Interview with Sen. Susan Collins.
CUOMO: Sometimes you have to shake your head a little bit and take a reset. The need for a hard line on murderous dictators, the benefit of free trade with American allies, these are bedrocks of the Republican Party for generations. Well, now, we have a president who flouts ideas and crickets from his party. Political expediency, hypocrisy, fear? What is it? Long time Republican Senator Susan Collins is here. Let's ask her. Always a pleasure, Senator. How are you?</s>SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: Fine, thanks. Good to be with you, Chris.</s>CUOMO: So, Senator, I want to play for you what Senator Corker said. Now, obviously, he has a bill. He is against the tariff structure that President Trump has designed. He want support, he believes his party should support. Here's what he said.</s>SEN. BOB CORKER (R-TN), CHAIRMAN, FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Ninety-five percent of people on this side of aisle support intellectually this amendment. But no, no, no, gosh, we might poke the bear is the language I've been hearing in the hallways. We might poke the bear. The president might get upset with us as United States senators if we vote on the Corker amendment. So, we're going to do everything we can to block it. My gosh, if the president gets upset with us, then we might not be in the majority. And so, let's don't do anything that might upset the president.</s>CUOMO: Senator, is he right?</s>COLLINS: Senator Corker clearly deserves a vote on his amendment. It's a very legitimate issue that he's raising. What the president has done is invoke national security as a justification to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum coming from some of our closest allies, like Canada and the European Union. So, what Bob Corker is saying is that he wants to reassert the congressional role, the constitutional role of Congress in trade matters. He deserves them both. If people don't agree with his amendment --</s>CUOMO: They vote against it.</s>COLLINS: -- they can vote against it.</s>CUOMO: So, he's right in the micro. What about the macro, which is the reason they're not voting is just fear? They don't want to get sideways with Trump. Is that prevalent in your party?</s>COLLINS: Well, I've heard a lot of positive comments on Bob's amendment. So, we've got the defense authorization bill on the floor right now. Clearly, the president has a strong following among some base Republicans in this country, and there may be some of my colleagues who are leery of alienating them. But we're in office to make hard decisions and to vote. The president has every right to lobby against Bob's amendment. He even threatened to veto it, but Bob deserves a vote.</s>CUOMO: Right, but, you know, help me think it through, Senator, because if you're saying you hear lots of popular things or positive things, you said, about the Corker amendment, but they're not bringing it up for a vote, it seems to validate what he's saying, which is that unless you're on your way out, which Corker is, right, which Flake is, which Gowdy is on the House side, you don't speak truth to power with this president. And if you do you might get primary like we're seeing with Hanford (ph) and Roby now on the House side and people are afraid of that. Is that the truth?</s>COLLINS: Well, a lot of primary's opponents are coming more from outside groups rather than being recruited by the president or his staff. What I think we've seen is the growth of groups on the far left and the far right who are demanding 100 percent compliance with 100 percent of their views 100 percent of the time. So, I don't know that it's just the president that people are weary could produce a primary opponent. I think it's more of these outside groups on both the left and the right.</s>CUOMO: Can you imagine if you had a Democrat in office and they went up and got sideways with Canada and start talking about the prime minister of Canada the way -- and I know this is sensitive to you. You're up there in Maine.</s>COLLINS: Exactly.</s>CUOMO: You share a border with the Canadians. But the idea of a president doing that with our closest ally geographically, and really, on so many different levels, nobody said anything to him about it.</s>COLLINS: I did. Well, I said something publicly. First of all, we should not --</s>CUOMO: It wasn't vintage Collins, though. I've had you come at me with both barrels. That is not what it looks or sounds like.</s>COLLINS: We should not -- the president and his staff should not be alienating our closest allies, our long-time friends, our reliable allies and our biggest trading partners in the case of the Canadians.</s>CUOMO: And then they all had to watch him go to Singapore and say that Kim Jong-un is a talented man who he's honored to be with and has the love and respect of his people.</s>COLLINS: Well, let me say that there is no comparison between Justin Trudeau and Chairman Kim. There's just no comparison at all.</s>CUOMO: Of course not. But if your allies are getting treated like your enemies and your enemies are all of a sudden allies, what kind of message does that send, Senator?</s>COLLINS: Well, I think the president was not focused on the G-7 meeting, but his mind was on the summit to come with North Korea. And I think that's very unfortunate, because those allies are important.</s>CUOMO: Do you think he took the G7 off? What do you think, he was playing Sudoku up there? Was he planning his next trip? What do you think he was doing at the G-7?</s>COLLINS: Well, clearly he came late, he left early. And --</s>CUOMO: He said he wanted to add Russia to the discussion.</s>COLLINS: Which is a terrible idea because the reason that Russia was kicked out of the G-7 is because it illegally annexed Crimea, and that has not changed. And to get back to Canada, you know, the state of Maine has had a lot of trade frictions with Canada over the years than we do right now. But we still count Canada as not only our closest neighbor, but also as a very important friend, and we don't want to jeopardize that friendship as a nation.</s>CUOMO: You know, that doesn't -- that theory while reasonable and probably resonant with much of the audience, it gets no love in the White House, Senator. They say they'll be there. Canada knows where its bread is buttered. Germany knows. France knows. They get it. They know they need us. It doesn't matter what the president says. Do you have that kind of confidence?</s>COLLINS: Well, I believe the countries you just named are always going to be our close allies. After all, the relationship that we have goes back a very long time, and we're not only allies, we are truly friends. So, I think we can get over what was a very unfortunate incident and please that Mr. Navarro has apologized for his comments. That was needed, and I think we can get over this rough spot. But, do I agree with the way the president handled at the G-7 meeting and come back, no, I do not.</s>CUOMO: Understood. Senator Collins, thank you very much. When we get more meat on the bones of what's happening with North Korea, we'll bring you back. You're always welcomed here to discuss what matters to the American people and your constituents. Thank you.</s>COLLINS: Thank you.</s>CUOMO: All right. From Susan Collins to Don Lemon standing by with a preview of "CNN TONIGHT." How are you doing, my friend?</s>DON LEMON, CNN HOST, "CNN TONIGHT": I'm doing great. Chris, a new world can begin today, one of friendship, respect and goodwill. Be a part of that world where the doors of opportunity are ready to be opened. That is a Hollywood video that the president showed to Kim Jong-un.</s>CUOMO: Did you see a guy dunking in the video?</s>LEMON: Oh my gosh, yes. Clearly --</s>CUOMO: Who was that?</s>LEMON: Was that doctor --</s>CUOMO: Was that stock footage? That's supposed to be Kim Jong-un, right?</s>LEMON: It is Kim Jong-un.</s>CUOMO: You can dunk home peace.</s>LEMON: Maybe it was the guy you interviewed last night. Who knows?</s>CUOMO: The Worm? You would have known it was him.</s>LEMON: But, Chris, seriously, we got a propaganda expert on, someone's who's used to make in these videos. He's going to go through it frame by frame. And before I let you go, I just want t tell you quickly, you know Mark McKinnon.</s>CUOMO: Sure.</s>LEMON: Political genius. You know, Showtime's "The Circus". He's going to be on talking to us about everything that has to do with North Korea, what do we really get out of this, and why is the president saying good thing about a murderous dictator? Then he's coming home. Someone talks smack about him, and then he comes home to say bad things about people like Robert de Niro. It doesn't make sense. We'll talk about all that, see you in a little bit.</s>CUOMO: Great guest. Don Lemon, thank you very much. All right. So, we just saw a big legal decision. The AT&T merger with Turner, the judge says it goes through. But there's a lesson to be drawn from what happened in this unsuccessful attempt, the reason it happened. What it means, why you should care. I'm going to give it to you, next.