k you msouch. thank you. so we're doing it. yes. start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we help all types of businesses with money, tools and know-how to get business done. american express open. welcome to "politics nation." we are watching developments in that overnight train crash in south carolina that left two people dead. meantime, president trump is back to his old self. just four days after acting the part of a bipartisan unifier in his state of the union address, the president has rerevealed his true colors, continuing with his attacks against the fbi, the

democrats, the nfl, and the media. oh, and, of course, he lied. again. about his address being the most watched in history. want to know what i thought about that address? good, because i'll tell you. i thought it was a hollow, xenophobic appeal to his base that did nothing to unify a country fractured by his first year in office. instead of denouncing the national surge in hate crimes and acts of white supremacy, president trump remained silent. instead of reassuring countless qualified dreamers and daca recipients looking to participate in the american dream that they, too, have a future, president trump referenced gang violence, chain migration and generalized their unique pain, saying americans

are dreamers, too. the speech simply followed trump's motto, one he used frequently as a real estate mogul of exaggerating and overselling to hoodwink the public without any evidence on ounce of fact. as i said before, and i know him personally, trump is not promoting a dream but pitching a scheme. try as he might, the president cannot hide the reality that his administration has breathed new life into the war on drugs and encourage voter suppression. he turned back the clock on criminal justice reform, pushing an anti-civil rights agenda that only divides our country more. so, mr. president, let me be clear. i will continue my mission to ensure equal justice for all

americans regardless of race, religion, nationality or gender with or without your support. and that is where we start today. zalina maxwell is foreign director for the hillary clinton campaign, and rick tyler is co-founder of foundry strategies. rick, let me start with you. the president tried to play, at least for a evening, that he wanted to unify, bring us all together, let's come together around immigration and find a solution and infrastructure. and the subtle message even in the state of the union was to almost criminalize dreamers, almost making them one with gang members and the subtle attacks he couldnattacks.

he couldn't resist going after the nfl and i'm going to talk to jamil in the next segment. he couldn't resist anot acting presidential. >> we knew he wouldn't act presidential. i don't think he understands the idea of a unified country. what it would mean is everyone would agree with him. but he just has no capability, no capacity to bring people together or find common ground on policy issues. i do think you're right. i think immigration is a problem that's imminently solvable. all the pieces are there, it just needs leadership to put them together, but the president finds a way to divide. i thought the idea of -- ms-13 is a dangerous gang, but to somehow lead with ms-13 on the immigration debate when dreamers and daca is the issue really was a misstep. >> now, zalina, the whole use of

the gangs acting like they were, in fact, the face of immigration, it wasn't even subtle. those of us that know him well in new york know that he over the top went with the central park jogger case, calling for their execution, rather than bring them to a trial and see where it was. they were convicted, later found to be right. those of us that protested on their behalf ended up being right. but this is typical donald trump. federal lawsuit against housing discrimination. it's always them. it's always pitting people against each other. but he's the president now. it has serious ramifications. >> absolutely. he spent last year lying and dividing the country and he mimics nationalists when he talks about immigration saying americans are dreamers, too. he might as well be saying white lives matter because that's really what i think people of

color heard when he said that in his speech, basically saying everybody is a dreamer. no, there is a specific group of people called dreamers who are in need of protection right now. >> and schemers who used the division to achieve power. >> exactly. and i think mimicking white nationalists and pretending he is willing to compromise and that he hasn't been the person who is blocking a deal on daca because of the people he has in his white house like stevphen miller, i think we're deluding ourselves when we think the president is willing to compromise when he hasn't shown that's true. but i do think the democratic base right now, if they didn't like what they heard in the state of the union, then we need to be organizing the deadline that's coming up right now and it could be another shutdown. >> even equally as disturbing, he and his administration is undermining the very fundamental institutions of government. i mean, you have the president of the united states openly

fighting the fbi director, openly declassifying certain memos to clear himself? i mean, we're seeing an absolute crisis in how we govern and what it is that we establish as values in this country. >> the devin nunes memo confirms the conspiracy. the memo is based on the flimsiest ideas. carter page was someone they all -- he was the coffee boy's coffee boy. he had nothing to do with the campaign. no one ever met him. he didn't have a trump e-mail address. they claimed all these things and yet this memo, which was about the fisa authorization, which was signed by rod rosenstein, among others, is the whole basis for the white house spying on the campaign. remember, they weren't spying on

mike pence or donald trump, they were spying on the coffee boy's coffee boy, and somehow this is supposed to crack open the case. and what's remarkable here, rev, we're supposed to believe that a politician, his motives, should be pure. and, you know, we have to believe the politician. what we're not going to believe is the decades-long public servant law enforcement official. we're supposed to believe that after 27 years in some cicada-like rhythm, he comes forward and he's political, and he has all these political ideas, and he wants to defeat donald trump and get hillary clinton elected. these conspiracies really are remarkable. >> that's my point, zalina, they have just totally flipped the whole premise of balance of power, of investigation, no one is above the law. i mean, this is a real, real radical change that trump and them are doing here.

>> particularly because, you know, for the past few years we've been talking a lot about law enforcement and holding them accountable for their behavior. so i think it's ironic you now have the republican party attacking law enforcement -- >> the law and order people. >> right, the law and order people are now attacking law enforcement. but beyond that, i think that this memo in particular was essentially just a smear on the fbi based on nothing. and even in the memo itself on the last page, it acknowledges that the investigation was triggered by george papadopoulos. so even in the memo, which is only four pages, they had to admit that it wasn't about the dossier, it wasn't about christopher steele's information primarily. there were other facts and he was known to the fbi for many years. and that's very problematic. because if that person is known by the fbi as somebody who has very problematic ties to russia and he shows up to work on a presidential campaign, i would imagine the fbi would be interested in that, because that person is going to be very close to power if that person is

elected which is what happened here. so i think this is a national security issue, and we have to take it really seriously. >> rick, i've got 30 seconds. when will the grown-ups in the republican party that believe in the republic, when are they going to stand up? what are they afraid of? >> as you know, rev, they've wanted to get in power for the longest time. we were told if the conservatives work really hard, we elect the majority of the house and the senate and get them in the white house and all things will happen. we've arrived at this point and nothing of substance is happening. i think the house and the senate will plod along and think they'll get some things done and the president will sign it. you have to have public support behind it in order for this to work. unless the president has public support, nothing is going to happen. >> all right, i have to leave it there. thank you, zerlina maxwell and rick tyler. we are just getting started. in a moment i'll talk to espn's

jamille hill as we are just 10 hours from the start of the super bowl tonight. will we see nfl players take a knee or raise a fist to protest social injustice? before we go to break, here's the latest on the deadly amtrak train collision in south carolina. >> there was a train collision and derailment near charleston highway and pine ridge drive between a freight train and a passenger train. when we arrived on scene, we began assisting passengers off of that train. at this time there are no passengers on the train. it's very important to point that out. there were about 70 passengers that were transported to local area hospitals for various injuries. there were two fatalities, according to the lexington county coroner's office. that has been confirmed. but then one night,

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preston's reverence for those who have served our nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance and why we proudly stand for the national anthem. [ applause ] >> that was president trump

tuesday, throwing yet another sucker punch at those nfl players dared to protest social injustices during the national anthem this season. a season like no other where the national conversation about race and sports stoked repeatedly by none other than president trump himself often overshadowed the on-field action. last week it was announced that sports journalist jamelle hill whose twitter criticisms of the president calling him a white supremacist resulted in a public suspension from the espn network last year that i protested, would be leaving her former tv home to write for the network's website "the undefeated." jamelle hill, welcome to "politics nation." i'm very happy to have you with us. i want to talk about the super bowl, but first, a lot of us

really in love with you for your sports commentary but also your stand-up and expressing yourself. were you forced out of sports center or was it your choice? >> this was definitely 100% my choice. i approached my superiors about making a change, and maybe a lot of people probably didn't know this, but i spent the majority of my career in print journalism. espn hired me in 2006 to be a print columnist, and so i often, you know, wrote commentary, especially about issues revolving around race and sports, and so the undefeated is a natural home for me given it's about sports, race, culture, it mixes all those things that i am

even more vital to discuss. and i wanted to do it on a platform that was deeply aligned with who i was as a person. i respect a lot of great journalists of color they have at this site and just so many in charge of it, so it was really an opportunity for me to do great journalism. sports center is the legacy brand at espn. i had a great year doing the show, but it was not a fit for me because ultimately i had a lot of things that i really wanted to say and wanted to express, and the sports center vehicle is not necessarily set up for that, so i wanted to be on a property that was. >> now, how did you feel, as one who expressed yourself on twitter, and has been expressing yourself throughout your career, because you are a journalist. you're not just somebody talking in between commercials about sports. how did you feel when you heard the president in a state of the union address still take a shot at people that are standing up

about injustices, injustices that you write about, i protest about? i mean, just out of nowhere just decides he's going to take another shot. how did you feel watching that? >> i wasn't surprised, and i think this is going to be probably a constant thing for the president, because it's a very easy dog whistle, it's low-hanging fruit. it's what i like to call racial pornography because it's a way to stoke his base. in a weird way, i think it's kind of weirdly brilliant because he has been able to hijack the entire conversation and to make this about patriotism. and, really, if anybody knew just even the smallest bit of american history, they would understand that what the players have chosen to do is the most patriotic thing that you could, and colin kaepernick, who this conversation started with and is still very much the foundation of this conversation, his

original thoughts about why he was protesting, he very clearly laid out a big reason is that he felt like military personnel, the people defending our country, that we were not living up to the ideals that that flag is supposed to represent. and that's why he chose to take a knee at the request of someone else who served in the military being nate boyer. so i think because there is a lot of misinformation, a lot of people frankly just aren't interested enough or care enough about the things that are important to colin kaepernick and the players protesting, it's been easier for them to latch onto ceremony as opposed to understanding what this cause is really all about. >> and what he's really saying and what we are saying when we pledge allegiance. we pledge allegiance to what it stands for. jenele, the fact that you will now be writing and expressing your views, i don't think a lot of people understand as we are

at super bowl sunday today the whole problem of race in sports. like over 70% of the players are black. i mean, you have more players now black than ever, but the ownership is almost all lily white. we still have not dealt with the problem of ownership, of business contracts, of the race question in terms of equity in sports itself. >> yeah, and this is a tension that has existed in sports ever since black athletes integrated into sports that were largely white. here you have black athletes performing, for the most part, at the large request for the entertainment of mostly whites owned by primarily teams that are owned by primarily white owners. and so there is always going to be this tension of race there, and i think a lot of people that watch players, a lot of people that employ players, they don't

understand the duality that most people of color live in this nation of the duality of what you do versus who you are and what it means to be black in america, which is quite simply all the players are trying to express and get owners and even the league commissioner to understand that regardless of the fact that they may make a certain amount of money, that they may play in a great sport, and that they, you know, are competitors, despite all that, that when they get in their cars, they're still subjected to many -- much of the racism and institutional abuses as if they didn't have the other trappings of success. and one way that the nfl certainly hasn't been able to address some of those issues is by the fact that you have primarily white owners in decision-making positions, not just at the ownership level, at the gm level. a lot of people making the decisions don't look like the players actually playing on the field. >> that's why i thought it was

so important, so heroic what colin kaepernick did, and frankly what you did. just because you own a team, you don't own a person, and i think that when someone has the courage to step out and stand up, we all need to stand and applaud that and let the owners know that there's backup. i don't think you estimate the level of respect that it gives young women, young women of all races and people of all races to say to people, wait a minute, i'm a human being, i have feelings and i live in a reality that needs to be addressed. >> well, the way i view things is that love is correction. and i love this country, i love being american, i love being a black american, and if i didn't love it as much, i wouldn't care about what it stood for or be disappointed by it. and i think that's kind of where colin kaepernick is i, where we're deeply aligned is that he

cares about this country, he cares about living up to its ideals, and that's why it means a lot for him to continue to try to better it in the way that he can. and i know that a lot of people look at the money that he's made in his career, and for that matter, if they look at me and say, oh, you're on espn, what do you have to be concerned about? i'm still a black woman in america, that's not going to change. i'm still subjected to a lot of things, and besides, with my platform, and i'm sure, again, he views it the same way. you know this better than anybody, reverend, given how long you fought for social justice, is that those who are able to sort of get to this point, you almost feel a deeper responsibility to make sure that you allow others to stand on your shoulders because we all had to stand on somebody else's shoulders at some point or at many points in our lives. >> let me ask you this. give me a handle what you think is going to happen at the super

bowl tonight. >> well, i do think that this game is going to be a lot closer than people imagine it to be. the patriots obviously one of the most dominant teams ever in sports. i think it will be close, but i think they'll wind up winning and further cementing their legacy as one of the most winningest teams and franchises that we've ever seen. i think something along the lines of 28-24. i do think this game will be a lot closer than some people probably have imagined. >> well, thank you again for being on, jemele, and thank you, jemele for being jemele hill. >> thank you for being reverend al. coming up, i have a tip for president trump on how to increase black employment. be right back. ♪

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and now for this week's "gotcha." i'll make this one quick and to the point. coming off president trump's address this week, one in which he took credit for more record unemployment in the black community, we saw from the

bureau of labor statistics that black unemployment, in fact, jumped up nearly a full point, from 6.8% to 7.7% for the month of january. just one month after the 46-year low that president trump seems to have taped to the back of his eyelids. and in one week he took to twitter -- where else -- to chastise entertainer jay-z for not looking back the president's demonstrated racism and giving him credit for another black man's, his friend's, hard work. but while we're on the subject of black people working, mr. president, i've been wondering where your sudden obsession with minority employment began. because i've known you for three decades, met you at your trump properties, et cetera, and minus the security guards at trump

tower and the dozens, of all things, haitians staffing your mar-a-lago resort, i've never seen any black professionals in your orbit until you moved into the white house. but then maybe that's because you don't have to rent one of your properties to them, which we know was kind of an issue at the start of your career. president trump, white house staff increasingly looks like where's waldo in reverse. but here's a tip to get black employment back on the trend that president obama started. hire some. i even have a candidate for you. an old friend named i gotcha.

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my administration is committed to fighting the drug epidemic and helping get treatment for those in need, for those who have been so terribly hurt. these reforms will also support our response to the terrible crisis of opioid and drug addiction. never before has it been like it is now. it is terrible. >> never before has it been like it is now.

yes, president trump paid less than a minute of lip service to the opioid epidemic during his state of the union speech. but in that time, his tone was sympathetic, emphasizing the need for treatment but also the severity of the crisis which he claimed to be unprecedented. once again vindicating those of us in the black community who have noted the sensitivity applied to the opioid crisis of today versus the exclusively punitive response to the crack epidemic of 30 years ago. an important point as a multi-billion-dollar collective lawsuit against the pharmaceutical industry made progress in federal court this week. joining me now is jay edelson, an attorney leading hundreds of lawsuits against pharmaceutical manufacturers over the opioid

crisis and van newkirk, writer for "the atlantic." let me go to you first, attorney. you're suing, you're going after the pharmaceutical industry and companies. this is a serious problem and it also is something that you're trying to get people that have been damaged some kind of just treatment, and not just in areas that have long been ignored, because my concern here, and i wrote about it this week, is that the people most impacted may not be the people most rewarded. >> that's exactly right, reverend, and thank you so much for having me this morning. the opioid epidemic has really ravished communities throughout the country, and one of the big problems is that it's being seen as mostly a white world problem and sometimes white suburban

problem, but the community doesn't back it up. the white community and all communities in america have been affected, and in certain cases disproportionately with regard to large metropolitan areas. we are actually not directly involved in the federal lawsuit, we are representing a number of cities and counties who are bringing state lawsuits to try to hold big pharma accountable. what our lawsuits allege is that this was not an epidemic in the sense that it just happened to america, this was an intentional conduct starting from the mid-'90s where a big farmer decided to lie to the american people, convinced them they were selling a new brand of opioid that was not addictive and it was exactly the same type. it got america hooked on painkillers and has cost communities literally hundreds of billions of dollars. >> but you would also concede

that when it began to spill across the tracks and affect a lot of white americans, it started to become more of a crisis, and the reaction was rather than lock them up, let's heal them. and what your lawsuits are doing in terms of working with cities and states, i'm told, is to make sure that those in all communities are considered in this and not just the suburban whites, as you referred to? >> you're exactly right, reverend. i'm from a criminal justice point of view. we're seeing such a different reaction, and it is much more em pathetic to the drug and crack cocaine users which is send them to prison for years and years. if we have communities buying into that, sometimes they think they don't want to actually be involved in these lawsuits. and these lawsuits, if they're

successful, which i think they're going to be, they'll have the opportunity to bring in huge amounts of money to communities that frankly need it. in the tobacco litigation from the '90s, big to babacco is sti paying in lawsuits today. >> jay, you've written about this disparity and the difference in terms of the reaction. i know in the '80s they acted as if they didn't even know where crack was being sold. we started pointing out crack houses so every kid on the block knows. in the '80s it was ignored and then when it got to a certain level, it triggered these mandatory sentences that literally cost a large part of a generation being incarcerated. >> that's exactly right.

i actually believe there is potential criminal conduct here, but the criminal conduct would be on behalf of big pharma. in my view, crack cocaine created a lot of victims. the drug users were major victims of it. here opioids, i don't think there is any reason for us not to feel sympathetic to these people that got hooked on opioids, but we have to understand that as we allege, i think we'll be able to play to a jury. this was intentional conduct by large pharmaceutical companies that made billions and billions of dollars, and they have to be held accountable. >> van, you've written about this and studied this. what are we looking at here? why are we looking at a whole generation of young black men having to serve mandatory sentences, and now we get all this empathy on opioid use where we really need it?

i'm not against it, but it wasn't that way in the '80s, as i said, when we were painting crack houses and they acted like they didn't know where it was coming from. you looked at this, you studied this, you wrote about it. >> empathy is a good thing, it's a big development. it's not quite where we need to be in terms of criminalization of drug policy. i think even now people -- even white folks who are hooked on opioids, they are likely to be criminalized. the rhetoric hasn't quite matched the policy yet. but you look back over the last three, now four decades, you have whole generations of black folks who are in prison, their families have been destroyed. we have young men and young women who are grown folks who have suffered through generations of dysfunction because they were targeted by drug policies, their families were broken up, they have people in prison. so i think if you look at a lawsuit now against the pharmaceutical companies, maybe

that's an opening to start thinking about looking back. who else might be liable for, really, half a century of awful drug policy in this country that has placed black communities, people of color, at a systemic disadvantage? so maybe you can start thinking about, okay, if pharmaceutical companies are liable, maybe you're talking about government policies that are liable. >> and van, if we look at also how, as these lawsuits are dealt with down through the courts, how we deal with the social setting, whether it was opioid use or, in the past, crack use, the social structures that we need to build support mechanisms in those communities and to make sure, as jay's point, that we in effect deal with the communities that need it the most. >> yeah. so if you look at it right now, president trump, he has had lots

of, like you said, sort of compassionate language about drug users, about people who are on opioids, less so about people who are hooked on crack or cocaine or other things. but all that rhetoric and logic and nice speeches, none of it has been attached to any money. there's been no bills coming out of congress yet that have substantially increased the drug safety net, and we're also thinking about raiding things like the public health prevention fund which funds most of those. >> that is something we're going to continue to focus on in this show. thank you, jay edelson and van newkirk. you can read my commentary on the opioid crisis in the black community on nbcnews.com/think. up next, back to sports and politics. only hours out from the close of a historic season of the nfl,

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to comment on tonight's big super bowl game. apart from dismissing a pre-game interview invitation now a presidential tradition. it's not said if his ongoing battle with the league has anything to do with his decision, but it's really a fitting capstone to a season defined as much by base politics as it was by big players. joining me now is sports editor for "the nation" who along with nfl star and activist michael bennett is co-author of the upcoming book "things that make white people uncomfortable." dave, this has been a year where colin kaepernick, bennett and others have stood or knelt to raise issues of social justice that many of us respect, and they have been demonized by the

right and denigrated by the president of the united states. he has dismissed a pre-game interview that presidents do. he has also he is also not made any predictions about the super bowl. i don't know if it's his beef with the nfl or some personal stuff or what, but i don't think that he can even dampen the impact of what we saw this year in terms of athletes standing up and saying that i can't divorce who i am from what i am. >> right, i mean, it was a historic year in that regard, but first to take it a step back, let's be clear, donald trump has a beef with the nfl, not because of protesting players or attempting to raise awareness about police violence, but he has a beef with the nfl because he wanted to own a team and said finances were too shady

to be part of their exclusive club. it says so much about politics, that many nfl owners have come to the conclusion that donald trump is not good enough to be in the nfl but is good enough to be president. they will write checks for millions of dollars to run this country, but they don't trust him to run an nfl team. >> that's what i was referring to. i was certainly rejected by these owners in terms of joining their exclusive club. but, let me also bring this point home because i think in our interview with jamelle hill, which i know you saw, she brought up the point that many of us have been raising for a long time, once you're off the field for that matter if you're entertainer off the stage, you have to deal with the racial reality and class reality that anyone else has to deal with. when i say class, you may be rich but you don't have the same

pedigree, particularly if you're a person of color. >> absolutely. that's something michael bennett says, he believes in the black lives matter movement because he's only going to be a football player for a few more years but going to be black the rest of his life. and we forget also that these players are still connected to the communities from which they are from and the nfl overwhelmingly serves is talent pool for underserved communities, for communities that think football is the one way out. people can go to belkblglade florida and see a level of black poverty in the country that would have shamed bobby kennedy 50 years ago. that's the pipeline that the nfl depends on, especially in this era of heightened awareness of concussions when more and more middle class families are keeping their kids away from the spoort sport. one comment, she made the terrific point about donald trump hijacking this movement

and making it by patriotism and not what it's supposed to be about, raising awareness of racial inequity and police violence. one point to be hopeful about in 201 2017/2018, a poll was taken after trump's comments, more white americans could tell you these protests were about police violence than before trump's comments. that is 100% attribute to the nfl players who stayed on message in november and december. >> they were very very disciplined in that. i also want to raise another point that we talked about, which many of us in civil rights organizations have been raising along time. 70% of the players are black. how many black owners of an nfl team dave ziron. >> zero. >> so we can entertain but can't own even 50 years after dr. king's assassination.

>> well, that's another thing that michael bennett says in the book we're doing, he said to me, i have to get across the notion so people understand that the nfl is not integrated. that integration is a myth because while the players are of course interest grated, power is not integrated. and because the average career is just three and a half years, players come and go. that's why they say nfl stands for not for long. but when you're in that ownership box, you are perpetual and jerry jones. >> people need to know that when they sit in a room and decide the fate of a colin kaepernick or michael bennett, it's an exclusive white room of owners. thank you, dave zirin. up next, my final thoughts.

this new day. looks nothing like yesterday. roads nowhere to be found. and it's exactly what you're looking for.

this is frank. sup! this is frank's favorite record. this is frank's dog. and this is frank's record shop. frank knowns northern soul, but how to set up a limited liability company... what's that mean? not so much. so he turned to his friends at legalzoom. yup! they hooked me up. we helped with his llc, contracts, and some other stuff that's part of running a business. so frank can focus on the beat. you hear that? this is frank's record shop. and this is where life meets legal. they feel that they have to drink patients that i see that complain about dry mouth a lot of water. medications seem to be the number one cause for dry mouth. dry mouth can cause increased cavities, bad breath, oral irritation. i like to recommend biotene.

biotene has a full array of products that replenishes the moisture in your mouth. biotene definitely works. it makes patients so much happier. [heartbeat]

we as a nation are in ab existent shal crisis, when we see the nunes memo released and the president uses congress to interfere with the fbi and an investigation. . when we see the normalizing of people that are neo-nazis and openly compared to people that are peacefully protesting against confederates. having statues, who were those committing treason against the united states. who are we?

it's an existential questions. what are our values? what are our standards? are we going to stand up for the america we began building towards or are we going back to an america that is only for the privileged and for those of one race ande gender. people said to me at the restaurant last night, refer ends al, who are you rooting for in the super bowl? i said, when i think of philly, i think of the urban decay, i think of what's going on around the country. no, i'm talking about which team are you supporting? i support the team of colin kaepernick and michael bennett, those that stand for something. don't get me wrong, it's already to have fun. it's already to relax, but don't chill out too much. martin luther king said if you cool out too long, you'll go into a deep freeze.

when you wake up, they will have changed the whole world on us. that does it for me. that's my show today. thanks for watching and keep the conversation going. like us at facebook.com/politics nation and follow us at twitter on twitter @politicsnation. see you back here next sunday. now to my colleague, ala alex w >> thank you so much, and good morning to all of you. i'm alex witt, it's 9:00 a.m. in the evening and 6:00 a.m. in the west. we have breaking news, a deadly railway collision in the overnight hours. it involved an amtrak passenger train carrying nearly 150 people. we've got the latest details on this crash ahead for you. in politics, memo spin, a ranking democrat calls the gop note deeply wrong after president trump says it vindicates him. new reaction to the growing firestorm today. democrats looking to