn. any new peter baker book is a reason to rejoice. thanks very much for being with us. >> thanks very much for having me. the pga championship teed off and records are already breaking. >> it was very exciting. >> i know that, i'm very excited about it. the bleacher report is next. today's world can make it tough to take care of yourself. but nature's bounty has innovative ways to help you maintain balance and help keep you active and well-rested. because hey, tomorrow's coming up fast. nature's bounty. because you're better off healthy.

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tiger woods nine shots off the lead here at the pga championship. thanks to the reigning champion, brooks koepka. these two guys are playing together with each other in rounds one and two. my colleagues, don riddell asked koepka earlier in the week if he was intimidated at all playing with tiger. and koepka said, what's there to be afraid of? it's not like we're going to fight and he's going to punch me in the teeth. and koepka certainly looks fearless. he finished with a course record 63 and it could have been even better. koepka never got in any trouble all day long. he's looking to make some history here this week. on top of winning last year's pga championship, koepka is a two-time reigning u.s. open champion and no one has ever held back-to-back titles in two majors at the same time. >> i won this last year and you know, i'm playing good. you know, it was great that tiger won augusta, but we're at a new week now. >> that was one of the best rounds i've played probably as a

professional. obviously, it's never been this confident and i think, you know, i'm still learning, understanding my game. and i've figured it out. >> all right. tiger, meanwhile, will have to go out there and have a really good day if he hopes to get into contention. this course here at bethpage black, very hilly like a roller coaster and that really sums up what tiger's round was yesterday. he had two double bogeys on his front nine. he battled back to get under par after an eagle on 4, but struggled to end his round, finishing his day, 2 over par. >> it wasn't as clean as i would like to have it, for sure. didn't get off to a very good start. but i'll come back around there and fortunately kipt togethereer at the end. >> all right. tiger needs to have a good day to get back in contention, but isn't going to matter much if brooks koepka goes out there and plays like he did in round one. >> very exciting and it looks like a beautiful day there,

andy. >> reporter: it is. looking forward to it. >> all right. >> all right, thanks. >> you can see by andy's smile, too. >> thank you, to our international viewers for watching, "cnn talk" is next. for our u.s. viewers, there are new revelations about michael flynn's conversations with the mueller probe. they have just bunredacted. i like that he has no appetite for this, even though some of his supporters are rattling sabers. >> is the escalation between the u.s. and iran one big misunderstanding? >> i would like to know why we took the action that we did. there are a lot of senators that are still in the dark. >> michael flynn and his legal team got outreach from people connected to the administration. >> it is obstruction of justice. we have to vindicate the will of the american people to have oversight of executive branch. >> they're more interested in subpoenas than solutions. >> let's move on.