check out the best of the best hand-picked fall shows on xfinity x1, online, and the xfinity stream app. thirsty? welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. a bernie sanders day it is. roy moore's big win in an alabama senate runoff a giant defeat for trump and the republican leadership. the big question now, will it set off a wave of anti-establishment challenges and add even more chaos to a divided gop. >> the question was called today in the state of alabama. who's sovereign, the people or the money? alabama answered today. the people. >> plus, the president is off to

indiana this hour with the goal of turning the page to tax reform. the new gop plan calls for fewer rates and takes away very popular deductions. so can the republicans work out their differences or will tax reform expose the same gop divides that just yesterday doomed yet another obamacare repeal bill? >> we're very excited about this because we really believe that we have a historic chance of prosperity in this country. a republican leaders in the house, senate and the white house, we've come together on this concrete framework for historic tax reform. >> and the president insists he was not preoccupied with his war on the nfl. as the white house rushes to prove its commitment to puerto rico, the frustration is mounting. >> there's people that have a shortage of food. the national guard is not working up to the way it should be. they're all just standing there doing nothing. no electricity. no water for the city.

it's going to take about maybe six, seven months for anything to happen here. >> we begin what you can only describe as a blowout in the alabama. former judge roy moore toppling luther strange in last night's runoff. safe to say the republican leadership did not sleep well last night. breitbart said establishment gop brought to its knees. roy moore put it this way, he's going to help bring america back in line he says with the christian bible. >> we wouldn't be having the demonstrations and riots and division in our society if we returned to one nation under god as it was. some people see god as a religion. he's not a religion. he's real. if he hadn't given us our rights, there would be nothing there for government to secure. >> this is a massive political defeat for president trump and for the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, despite spending $10 million in ads and sending the president in himself along with the vice president, the establishment's pick still

couldn't pull off a win in alabama. he was backed by breitbart's steve bannon who promises alabama, just the beginning. >> you're going to see in state after state after state, people that follow the model of judge moore that don't need to raise money from the elites, from the crony capitalists, from the fat cats in washington, d.c., new york city, silicon valley. >> if bannon gets his wish, this loss might set off chaos in the republican party, certainly in the west wing. president trump spent the evening angry and venting about the loss and that he went to bed excuse my launch, embarrassed and pissed. jeff zeleny joins me now live from the white house. take us inside the president's reaction and what comes next. >> reporter: john, those two words you just said sum it up succinctly there. the president doesn't like to lose. he's not used to losing in

special elections. he's also getting a taste of what president obama got, as well. it is difficult for a sitting president to campaign for anyone and hope their supporters follow along. voters time and time again do what they want to do. there's no question though the president is very upset about this. he was flying back to washington last evening after doing an rnc fund-raiser, some $5 million there. he was watching these returns come in. and was frustrated. venting at everyone, of course, mitch mcconnell, the senate majority leader, blaming pretty much everyone, john, except himself. that is one thing i do not hear at the white house this morning talking to a variety of people, other republicans close to the white house blaming the president himself. he has not accepted much blame for the defeat health care or much of anything. but the real question here going forward is, will this president get behind sitting republican senators. a couple minutes ago, i just had a conversation with the president's senior adviser, kellyanne conway here at the white house. she said republican senators

should take this as a sign he will be with them. but then she stopped short of saying if he will endorse all sitting republican senators or if this was simply an endorsement for senator strange. but she did say the president felt loyal to senator strange because had he voted with the president, arrived in washington about the same time, of course. she said he had no regrets for doing that. we know behind the scenes much anger and that big question, will the president keep doing that or will he follow steve bannon and endorse some outsiders, john. >> jeff zeleny, appreciate it. jeff with us to their reporting and insights. dana bash, michael warren, m.j. leann margaret tal live. it's a stinging defeat for the president. embarrassment for mitch mcconnell who is most likely to be the one who has to deal with roy moore if he wins. most people think the republican will win in that state. let's start with the what cops

next. then we'll get back to the recriminations and blame. steve bannon took a high profile which is unusual for him because he wants to use this as a spring board. i was talking about how he's trying to recruit a stronger conservative challenger in arizona to run against jeff flake. they don't think kelli ward is strong enough to do that. you have reporting he's trying to turn this into a national crusade. >> absolutely. he's flying out west to colorado to work on recruiting republican candidates, conservative candidates i should say for western states for western races like arizona. and then he's going to meet and talk with like minded candidates in tennessee, in mississippi, he also is going to try to stay focused on alabama because as you said, obviously, it's a red state. there hasn't been a democrat elected for the senate for a couple of decades. but roy moore is a unique individual in that he certainly

col bring out democrats to the polls to vote against him. so they're going to focus on that, and then steve bannon is also going to speak at a conference of social conservative grassroots leaders about the ground game i'm told needed to "defeat elites" he is completely hoping to use the win last night as some fuel to convince people that this is an okay fight to take and that the establishment needs to be taken down. >> this is an unfair question. what's the conversation among conservatives about this? it depends which conservatives we're talking about obviously in that sense. steve bannon says he's out to help the president but he opposed the president in alabama, he opposed what the president wanted, a more mainstream conservative, not a guy who come to washington and challenge every skigs the leadership tries to make. if he does there, couldn't the president step forward and say steve, if you're on my side, stop, do not campaign against

incumbent republican candidates. but he hasn't done that. >> no, but that's not necessarily what trump necessarily wants. trump. >> he wants chaos. >> jeff flake in arizona. if he and steve bannon could be on the same side on that. what did steve bannon who came into this race late. a lot of the talk radio world was on the side in the primary of mel brooks, the third place congressman who came in third place in the primary. didn't make it to the runoff. this is something bannon and others were doing and saying they were supporting roy moore in the name of trumpism. i do think it's important to look at alabama as a very unique situation in the sense that special election sort of -- it's hard to get toot much information about what 2018 and primaries will be like. also, roy moore had this weird position of being more well-known and established in many ways in alabama republican voters' minds than strange. add to that the sort of

corruption surrounding luther strange, basically the last act of bob bentley, the very corrupt alabama governor who appointed him to sections' seat before he resigned. strange was the attorney general investigating bentley for a number of scandals. >> he might not be -- this wasn't him going against the president, my understanding is that bannon believes when he was fired, left the white house, that the president got advice from the establishment republicans, please endorse strange and that from the minute not long after the president did that despite what the white house is saying now, he real estated he was going against the people who elected him. >> roy moore campaigned on than saying they've convinced the president otherwise. they brainwashed the president. this is the right thing for him. alabama is unique. we live in washington, d.c. where politics see something like this happen and bedwetting happens here in what 80s what is a highly tech term. >> some of the republican seats up in 2018.

yesterday, bob corker said i'm retiring. he was going to face a conservative primary. orrin hatch, we're waiting for his decisionings in utah. a lot of people thought the result in alba ma would convince hatch not worth it. it's time to go. this is crazy. we'll see how that one plays out. if you look, they're trying -- steve bannon wants a challenger to dean heller, to jeff flake. roger wicker, they tried this against thad cochran in miss. you look at all these races. we're going to get to the conversations about the collapse of obamacare. when you're in this quick sand environment and not sure what's happening in your own party, how do you get things done. >> it's become very clear to mitch mcconnell and president trump the republican party right now is very difficult to govern. it's fascinating that the president has been tweeting angrily about this filibuster rule except that was not an issue in the latest obamacare fight. the problem was not that republicans couldn't get 60

votes on a health care plan. the problem was they couldn't even get 50 votes on a promise they have been making for many, many years. one thing to point out about mcconnell and why this is so tough for him, in the next couple of months, he has to decide is he actually going to spend money to boost roy moore? is he going to actually talk to him and campaign for him when there's already so much bad blood there because he went all out. >> rand paul is an example he will. he opposed rand paul in the primary in his home state of kentucky. mitch mcconnell understands he needs the republican. he will bite his tongue, swallow his pride and do what he has to do to keep that seat in republican hands. roy moore is likely to win the see the. doug jones is the democratic candidate. dan ma makes a key point. we'll get to moore's history later in the program. there's a lot to the motivate democrats. center right voters have thought about the race. mish mcconnell, listen to ron johnson, republican of wisconsin saying no big deal.

. >> our conference, we have a proud spectrum of opinion and ideology. we've got a bunch of cats here. whoever comes in hopefully it will be a republican, hopefully judge moore will win, he'll be one more cat into the mix. >> one more cat in the mix. >> sounds like what everyone signed up for, right? >> there's like two different calculations here. one is if you're mitch mcconnell or paul ryan, how do you stay on leadership without getting blown up from inside your caucus and are you in greater vulnerability in general elections if the controversial fissions like this take up too many seats or are winning too.seats in primaries. >> every republican candidate running, judge moore said this, judge moore said that. do you agree with him on this. >> it's in the other states that are swing states. for trump, it's a completely different issue which is what's his hammer? if he's backing candidates who don't win primaries, does anyone need to be afraid of him?

or does he end up gravitating right back to bannon. we have seen him experimenting with cutting deals with democrats where it makes sense for him and scaring republicans into kind of submission that way. does that end? did that andy last night? if not, how does he juggle those two. >> another thing we saw last night, no criticism of the trump campaign. however he rode this wave. he may have built the wave but he didn't create this anti-washington, anti-establishment wave. we saw in alabama last night, it still exists. president trump gives a big speech on his tax plan later today. will it go over any better than his health care plans? revitalift triple power from l'oreal. i have more confidence. my coworkers were like, your skin looks great! triple power visibly reduces wrinkles, refirms, smoothes skin. get your free 14-day sample. from l'oreal paris.

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embarrassing failure on their promise to repeal and replace obamacare. here are the big goals of the outline. cut the number of individual tax rates from seven to three. the proposed new rates, 12%, 25%, and 35%. double the standard deduction with the goal of reducing the number of taxpayers who itemize. higher child tax credit that would eliminate some popular tax breaks like the deduction for state and local income taxes you p . just a starting point for congress. the political reality is this and it's pretty clear. republicans failed repeatedly to overcome their own health care policy divides and tax reform is just as complicated some even say more so. can the republican family learn the lessons of obamacare collapse and figure this one out? >> i think they've learned a new lessons. they're coming into this with clearer eyes a bit more of a plan leaving things a lot more open so as to -- they're called the big six.

the congressional leaders and white house leaders who came up with this plan. they left a lot of things open so that all these members don't feel like they're being dictated to. this is what the tax reform package must be. they're hoping i think, i think a little degree of optimism they should be, that republicans can sort of figure this stuff out and come together around something. there's a little more agreement on taxes than say on health care among republicans. and having a plan means you know, they're much better off than they were with obamacare repeal for which they didn't have a plan. >> let me play, i don't know whether this is contrarian or recent history. matt drudge this morning sees bannon causing anti-establishment in the elections. he tweeted first keep obamacare, now raise taxes on top earns. >> at least the illusion, there's a difference between the parties is finished once and for all. that's not a unified conservative message there. plus, we're told even though this outline says a 20%

corporate rate, the president keeps saying in private meetings i'm going to push for 15%. that's what happened in the health care debate. every time the speaker said mr. president, i have a deal, don't undermine this, the president would say it's open for negotiation. >> that's right. that's true. and maybe it is part of the lesson you do have to work on those. on the notion that there could be atach increase in there for high earners, i think this is another example frankly, of the split in the republican party. it is anathema to establishment republicans they would raise taxes on anybody but not on necessarily for trump republicans. not necessarily for white working class vote ares as steve bannon calls them the hobbits. they probably look at the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy and say okay, great. bring it on. >> republicans on the hill have to be so frustrated because we're not even -- this is day one or day two of them rolling out this tax plan and the

president has already made things difficult for them because of the mixed messaging. he is out there saying, high income earners, the highest earners will not get a break and what had he want to do is you know, lower the highest rate to 35%. this is exactly a repeat of what we saw the president do during the health care rollout, back in january remember how surprised we all were when the president gave an interview saying everyone is going to have insurance, nobody is going to lose coverage. that was so not the republican message. >> right, and then the house passed a bill, the president threw them a party in the rose garden and then he called it mean as dana notes, it's ana theme ma to republicans to raise taxes on everybody. but here's the president. >>. >> i think the wealthy will be pretty much where they are. pretty much where they are. we can do that, we'd like it. if they have to go higher, they'll go higher. we're looking at the middle class and jobs. >> they have to go higher,

they'll go higher. the democrats are not going to join the republicans on tax reform but certainly going to take those words and poke the republicans every time they try to cut taxes. >> dana's right. that's very much the steve bannon model for this. it's striking to hear president trump speaking publicly about it now. when bannon was at the white house, president trump was not vocalizing that perspective. i look at the calendar for the restrategizing of this and how long it's going to take. you remember earlier this spring during the rosy dewey days when the repeal of health care was one vote away. they were looking at october as the time. they were going to come back after labor day, hit the ground running on tax reform. before the end of the year, everyone can run for midterms. nobody's holding that out as the date anymore. and if you're looking at the next debt ceiling as a come pabbon time line or goal post to the passage of tax reform -- if you're looking at those together, we very seen that

slide to the end of the year into february. maybe to april now. i think they're giving themselves some extra time if they need it. >> remember, the president said obamacare repeal would be easy. this treasury secretary said we would have tax reform by august. we're almost to october and have none of those things. a big launch today. we'll see how it goes. up next, puerto rico in desperate need of supplies as supplies run out. crews raising against the clock to save lives and get in desperately needed food, water and medicine. the incredibly mir accident that i had tonight... four weeks without the car. okay, yep. good night. with accident forgiveness, your rates won't go up just because of an accident. switching to allstate is worth it. budads don't take sick days.... jutoday's critical,accident. dads take dayquil severe. stock up on dayquil, so you don't lose a moment to... ...sick days.

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see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile.com. rico. a short time ago, the u.s. customs and border protection agency delivering more than 3,000 pounds of supplies including water, mres and baby supplies. the need is enormous. look right there, the words saying help on rooftops an as crews try to carry out rescue operations. people need help and need it

now. >> puerto ricans are proud u.s. citizens after irma, we helped out others. about 4,000 u.s. citizens that were stranded. we gave them shelter and food. during harvey, we sent out resources to texas, as well so that they can help in the rescue process and now it's the time to take a quick decision and help out puerto rico. >> cnn crews are spread across puerto rico trying to assess the damage and needs including row sae flores in san juan. >> reporter: john, we are in san juan, puerto rico, with a group of customs and border protection agents. they are here on a dual mission, first of all, to drop off much needed supplies. as you know, much of this island is without power. people are going hungry, people are going thirsty. so 3500 pounds of supplies were dropped off. the second part of this mission issings to evacuate the family members of federal workers. you see some of their baggage already in the cargo portion of

this plane. now, custom and border protection normally uses this dash-8 plane for intelligence type missions. this time, it is being used for humantarian efforts to evacuate some of the people in the hard hit areas. now, about 28 people will board this plane and will be able to go back to the mainland. but as you know, there is so much need. this is just one small portion of the people that have been spending nights, days here in swan juan, puerto rico's airport, trying to get out. we will be on this flight back to florida and we will keep you posted on the latest. john? >> rosa flores among our report hes on the ground. the president of the united states brises at the suggestion he cares more about his fight with nfl players than he does about the urgent needs in puerto rico. >> i wasn't preoccupied with the nfl. i was ashamed of what was taking place because to me that was a very important moment.

i don't think you can disrespect our country, our flag, our national anthem. to me, the nfl situation is a very important situation. i've heard that before about was i preoccupied. not at all. not at all. i have plenty of time on my hands. all i do is work. >> the president considers tweeting part of his work. that's where we get the best sense of what is most on his mind. here are the numbers. since hurricane maria hit, he tweeted 26 times about sports and the national anthem. 16 times on health care, eight times on hurricane maria and puerto rico. but as complaints mounted yesterday, the white house flipped the switch releasing photographs of the president in briefings, sending out deputies out to brief reporters on the puerto rico response. the vice president got in with a tweet about a meeting with the homeland security adviser and this evening's statement about the briefings included "the president made clear that there is no such thing as overresponding." the complaints were yesterday.

they seemed flat footed. in their defense, it is a hard challenge to get aid to puerto rico than texas and florida. you knew the storm was coming. you know it's an island. you know about that challenge. there have been complaints they don't seem to getting the constant attention as quickly as some of the other places did. it was clear yesterday at the white house, they got the message they needed to a, amp up aid and b, amp up the public relations part of it. >> when i saw the deputy homeland security secretary, is that who was on with you yesterday. >> elaine duke, acting secretary. >> i thought oh, okay. something's changing. you could sort of watch the switch flipping as she began to talk to you. look, we covered the white house during katrina. we saw exactly what happens when an administration is caught flat footed. and when a president says we're doing a great job. then it was brownie. now it's a series of comments saying how great people are at thing him that the federal government is doing. it is not easy.

and also in fairness to the federal government and to the white house, they just had two consecutive devastating hurricanes in the contiguous u.s. so you know, it isn't easy. having said that, the fact that the president was clearly otherwise occupied with this nfl thing that he is stoking up and dividing the country which is something we haven't seen a president do ever because they're supposed to unite them and not putting more focus on puerto rico the way that they have in the past 24 hours is bad pr and they get it. >> even if behind the scenes the president's tweets take him a couple minutes to type. even if they were spending much more time on puerto rico, he sure left the impression the nfl was more important to him. in a tweet where a lot of the infrastructure in puerto rico is in trouble because of the debt crisis. that is true. it sounds tone deaf when you do that during the crisis. so the issue is and marco rubio

just back from puerto rico understands the administration is doing what it can. conditions are puerto rico are bad, have the potential to deteriorate into a widespread crisis. very concerned about those with serious medical conditions and received no treatment for over a week. marco rubio is very complimentary of the florida response nudging the administration, speed it up. >> because the reality is that the optics is so so important. the president's allies i think would say it's not really fair to talk about his tweets because there is so much we don't see that's happening. i think that's true. certainly, because a lot of his top officials are very, very closely engaged on this, but dana, to your point about the tweets about the nfl, it's also true on the other side of this that the president will make it known very clearly through his tweets what his biggest preoccupation is, what his biggest obsession is at any given moment. when you're talking about more than two dozen tweets on a topic, it is clear he is sending

a message to the country and americans and the world this is an issue he cares about if he had been tweeting in addition to the nfl tweets tweets about puerto rico, that would be a different story. >> now there's an arcane conversation in washington about what's called the jones act, a law that requires if you're a ship going into a port in puerto rico, you have to have an american flag and crew. several members of congress have for days said waive it. we can get other aid ships in more quickly. does congress have the legal standing under the laws to ask for a waiver or does it have to come from the shippers and government of puerto rico, from the defense department? that's a situation where i get there are rules and everything where why not issue a waiver and say if necessary. here's a waiver if you need it. sara sanders said at the white house we don't think it's necessary. what's harm of signing the waiver and saying if you need it, here it is. >> this is another moment in time for presidential leadership. it's difficult because you have

your kind of ideological tenants that you can goompb with in normal times and then have you national security of emergency. it feels like a war time situation on the ground. there's people with no fear or water, the fear of wave of disease coming. and it's an important time for the president to make in the moment decisions that may not be decisions he would use in normal times and for him to say outloud as.times as he can to anyone who can get a tv or a phone signal or word to people in puerto rico, you're american citizens, we're coming to help you. >> that statement last night, there's no such thing as underresponding here. that's a lesson president bush deferred to governor blanco and he paid a huge price as the white house took the blame in the end. if you're the president, clean it up after the fact. >> send out a tweet that says here's where you can donate. that's what i keep going to.

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welcome back. in shakes speakers power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. in washington, the swamp turns you into an alligator. take tom price. as a georgia congressman, he railed against wasteful spending. as president trump's health and human cans he developed a taste for private jets and now under veths by the department's

inspector general. according to politico he's chartered 26 flights at a cost of over $400,000 to the taxpayers. the treasure sect's use of private planes is also under review and then there's this is. environmental protection agency scott pruitt is spending $25,000 in taxpayer money, to build a cone of silence at his agency. a soundproof room where he can make phone callsors have meetings. what does he have to hide? his aides say nothing, this is necessary. you can look this up on the internet as oklahoma attorney general he got busted putting letters on to attorney general stationary. especially when the boss won in part because of this. >> i want the entire corrupt washington establishment to hear the words we all i'm your messenger, just a messenger, doing a good job but just the messenger. we all are about to say when we

win on november 8th, we are going to drain the swamp. >> i'm going to guess the president's not too happy especially about tom price and his private planes. >> no, the white house came out earlier this week and beak said look, this was not white house approved travel. i think they're trying to distance themselves. expectedly from all of this. this is a really bad look. it's not just the private jets. you look at the schedules that secretary price is going to these sort of medical conferences, things he's gone to in the past when he was a congressman, a simple congressman and a georgia doctor for very short periods of time. there's a lot of fishy things here. it should be noted that it was politico and the media who have expose this had i think. we should remember that that this is good reporting. > it makes the president look bad and the president promised to drain the swamp. the president's former aides did

not come into the white house making a ton of money trading off his name, that's not draining the swamp. but when you have somebody like price, it's not only what the president promised in the campaign, it's what a guy named congressman tom price once raised against. >> i think we've made it halfway. that is cut it from eight to four jets. now we need to cut it from four jets to zero jets. this is another example of fiscal irresponsibility run amok in congress right now. >> i want to say to the speaker, don't you fly over our country in your luxury jet. and lecture us on what it means to be an american. don't you tell us about america. >> that was hip talking about nancy pelosi back when she was speaker of the house. >> who bey coined the phrase drain the swamp. >> mr. secretary, we record things and keep the tapes. sorry. >> look, this is why the irony here is this is why is president trump won.

because people are so rightly so disgusted with this kind of behavior. the notion that you can never mind use taxpayer dollars to fly privately as politico found out but do so after you you rail against the other party for doing just that. it's like are you kidding me? i mean it's unbelievable. and it really is, look, if you kind of take a step back, you wouldn't excuse anybody for this because even if they've never been in washington, they should have people around them to understand the basic rules and protocols. but tom price has been in washington. he's a doctor. he has been a congressman in washington and knows the rules. and it just is mind bogging. >> the problem he's been in washington and he knows the rules. >> it makes it a lot harder when it's actually justified. when do you have to get someplace and get back quickly because it's urgent or you're trying to go kathleen sebelius going to remote areas of alaska. harder to tell people we had to

do it in this case or even a family emergency. life happens. but it makes it really hard. again, here's what this costs. put this up on the screen. he took a chartered jet to philadelphia at a cost of $25,000. you can drive there for about $46 in gas. 125 miles. you can take a train, $123. you can get on a united airlines flight, might cost you $625. the average joe gets $725 of their tax money or $25,000 to go to philadelphia. now they say oh, security, oh, the time at the tsa. they don't wait at the tsa. they get shuttled out to the tarmac. >> amtrak is very comfort credible. >> might run into joe biden. >> this is not a good look for price. we're all in ingredient. i will point out the decision of whether this ends up being a job-ending controversy for tom price, that all rests with president trump and every reporting that my colleagues have been doing and in my

covering of the health care debate, every reporting that we have is that the president doesn't blame tom price and actually likes him a lot and has seen him as a very loyal cabinet member. so if the president feels like all of the disasters that we've seen in congress with republicans not being able to get their act together on health care, that all rests with mitch mcconnell and to some extent vice president pence because he's been so closely involved, hen we're not seeing any indication an price will -- >> there's a rule for congressional republicans in this now. >> oversight. this will be a test, congressional republicans want to give oversight. will they do it in a republican administration. elijah cummings said that of secretary price had an entitled millionaire mind-set and went on to say the amount of taxpayer funds he spent on one flight this month is more than some of my constituents make in an entire year. the challenge will be the

oversight committee says we'll take a look at there. will they go through the records. >> will the republicans give aggressive oversight? >> they're leaving open the possibility they will. i see the white house's response immediately out of the gate to say we did not an probable this travel as to leave just enough cushion between the president and his hhs secretary that if he needs to drop him like a hot potato he can. >> when we come back, the top political story. roy moore says he's a constitutional conservative unless there's a conflict with the bible.

welcome back. if you don't live in alabama, you may not know roy moore but you may be reminded of some of his past legal bats. as chief justice of the alabama supreme court he defied a court order to remove a monument to the ten commandments inside the

supreme court building. in 2012, at the told alabama state judges to ignore the supreme court decision that same-sex marriage was right. those strong stances are a staple of his senate run. >> we wouldn't be having the demonstrations and riots and division in our society if we returned to one nation under god as it was. some people see god as a religion. he's not a religion. he's something real. >> now we've got blacks and whites fighting, rich and yellows fighting. democrats and republicans fighting. men and women fighting. what's going to bring us back together? a president? a congress? no. it's going to be god. >> whether or not you agree with judge moore, you have to give him this. he's consistent. >> homosexual conduct should be illegal. you wonder why we're having

problems? in newtown, connecticut? all across our country with killings? stealing, committing adultery? we've forgotten the law of god. >> he is now the republican candidate for senate in the state of alabama. he has been a national figure in these fights essentially about a chief justice of the state, sorry supreme court of the united states, i will not agree with you on these questions. he's a provocative candidate the controversy for republicans is if you're running in senate in indiana and colorado and somewhere else, you'll get asked every time he says something, do you agree with moore. >> this is what mitch mcconnell feared. >> we talked about rape as a woman -- todd akin. >> in the missouri senate race. >> and what roy moore said over the years, his record is in many ways you can sort of quantify it

this way so much worse in terms of the number of sound bites that republicans will have to answer for. this is not what they're looking forward to. if he's in the senate, he's not going to be a reliable vote for mitch mcconnell or for that matter donald trump's agenda. you can imagine there might be some judge who have otherwise good conservative cree degs who for whatever reason we don't have a good sense of what roy moore may or may not do. he may not go with republicans. that's a problem, as well. >> back to alabama, it is unlikely the democrat can win that senate race, but there opens up the possibility for a democrat to win because is he so well-known, maybe not so much outside of alabama but so well-known in alabama which helped him win in the big way did he last night but it could galvanize the people that don't like him in a way people won't expect. >> electric for democratic

fund-raising efforts. under the old rules of politics, roy moore would make a lot of the sense as a house candidate from a state. but the senate at least used to be something really different. and a senate represents the entire state, not just agee graphic district and says something about the party. sort of more statesman like, less lightning bolt throwing and more reason compromised based body. more institution. and this just really does change that dynamic. this gives mitch mcconnell a whole lot more of a challenge to deal with and gives democrats in theory if they can figure out what to do with it a real opportunity. >> yet the president a deleted a couple of tweets backing luther strange. we keep those too and tweeted out he spoke to roy moore last night for the first time and said he sounds like a great guy. that's fine. he's the republican candidate. the question is what happens in the future. we will see. thanks for joining us today on "inside politics."

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hello, i'm wolf blitzer. it's 1:00 p.m. here in washington, 8:00 p.m. in saudi arabia. 9:309 p.m. in kabul, afghanistan. wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us. on the defense, after the disaster, president trump praises his administration on its response to puerto rico but millions of americans still begging for more help. angry and embarrassed, the president live vid after his chosen senate candidate loses in alabama. why republicans are now facing a civil war. and the u.s. defense secretary james mattis and other dignitaries targeted by the taliban while in kabul. we have new details on that attack. but first, there is breaking news out of the white house. i