tv Meet the Press MSNBC February 12, 2017 11:00pm-12:01am PST
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this sunday, immigration fight. president trump's travel ban is struck down unanimously by a federal appeals court. >> courts seem to be so political. >> but the president vows to fight on. >> we'll win that battle, but we also have a lot of other options. >> so what happens next? i'll ask president trump's senior policy adviser, stephen miller. plus russian intrigue. after white house denials, national security adviser mike flynn concedes that, yes, he may have spoken to the russians about obama-era sanctions before donald trump became president. >> i don't know about it. i haven't seen it. >> is flynn's job already in danger? and hostile takeovers. angry protesters jam republican
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town halls. [ crowd chants "do your job" ] >> have democratic voters found their voice after the election? i'll talk to a leading progressive, senator bernie sanders and jim web of virginia, a democrat who says the trump victory may have been necessary for the political system. joining me for insight and analysis are catty kay, washington post columnist eugene robinson and greta van susteren and former north carolina governor matt mcroy. well co welcome to sunday it's "meet the press "qwest. >> the longest-running show in television history, celebrating its 70th year, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good sunday morning, sometimes it seems as though we're not in week three of the trump presidency, but year three. consider what's happened in just the past three days.
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president trump's travel ban was struck down unanimously by a federal appeals court and it may re-write the order. mike flynn did, in fact, talk to russia's ambassador about sanctions before president trump took office, a possible violation of the law. the president attacked nordstrom in a tweet for dropping part of his daughter ivanka's line from their stores and kellyanne conway ended up publicly rebuked for trying to promote ivanka's products. progressives confronted republican lawmakers with angry crowds at town halls and north korea launched a ballistic missile, perhaps testing president trump's resolve against pyongyang. thousands gathered across the country, this time in favor and in some cases against planned parenthood. all of this in just the last few days in this one week of the trump presidency. >> we'll win that battle, but we also have a lot of other options
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including just filing a brand new order on monday. >> reporter: for president trump it's been a week of setbacks and a series of self-inflicted wounds. in the court, a ninth circuit court of appeals refused the travel ban. president trump attacked the judiciary. >> courts seem to be so political. >> leading to a rebuke from his own supreme court nominee. >> he feels strongly about the independence of the judiciary, but he's also been very clear that he is not commenting on any specific case. >> now mr. trump says he is considering rewriting the travel ban altogether. and then there's russia. after repeated denials, the white house acknowledged that national security adviser michael flynn could not be certain that he did not discuss u.s. sanctions against russia with russia's ambassador the month before mr. trump took office. u.s. intelligence sources tell nbc news he did. this contradicts the earlier claims of a parade of
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administration officials including the vice president. >> they did not discuss anything having to do with the united states' decision to expel diplomats or impose a censure against russia. >> the subject matter of sanctions or the actions taken by the obama administration did not come up in the conversation. >> on air force one friday night the president was asked about the reports on flynn and the president did not go out of his way to defend him or debunk the story. >> i don't know about it. i haven't seen it. what report is that? >> and then there is the family businesses. president trump attacked nordstrom for announcing it would no longer carry his daughter's shoe line tweeting nigh daughter ivanka has been treated so unfa irly by nordstrom. he is a great person, always pushing me to do the right thing. terrible. that tweet could haunt the president legally and his adviser kellyanne conway doubled down. >> go buy ivanka stuff is what i would tell you. i'm going give a free commercial here. >> that got the attention of
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republican chair jason chaffetz who chastised conway. >> kellyanne has been counselled. >> around the country from utah. [ crowd chants "do your job" ] >> to california, tennessee, ohio to kentucky. >> mitch is a chicken! >> and georgia. >> shame! shame! shame! >> republican lawmakers are facing large, hostile audiences at town hall events, an early indication that trump's opposition is energized. even some trump voters who support his policy are questioning the president's tactics. >> we don't always agree with the way he presents things, but we definitely are on board with his agenda. >> we have people in our family that are like that. you love them to death and you go, oh, did he just say that? >> joining me now is stephen miller, he's the senior policy adviser to president trump and he playeded a key role in the
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drafting of the partial travel ban. mr. miller, well cocome to "meee press ". >> let me start with the decision by the ninth circuit and the president himself saying to reporters that a new order may be drafted. is that what you and others are doing right now? drafting a new order since essentially the ninth circuit seemed to give you a road map of how to draw up something slightly more narrow that would accomplish your goal? >> we are considering all of our options right now, chuck. that includes you can continue the appeal on the ninth and seek an emergency stay in the supreme court and you can have a trial hearing on the merits at the district level or a hearing also at the ninth circuit and pursue additional executive actions. the bottom line is we are pursuing every single possible action to keep our country safe from terrorism. i want to be clear. we heard talk about how all of the branches of government are
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equal. that's the point. they are equal. there's no such thing as judicial supremacy. what the judges did is take power away that belongs squarely in the hands of the president of the united states. >> you say that definitively, but they aren't agreed upon. you believe there is a 1952 law that gives the president the power to decide who can come in and out of this country on a temporary basis and why do you think that law supersedes 1965's who says you cannot decide on someone coming in based on origin. >> that's a great question, and i'll answer it in full. we know the 1952 law and you are referring to 8212f because if it didn't have controlling supremacy between those two clauses that would mean, chuck, that during a time of war that the president of the united states couldn't suspend admissions from the very country they were at war with. so obviously, that's the
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controlling clause. secondly, this is not a decision based upon national origins. it's a decision based upon security conditions in the countries. syria is a disaster zone. libya is in ruins. yemen has a massive resurgent terrorism movement. these are decisioned based upon the ability of those countries to cooperate with our intelligence services. as you know, chuck, this was a decision made in 2015 and '16 in terms of designating the countries. we simply took that intelligence assessment and we took firm action to restrict entry and the bottom line is the president of the united states, both under his article 2 foreign powers and under the 1952 statute has the power to control who enters our country and you know and i know that no foreign national living in yemen or any other country has a constitutional right to demand entry into our country. >> look, i understand that, but i guess i go back to if you do that -- if this was about the security of the country, why wasn't afghanistan, pakistan,
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saudi arabia, egypt -- i can keep going down the list, where we have had foreign nationals from those countries that i've listed attempt terrorist acts in this country? >> well, that's a great question. first of all, 72 individuals according to the center for immigration studies have been implicated in terroristic activity in the united states who hail from those seven nations, point one. point two, the security determination about those countries is based upon an assessment of the threat they present today and going into the future. the security situation in libya, yemen, syria and other countries designated are squarely different today than they were in 2001 or 2005 and 2010. >> but san bernardino -- mr. miller, the whole point of the president's -- as a candidate, the whole point of this idea at the time of a full muslim ban and that he has since tapered it back was in response to san bernardino where the spouse came from saudi arabia, of pakistan
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origin. >> first of all -- >> you're 100% correct. the san bernardino incident demonstrated the profound degree to which our immigration system is vulnerable to terrorism and the fbi has information right now that would clearly indicate the extent to which massive number of court cases are happening and have happened all over our country related to the infiltration of the immigration system, but if you look at the executive order what it spells out is a 90-day period to put in place extreme vetting across the board. so the first seven countries are based upon our determination about the security conditions in those countries and their ability to cooperate with us, but there say 30-day period where new security measures are promulgated and a 60-day compliance period and, chuck, i'll be glad to come back on your show and walk through how we've kept the country safe across the board from individuals coming into our country who don't share our values and don't love our people. >> it's interesting you say about sharing values and the vetting process. i want to ask this, are you
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going to make public the new vetting procedures? >> i suppose there will be aspects of those that will be public, and i'm sure for reasons of national security there will be aspects of those that won't be. obviously, if you're engaged of a vetting procedure of a foreign national you don't want them to have a road map to get around the procedures. we don't want to forecast that. there will be routine, online forms that everybody can see so it just depends and the important thing is this, 80 million people traveled into the united states last year through the airports, seaports or land ports. we as a sovereign nation have the right to impose basic restrictions onnencery to ensure our security, our quality of life, our economic and financial well-being and the bottom line, the bottom line is that a district judge, a district judge in seattle cannot make immigration law for the united states, cannot give foreign nationals and foreign countries rights they do not have and cannot prevent the president of
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the united states from suspending the admission of refugees from syria. >> let me go to the issue of immigration as a whole. do you believe there is too much immigration in the country? >> we should have a program in which american workers are given jobs first. the president campaigned on this and it's an issue the labor unions agree with us and members of congress agree with us. if you have an open job in this country, a u.s. citizen or existing legal permanent resident ought to have the ability to have the first application for that job. the problem is and the way the media cover this issue, pressent company excluded and they don't talk about the u.s. citizens and legal permanent residents and many of whom are living in poverty and many of whom who haven't had wage growth in 20, 30 years and it's time to talk about them, their families and their concerns and yes, we'll have a lawful immigration system that will enrich and benefit the country and the president agrees that should be a merit-based system where individuals come to the country and bring the
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benefits economically that will grow our economy and help lift up wages for everybody. >> you didn't answer the question. do you and the president believe there's too much legal immigration? >> i think i look forward to us rolling out immigration reforms and i'll be able to announce very clearly when we do that what those do. i think my views on this issue have been well discussed and well publicized and i would love to have a conversation with you to get into them in great detail. where we are focused right now are two things protecting our country through security enforcement and screening offent rants and ensuring that before a job is given to a foreign national that job is offered first to an american worker, either a legal permanent resident or u.s. citizen. >> well, i'm going to ask about what appears to be an immigration enforcement surge that took place last week and it goes to the order that was signed. when -- what is -- how do you define a criminal act by an undocumented immigrant in this country?
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just being undocumented, here illegally, is that enough of a criminal act to get you deported under this order? >> the order describes a criminal offense which would typically mean anything from a misdemeanor to a felony. in particular, the emphasises is on crimes that threaten or endanger public safety, but as you well know you cannot order a federal law enforcement officer and i.c.e. any more than you can to the fbi and the dea and marshall service to ignore the laws of the united states and it would be highly unethical for me in the white house or anybody else to pick up the phone and call an i.c.e. officer, when youen counter this particular felon we'd like you to pretend the law doesn't exist. there are enforcements happening all over this country in which gang members, drug dealer, sex offenders are being swept up. >> i understand felons. what about if the only crime they committed is being here illegally, is that enough to be deported? >> sean -- chuck, an immigration judge makes those decisions. an i.c.e. officer makes those
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decisions. >> you don't want to prioritize in either direction. >> if people don't like the immigration laws of the united states they can reform them. our emphasis is on deporting and removing criminal aliens that pose a threat to public safety, and i just want to say this. there's been a lot of conk in the news about the effects of the news, and that's an issue people are free to discuss, but what's more important and what should be discussed more is the lives being saved, chuck, the american lives being saved because we're taking enforcement action and when we didn't take those actions in the past, you have families like the kiwilkern family and the mendoza family who lost people they loved because we are more concerned about the effects of people here legally than the lawful immigrants and u.s. citizens. >> it sounds to me that you did not tell i.c.e. workers who to prioritize. >> that's not correct, i in the white house would be improper for me to tell them from
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disengage from enforcement action. the president has been clear, unequivocal and explicit in saying that we are going to focus removing individuals who pose a threat to public safety including people who are gang members, who have been charged with criminal offenses, who have been multiple immigration violations and have been deported and re-entered. i have a question, what would you say, chuck, what would you say to a family member who lost someone they loved because an illegal immigrant who was deported two times and had a misdemeanor conviction and was allowed to come back a third time and they lost someone they loved. would you say i'm sorry. it didn't meet our priority level. we will not apologize for that. >> mr. miller, does the president still have confidence in his national security adviser? >> that's a question that i think you should ask the president. the question you should ask reince the chief of staff and i am here as a policy advisers and my job is to answer the policy
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questions that you have. he's head of the intelligence agency, and i look forward to having more discussions about this in the future. >> the white house did not give you anything to say other than that -- >> they did not give me anything to say. >> so you cannot say -- >> asked and answered, chuck. >> the president still has confidence his national security officer. >> it's not for me to answer what's on the president's mind and that's a question for our chief of staff. asked and answered, chuck. >> if you were caught misleading the president of the united states would that be considered a fireable offense in the trump white house? >> it's not for me to answer hypotheticals. it would not be responsible and it's a sensitive matter. general flynn served his country with distinction and i look forward to have the conversation with you once you've had the chance to have the conversation with the appropriate people. >> stephen miller, thanks for coming on and sharing your views.
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>> thank you. joining me now is one of the leaders of the democratic party these days though he's not technically a member of the democratic party, senator bernie sanders. welcome back. >> good to be with you. >> let me start on the travel ban and immigration in general and let me ask the question to you this way, do you think the crept procedures that we have to vet refugees and to vet folks coming into this country, do you think it needs to be improved? do you think it is a safety risk right now? >> well, i think the vetting mechanisms are very, very strong. if there say way to make them stronger, let's go forward. i don't think there is any debate that we want to keep the united states safe and we want to be 100% clear that anybody who comes into this country should not be coming into this country to do us harm, but what you just heard mr. miller say is a shell game. while there is a whole lot of
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discussion about the racist, in my view, immigration policies of the trump administration which are based on anti-muslim ideology, which are doing us enormous harm all over the world, something else is comigo on at the exact same moment is that president trump is backtracking on every economic promise that he made to the american people when he told workers and senior citizens he was not going to cut social security, medicare and medicaid. so what's going on right now? we're talking a whole lot of immigration, he is appointing wall street bankers, the same people he told us he would oppose to very high positions, gary cohn has gotten $250 million severance package from goldman sachs. he's now the main financial adviser. we're talking a whole lot about dividing the american people up. we're supposed to hate muslims and we're supposed to hate latinos. >> you think this is a shiny
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metal object to divide the public. >> you got it! you got it! meanwhile, he was going to clean the swamp. remember that? well, guess who's running the swamp right now? the same, exact wall street guys from goldman sachs who were there in the past. so we're all talking about who do we hate tomorrow. is it the muslims? is it latinos? and let's remember that when mr. trump some years ago helped lead the birther effort to undermine the legitimacy of the first african-american president in our history, it was trying to divide us up, and what i say to the american people is stay focused. stay focused. do you want billionaires and wall street executives to be running this economy or do we want economic policies that work for working families and the middle class? where is the discussion about raising the minimum wage to a living wage. pay equity for women. >> let me ask you this, senator. we've seen a lot of anti-trump activism over the last three weeks. once again, every saturday of this presidency so far, we've
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seen some protests. there's a lot of energy in the progressive movement. but there is a lot of debate about what democrats should do about it. first of all, do you believe this is a tea party for the left and if so, what lessons did you learn in '09 that you think can be learned by the democrats now? >> no, it's not a tea party because the tea party was essentially defunded by the bill air koch brothers families. this is a grassroots uprising of the american people. you may be the first to hear this, on february 25th, two weeks from yesterday there is, in fact, going to be rallies all over this country and i think you'll see people in conservative areas and progressive areas asking the republicans what are you going to do when you throw 20 million people off of health insurance? how many of them are going to die? what's your plan? what are you going do when you
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raise prescription drug costs on average $2,000 for senior citizens? are you really going to repeal the protection against pre-existing conditions so people who have cancer and heart disease will no longer be able to get health insurance? you will throw kids off their parents' health insurance program? republicans will have to start answering those questions and the american people are pretty clear, overwhelmingly, they want to improve the affordable care act and they do not simply want to repeal it. >> let me ask a question, some of your former staffers have a draft bernie for a people's party movement. essentially they want to start a new political party. despite bernie sanders' monument allen deafer to bring people into the democratic party, people are living it by the millions and it cannot stem the tide of people let alone extend the democratic base. what do you say to those efforts? >> i say two things. right now we're in a pivotal moment in american history. we have a president who is
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delusional in many respects, a pathological liar, somebody who is -- >> that's a strong word. >> those are strong words. >> can you work with a pathological liar? >> well, it makes life very difficult, not just for me, and i know it sounds -- it is very harsh, but i think that's the truth. when somebody goes before you and the american people and say 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the last election. nobody believes that. there is not the scintilla of evidence. what would you call that remark? it's a lie. it's a delusion, but second of all, to answer your question, i think what we need to do right now is focusing on bringing the american people together around a progressive agenda. american people want to raise the minimum wage and they want to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure. they want the wealthiest people in this country to pay their fair share of taxes and they want to join the rest of the industrialized world and give health care to all people as a
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right. >> the democratic party is a vehicle then you would support that. do you think the democratic party isn't that vehicle? >> right now, chuck, i am working to bring fundamental reform to the democratic party to open the doors of the democratic party to working people, to lower income people and young people who have not felt well come in the embrace of the democratic party. >> i've got to leave it there. senator bernie sanders, thanks for coming have and sharing your views. >> thank you. this car is traveling over 200 miles per hour. to win, every millisecond matters. both on the track and thousands of miles away. with the help of at&t, red bull racing can share critical information about every inch of the car from virtually anywhere. brakes are getting warm. confirmed, daniel you need to cool your brakes. understood, brake bias back 2 clicks. giving them the agility to have speed & precision. because no one knows & like at&t.
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>> i know, it took 70 years. it took a long time. >> very quickly, i want to go to north korea and then to the interviews. very quickly, you've been to north korea numerous times. your best read of the intent of this missile test. a test of trump? >> we're in trouble. north korea has done five nuclear tests, two in the year 2016, and now we have the second test of a ballistic missile and we've got a situation where obviously this was done to rattle the president because the prime minister of japan was here. no president will be able to handle this country and this country is very paranoid and they don't like us and it's terrifying where they're headed. >> i think we don't know yet how he'll respond and all presidents get tested early, it seems like, these days by that. i want to go to what we heard on the travel ban and immigration. it's been a rough week, eugene, for him, and it seems like some of this is more process than policy. >> yeah. it's more process than politics and it's the president's own reaction, really, to what he sees apparently as the
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illegitimacy of the federal judiciary or its ability to do what the judicial branch is supposed to do which is interpret the law and tell us whether or not it's constitutional, and it was interesting to hear stephen miller say that one judge can't do this. one judge can't stop this huge thing the president -- in account ffact, he can. he did. >> you know a lot about doing things and one judge does have a lot of power. there's been a growing amount of conservative columnists who have been arguing that perhaps we have a competency issue right now in the white house. is that what you see? >> no. what i see is the typical behavior of the new administration. remember the t-shirts in the white house and people did not know what they were doing and they made a lot of rookie mistakes and the hillary care had no idea about the communication and process of that. the obamacare, they didn't have an i.t. system on how to implement it.
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major, major breakdown and a major institution during the first three or four months of the obama administration. we're see something breakdowns in process. the homeland security director admitted we made some mistakes. i want to bring you back to what governors were saying six months ago and the fbi told them and told the nation that the venting process was not acceptable especially in countries like syria that have a total breakdown of government. the second thing that governors were saying was this, that once the refugees came to the united states there was almost no communication with the fbi or with government, state government and homeland security officials on where these immigrants go to and that's a long-term security issue that i'm glad the trump administration is dealing with. >> katty, what did you hear on the other part, the other order we talked about with stephen miller. it seemed that he was dancing around whether there is a priority now on essentially deporting anyone who has committed a crime, no matter
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what the level of crime. >> he was choosing his language carefully, whether being in the united states constitutes enough of a crime to get you deported. one of the confusing things is trying to sort out what is new and different and changing america and what is political that the ricks and what is language because we have so much that was day 23, i feel like i'm 230. >> year three. >> is this quantifiably different from president obama or because illegal immigrants are afraid and worried. >> he deported people who were here illegally, undocumented and who had not committed crimes and he prioritized it. >> what's different? >> probably nothing. >> stephen didn't clarify that. >> what did you hear from mike flynn? >> that's just what i was going to bring up. i heard a very non-committal response on flynt. the white house didn't give me anything to say on it?
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ooh. ooh. >> as former governor you depend on your staff to give you direct, honest, accurate information especially you have to defend him. >> jeremy bash who worked in the obama administration in the cia under panetta said he didn't have a problem with him talking to the ambassador during the transition. the problem is what was said. >> is that the crime or the cover up? isn't that the famous -- >> the president and the vice president don't know what's going on behind them. that's a very difficult position for flynn to have put himself in. >> this white house is not given to understatement. they are a very understated -- >> the form rer governor and former congressman, i think each one makes the call. >> you think -- you think that this is up to pence whether flynn stays or goes. >> when we find out what he told pence and pence depended upon accurate information and stuck his neck out for him. >> i'm going to pause it here. you will be back, of course, and when i come back i'll speak to
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former senator jim webb who said former senator jim webb who said the election of donald trump was does your makeup remover take it all off? every kiss-proof, cry-proof, stay-proof look? neutrogena® makeup remover does. it erases 99% of your most stubborn makeup with one towelette. need any more proof than that? neutrogena.
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navy under president reagan. he had switched parties to become a democrat and won a u.s. senate seat. jim webb takes a more optimistic view for the potential of a trump presidency. senator webb, welcome back to the show. >> nice to be here. put some context to your words. when you wrote an op-ed literally the day before the inauguration in "the wall street journal qwest "saying there's something about the election as the jolt the system needed or the shock the system needed. explain that. >> in so many words, i didn't say the system needed a president trump, but i've been saying that the system we're operating under needs some sort of, you would call it jolt. both parties gotten cans phied and let's remember if hillary clinton had won, you would be seeing the same sort of activities that you're seeing now. they would just be focused on different things. there would be people saying she belongs in jail.
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there would be people talking about corruption, et cetera, et cetera. as the governor mentioned this is a new administration getting wheels under it, but at the same time, this is an attempt by president trump to pull different types of people into the system from the old turnstyle government and there's a lot of republicans that are mad at him and sending out think tanks thinking that they would come into a republican administration and also, he's got to pay back and he feels strongly in terms of the people, and the voters that were alienated and not voting and the controversial issues are in the wrong kind of forum are issues of credibility. on the democrats, first of all, they're looking at 2018, and they don't have a message. they don't have a -- >> speak to them as they, by the way. you don't say we. >> is there a reason? >> i'm not in the system right
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now, as, you know, i'm over here with you. >> fair enough. as a writer and a journalist and it's a good place to be. >> welcome back and finish the observation. >> you know, there is a campaign going on on the hill in the media, in the academia to personally discredit not only donald trump, but the people who are around him, and you know, the end result is to slow down the process. you and i were talking about the confirmation process, slow it down so that by '18 when the democrats are vulnerable particularly in the senate there would not be a record of accomplishment that they can run against and at the same time, the democratic party, over the past five or six years has moved very far to the left. when you can't have a jefferson-jackson dinner which was the primary celebratory event of the democratic party for years because jefferson and jackson were slave holders they
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were also great americans in their day something different has happened to the democratic party. >> do you think there are two folks on identity politics? >> i think the message that has been shaped by the democratic party has been shaped toward identity politics, and they've lost the key part of their base and the people -- my family history goes back to the roosevelt democrats and the people who believe that regardless of any of these identity segments, you need to have a voice for those that have no voice and we've lost that in the democratic party. >> the center has been hollowed out. you can make an argument that the political center, if you espouse that and running for reelection and any democrat espousing what you just espoused and you're saying start working with a little bit, and accept the fact that he's president you'd get primaried and you'd probably lose. >> well, true. i don't know about me personally, but --
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>> i'm saying democratic incumbent. >> fair enough. that is a danger who would say those sorts of thing, but the democrats have not done the kind of self-reflection that shay should have starting 2010 and i was talking about this in the '10 elections and you've lost fly over land, and you saw in this election what happens when people get frustrated enough that they say i'm not going to take this aristocracy. bernie is a good friend and he can talk about a riristocraciesl he wants and it doesn't make you a member of that philosophy. there is an aristocracy that's happened and that's what the trump message was that echoed so strongly in these fly over communities. >> let me ask you, on the election, you stayed away from saying who you supported in the election. i know tim kaine is someone you have a lot of respect for him.
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>> i voteded for tim kaine for senator. >> for senator. at the end of the day, are you comfortable with your vote with whoever you voted for. >> i'm comfortable with my vote and my vote is private to me. i did not endorse hillary clinton. i had a lot of the concerns that, you know, people in my -- my group that i've grown up with have and the democratic party's got to do some real hard looks at whether or not they are going to expand and get back working people who used to be the core of their party. >> are you done with politics? >> i'm over here with you right now. >> all right. i will leave it there. >> senator jim webb apparently coming back to the journalism world. >> we welcome you back. coming up, voting with your wallet. when president praised l.l. bean. while traffic from loyal blue
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states dropped. turns out not an isolated incident. nordstrom was i will never wash my hair again. new pantene doesn't just wash your hair, it fuels it. making every strand stronger. so tangles don't stand a chance. because strong is beautiful. the first rule of is that teamwork is important. remember to do the little things. help each other out. and the second rule of being a viking. there's more than one way to win.
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donald trump criticized nordstrom for dropping ivanka from their stores claiming she was treated unfairly and terrible. it wasn't dropped for politics, but poor performance. the president's criticism isn't hurting nordstrom's bottom line, if anything, it has helped proving it was a good business decision. traffic to the nordstrom website went up 28% the day of the president's tweet, and nordstrom's stock closed 4.1% the same day. it may not be surprising given nordstrom's customer base. according to simmons research, both nordstrom and nordstrom rack are where people who describe themselves as liberal shop. counties that voted for hillary clinton are twice as likely to shop at nordstrom than the average american and folks living in trump's counties didn't shop at nordstrom at all. then there's the l.l. bean episode. when mr. trump praised the company, the states that
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produced the most traffic saw drops in traffic almost across the board. a lot of blue states there. while the seven states with the least traffic went up, by a lot. quite a few red states and many of those trends did reverse themselves the following week. still, big picture. americans cast their ballots in november, but guess what? they're still voting only this time they're doing so with their wallets. when we come back those town hall protests against this car is traveling over 200 miles per hour. to win, every millisecond matters. both on the track and thousands of miles away. with the help of at&t, red bull racing can share critical information about every inch of the car from virtually anywhere. brakes are getting warm. confirmed, daniel you need to cool your brakes. understood, brake bias back 2 clicks. giving them the agility to have speed & precision. because no one knows & like at&t.
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[ crowd chants "do your job" ] welcome back. these are scenes from town halls. it was suburban salt lake city, utah, greens borough, and it came after jason chaffetz, the chairman of the house oversight committee said president trump is exempt from conflict of interest laws which is true. chaffetz was one of a number of republicans this week who got a taste of what tea party supporters did to democrats in 2009. we just saw, katty, the two visions of where the democratic party should go in bernie sanders and jim webb. >> this is georgia and utah pictures, right? >> that's right. >> the democrats, the base that is furious. they are trying to drag the leadership to the left, but that puts democrats who are in red states, who are up for reelection in an incredibly difficult position and take someone like claire mccaskill
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who said i'm in a bind, and if she goes with her base and then she loses the election and she has approval then they have a problem in the senate more broadly. >> look, the party is going to the left. i mean, that's -- you know, you see what's happening out there. you see these protests. every week it has really sort of energized the democratic sort of coalition in the way that -- frankly in the way that the tea party did. >> follow the money. follow the money. senator sanders mentioned the money going to the tea party. the money is going to the bernie sanders wing. do you think all of these protests are not being paid? >> let me just say. >> by the way, everybody always thinks -- >> everybody -- >> it takes money to coordinate these protests. >> no it doesn't. it takes the internet to coordinate. >> no, it takes money. >> i think senator was webb was right when he spoke to you. i think he's saying that the democratic party is committing political suicide. he talked about the
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jefferson-jackson dinners and the democratic party moving too far to the left and they lost the white working people which biden also said and he didn't endorse hillary clinton, he told you and he said that the democratic party is ignoring flight-overstates which by the way, i'm from a fly-overstate, i should say. they should listen to kaine -- i mean, to webb. >> they have to keep the protests. they don't feel, from the left, that they're going to get anything from this administration. there is going to be no area in which they're going to compromise and therefore they want to keep the protests up on the street and they want to keep the pressure on the government that way. >> there is a visceratetion. >> and i think the american people -- >> even tom brady and the new england patriots owner -- >> it was what it was about. >> it was as if the tea party didn't want to eviscerate barack obama. >> politically, it was successful, but for governing, this is not. >> republicans lose over the
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last eight years by being obstructionist? >> the 2012 presidential election. >> and they've won on every other level and that's the next step for this democratic, kind of like the tea party movement for the protest movement is to start winning at the local level and grassroots level. >> let me ask you this, i want you to have the last word on this is something we discussed at break. your party pulled you to the right. there is plenty of evidence that says and something of these things that cost you your election and they were not priorities for you, and priorities to your base. what's your advice? >> think elizabeth warren is doing the same thing to the democratic party. some of the left-wing protesters and the coordination of the left-wing groups are pulling the entire party to the left, and i agree with the senator that there is a purging. i mean, look at even the nordstrom issue with trump's daughter. those sales are going down because there's pressure not to buy that product.
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the pressure right now on people even attaching themselves to the president and impacting their business is so strong that it's a heck of a campaign. whether that's a long-term strategy, i don't think it is. it's not a good one. >> we'll be -- we're going to come back and take a quick break. endgame over what defines freedom in america. a very provocative piece by andrew sullivan. >> coming
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brought to you by boeing. always working to build something better. >> back now with "endgame." we had such a good conversation. the panel is still talking, but i'm going to throw another little thing to you guys and let you have at it. andrew sullivan, a very provocative piece in "new york" magazine, a free society means being free of those who rule over you, to exalt in the blessed space where politics doesn't intervene. in that sense we are living in a country with markedly less freedom than we did a month ago. his larger argument being, greta, if we think about politics all of the time it must mean we're fearing our freedoms being taken away. >> we fought for the first amendment and now you go to college and you have these safe spaces. there are curbs on our rights, but i think we'll get through it and we've had bruising battles before in history and we'll get
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through it. i like a robust debate. >> national emergency is also another phrase he used. >> yeah. there is a feeling i think among a lot of people there is a national emergency and president trump said i alone can fix it. everything is going to hell, and people who oppose president trump feel his presidency is an emergency. as these executive orders come out and this flurry of ten things every day. >> i wonder whether the question isn't whether this is going to normalize. we all feel overwhelmed and the country feels overwhelmed and exhausted by the amount going on. you get elected as a populist precisely because you don't know much about government and that's what appeals to people and you have an incredible learning curve when you come in and this is a lesson for france, holland and the uk, as well. can you have that insurgency in the populism and normal functioning government for people and i think we don't know yet. >> sustainable? >> it will be in the details like bernie sanders talked about
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obama care. what are the changes? i'm probably the first panelist to be on cobra. >> i'm on cobra. >> now i'm looking at how much does insurance cost under obamacare. it is extremely expensive. this is a complex issue that moves beyond populist. >> i'm staying on cobra as long as i can. that's $1100 a month and for a middle-class family that's a lot per year of net income coming out of your pocket. >> the interesting thing about obamacare is republicans fought it when it was passed because it gave so much power to the secretary of hhs, sebelius, 22 to 2500 references, and now the shoe is on the other foot. now a republican hhs secretary can do so much. >> governor, before i let you go. nba all-star weekend will not be in north carolina, and it has to be repealed yet. you and i have had a back and forth on this, do you look back
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on this and wish you hadn't signed it? no, but i'm very concerned about th thissorwellian purging and the super bowl was played in houston, texas, and yet there was not a boycott. the nfl has said -- it was hinted they could take away the super bowl. >> they had absolutely no problems in houston, texas. the ncaa played in houston, tex t last year and no problem last year. there's selective hip ok rhys owe which issues we'll boycott and which issues we are want going to boycott. >> market forces. >> thank you all, that's all we have for today. we'll be back next week and i hope you took my advice on the wizards. they're paying off. it's a good bandwagon to jump on. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press". >> you can see more end gagame post game on the "meet the
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press" facebook page. ♪ ♪ give me the respect and courtesy of a human being and not an animal and you will receive the same. >> the killer of a corrections officer fights to be freed from 16 years of solitary confinement. >> robbie! >> boyhood friends struggle to father their kids from behind prison walls. but one, cut off from visits
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