i want to carry out my threats over the break. i'll say, there's no one anymore who thinks trump is normal. >> no, with he's not. he's not. the one somewhat positive thing that i think can come out of this is when you have someone at the top who's that irresponsible and that crazy, it leads to other people being responsible. the peace deal between north and south korea has actually been moving along faster than denuclearization with the u.s. and that's because of this president. >> all right. there you go. you know, a little silver lining for me. thank you for that, my friend. my thanks to jonathan lamir, a.b. stoddard, courtney kube. "mtp daily" starts right now with katy in for chuck. i tried to say that too fast. >> i do it all the time. if it's monday, the white house briefing room goes full campaign spin room. hello and welcome to "mtp

daily." i'm katy tur in new york, in for chuck todd. today begins another week of paranoid paralysis for west wing staffers after elast weak's one-two punch of that anonymous op-ed in "the new york times" and bob woodward's new book that drops tomorrow. so what do they do? they schedule a white house briefing. the first in almost three weeks! the message, we're too busy to talk about any of this drama. >> no, uh, lie detectors are being used or talked about or looked at as a possibility. frankly, the white house and the staff here are focused on doing our jobs. we're certainly focused on things that actually matter. it's, frankly, i think sad and pathetic that a gutless, anonymous source could receive so much attention from the media and i think that, um, the american people would be much better served if we actually spent some time talking about some of the really important

things that are facing our country. >> it is true, they are pretty busy. in fact, there's a huge hurricane barreling toward the carolinas, the midterm elections, less than 60 days away now, president obama just returned to the campaign trail to take on president trump. stress is mounting in syria. and sanders said they are in the process of planning another summit between president trump and north korean leader, kim jong-un. and yet, president trump's been on a defensive tear for days, tweeting that the woodward book is a scam and just this morning, calling it a joke. he did, also tweet about the hurricane, a little bit later today. but, guys, while the gossip, the backstabbing, the threats of firing leakers and investigating news organizations is nothing new in this west wing, don't let the noise drown out the fact that the op-ed and the things reported by woodward are extraordinary. and they raise the serious question of who is really in charge of the executive branch?

in a normal west wing, that would be the chief of staff. in a normal west wing, the chief of staff wouldn't allow staffers to steal things off the resolute desk in the oval office. in a normal west wing, the chief of staff wouldn't let staffers record their firings inside the situation room. and in a normal west wing, if any of nose abnormal things happened, the chief of staff would be the fall guy. so our question today, and one posed by chuck yesterday to kellyanne conway on "meet the press" is, why does john kelly still have a job? let's bring in tonight's panel to help us answer that question. zerlina maxwell is an msnbc political analyst and former adviser to the hillary clinton campaign. susan del percio is also an msnbc political analyst and a republican strategist. and phillip bump is a national correspondent for "the washington post." so, phil, you. why does john kelly still have a

job? >> i mean, you could have asked that question for any number of things over the course of the past year and a half or so, right? the real answer is because this is not a normal white house, because donald trump does not have normal expectations of his chief of staff that one would expect from a president. he has, at times, said that he likes to be the chief of staff himself. john kelly, apparently, was brought in early on and tried to take a traditional chief of staff role. that was abandoned at some point, over the course of the past year or so, according to reporting. and i think that's the easiest answer. >> but does that mean that no one in the white house bears any responsibility for anything, because the president is just abnormal and he doesn't listen, so that means everybody else, something goes wrong, not my fault? >> no, that's not how it works. parents have to deal with all the time, when their kids act out, parents have to take responsibility and teach their children -- it's horrible that we're using the analogy of parents and children when we're talking about the president, but it's applicable -- the parents take some responsibility in teaching and rearing their children in the right way. similarly, the chief of staff in this case, john kelly, does have a responsibility to ensure that things like pulling papers off the president's desks and other

forms of chaos that have been reported in this book are not happening. but i also think that the president -- you know, if he wanted to fire john kelly, he would. he would probably do it via tweet. >> is john kelly kind of allowing this to happen because he is one of the people that's trying to pull back donald trump from his worst instincts? i mean, rob porter was close with kelly, we know that. rob porter is allegedly one of the people that was doing this in bob woodward's book. and so far, correct me if i'm wrong, he hasn't denied any of this, has he? >> not that i've seen. >> not that i've seen. >> not rob porter, no. >> john kelly is trying to do the best he can under the circumstances provided. is he doing the traditional chief of staff job? no. and is it problematic? yes, it's extremely problematic. like bob woodward said, today on the "today" show, we should all be very concerned with what's happening. is it normal to take a piece of paper off the president's desk? no. but this president also has no idea how to govern.

two years in, he has shown no interest in learning how to governor. he cares about one thing. his ratings. and how he is -- and how he's perceived. that's it. >> let's play that woodward bite, since you brought it up. >> well, i've never seen an instance when the president is so detached from the reality of what's going on. here's the problem. this has not been treated seriously enough and the things -- some of the things trump did and does jeopardize the real national security. >> i mean, when we're getting into a situation where the white house is now trying to say that bob woodward has no credibility and that he has less credibility than the president of the united states, i mean, who's going to win that battle? the man who exposed watergate and ultimately took down a president or the president who "the washington post" says has

more than 4,000 lies, said more than 4,000 lies or misleading statements since he was elected? >> and this goes back to the same issue that we have all the time. the people who are going to believe him are the people who support president trump. it's the republican base. the thing i find most baffling about the john kelly situation and about the point that you made about president trump sort of railing at whatever this morning is that he has fox news to do that for him. he has a friendly media outlet. they could fight all those fights and he could keep his head down. and if you remember, last year at this time, he was also battling hurricanes and his approval went up. people thought he did a good job handling the hurricanes up until puerto rico. thought he did a good job with texas and florida. he could be doing that. but instead, because he is who he is, and because his supporters love who he is. there's another pew research poll that just came out saying that his supporters like his argumentativeness more than his policies, he's doing that. >> and there's a new quinnipiac poll that says that the majority of the country thinks he's dishonest. >> but when he was elected -- >> -- that he was trustworthy.

>> on election day, we knew that the next president of the united states would not be liked or trusted by the american public. both hillary clinton and donald trump's approval rate -- favorable ratings were below 50. they didn't like them, they didn't trust them. that was clear. but this white house -- i mean, here's the scary part, is don mcgahn and his team leaving, is going to be extremely problematic if the democrats take the house. they think they have problems managing staff now? wait until they're hit with subpoenas and oversight committees into every agency. because they're not following up. the follow-through in this administration is pathetic. >> what happens if democrats don't take over the house or re-take the senate? how do they -- they're just going to double down on all of this, right? isn't that what we should expect? >> yes, and that's why every single day, if you are watching the news and you're horrified by what you see, you should make sure that you're registered to vote. you should make sure your neighbors are registered to vote. and you should do your job as a citizen to ensure that the country goes in the direction that you hope it does. but i do think that, you know,

sometimes we obscure the national security point by pointing to the 30% of trump supporters -- or the 30% approval that he, you know, sort of consistently has, and says, well, nothing he does matters or nothing he does matters, because that 30%, they're never going anywhere. well, you know, if there is a national security crisis or like we saw last summer, with the hurricanes, 3, 4,000 people dead because of negligence in terms of the response to the hurricane, you know, who cares what those 30% of people think? people are dead as a result of the negligence of this administration. and i think that actually should supersede some of our focus on that 30%. that's never going to go anywhere. >> well, actually, it's kind of interesting, because on some of the polling that came out about two weeks ago showed that only 18% of that trump base thought that trump should give a -- well, a pardon to manafort. so that's -- that's a big cut to his base. they were saying, like, hey, we'll put up with so much, but we don't want you really

breaking the law. >> literally, that 30% is split. >> so sarah sanders says there's too focused on everything that's going on to focus on trying to find out who the leaker is and doing lie detector tests. but the president's tweeting about it, over and over and over again. he's clearly very focused on it. and his advisers are going out and finding themselves having to issue very public denials. the vice president was on air this weekend, on the sunday shows, "face the nation," saying that it wasn't him. so was kellyanne conway. take a look at this. >> let me be very clear. i'm 100% confident that no one on the vice president's staff was involved in this anonymous editorial. >> that is the intersection of arrogance and ignorance. and if this person really had the kind of courage and skills that some of us do, they'd come forward. they'd come -- you would put them right in this chair today. >> and let's also be clear, they had the first white house press briefing in 19 days today. does that show that they're rattled by this? >> i mean, honestly, i don't

know that that particular aspect shows they're rattled by this. i actually looked at the numbers that sarah huckabee sanders has done, shorter briefings with more guests that can hands questions instead of her. >> omarosa today said as she was walking out of craig's show, as i was starting my show, is that what they did is they would time it so she had to stand there for as little time as possible. that they would wait until the president had some sort of event and they would make it so she could only be there for 20 minutes. >> yeah, they don't want to answer questions. and i think there is a lot of reasons why one can understand why sarah huckabee sanders would not want to have to answer questions for what donald trump is doing every single day. but to your point about what they're doing, are they too busy? there is an administration. this goes back to the trump versus the trump administration idea, right? trump is busy doing the things that trump does. he spent more than half of his days over the last few months either visiting a trump property or holding a campaign rally. he gets up in the morning and watches fox news and tweets about it. that's how hep spends a lot of his time. and then his staff, the omarosa tape that nbc just showed today

says that he occupies his staff's time with that stuff, too. so yes, i do think that the white house is spending a lot of time doing a lot of things that it doesn't want to do. but those things are the result of -- >> it's not the result of the press, it's the result of the president himself, who's tweeting about these things and keeping them alive. and as you said, interrupting staff meetings to wax poetic about whatever happens to be -- happens to be on his mind. but there's also a -- besides the president just waxing poetic to his staff, he's issuing calls that are legally very questionable, especially questionable given that he's the leader of a democracy, including a call to investigate "the new york times." sarah sanders was asked about that, him, over the weekend, trump saying -- or last week, last week saying that the doj should get involved to find out who the anonymous op-ed writer was. here was sarah sanders' answer. >> certainly, if there's an individual, whether or not, since we don't know who they are, if that individual is in

meetings where national security is being discussed or other important topics and they are attempting to undermine the executive branch, that would certainly be problematic and something that the department of justice should look into. >> does she have a point, no point? what do you think? >> she has no point. and what's funny is when that happened over the weekend, they tried to say, the president was just opining. >> right. >> that was the response, i believe, the official response from the white house. which is frightening on many levels, because the president is constantly opining. so we don't know when to take it seriously, when not to. of course the person who wrote this -- and we could get into it if you wanted to, about should they be anonymous or not -- they had every right to put that op-ed forward. and the fact that we would use our justice department, for the second time in a week, for political purposes is disgraceful. >> what was the first time? >> he basically said that two republicans who were under investigation by doj and were indicted, that it was wrong for them to be indicted and they

should go after the other guys. >> it was wrong -- >> and sarah sanders -- >> -- today that the president strongly believes that no one is above the law. >> he believes in the rule of law. >> well, that's not true. he's pardoned multiple people, katy. he does think that certain people deserve at least that grace from the president and he has that authority. and he always wants to remind us. but i think to susan's point, though, the idea that the department of justice should be used as a tool of political revenge is the problem. it's not necessarily the specific facts in each case. it's the fact that the president, that's his go-to. we're going to investigate hillary clinton's e-mails. we're going to investigate the other guy. we're going to investigate bruce ohr, have been though the context behind him is somebody who was looking for russian spies, right? so why is he the one we're picking on in this particular moment and the one that we're going after and trying to smear? and i think that the president uses the department of justice often when he's not attacking them, as just a political tool. >> as his political arm to do --

>> and that is completely un-american. >> -- his political will, or he tries to. he claims that they should be doing it to protect him and so forth on twitter. guys, stick around, susan, zerlina, and philip. we're going to pause for a moment. next, can democrats do anything to stop the president's pick for the supreme court? ♪ this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams

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five... four... three... two... first man. rated pg-13. welcome back. we now turn to the battle over the next supreme court justice. a story that would have been the biggest headline of last week, if the country was not teetering on the edge of a constitutional crisis. the senate judiciary committee

has put judge brett kavanaugh's nomination on the calendar for thursday, though democrats are expected to delay it until next week. but is there any chance at all that democrats could derail kavanaugh's nomination? let's take a look at the makeup of the senate right now. with the appointment of jon kyl to john mccain's seat last week, there are 52 voting republicans and 48 senators who vote with democrats in the chamber. if democrats can hold their entire caucus together against kavanaugh, and that is still a major "if," and flip moderate republican senator susan collins and lisa murkowski to their side, the count would be 50-50. if that is the case, vice president mike pence would break the tie, confirming kavanaugh to the bench. democrats may have been doing -- have been doing the same back of the envelope math in their questioning of kavanaugh last week. they threw him a lot of questions on the mueller probe, which could keep their base fired up for the midterms. and potentially force kavanaugh to recuse himself if a case on

the investigation ever came before the courts. here is democratic senate whip, dick durbin, on "meet the press" yesterday. >> the issue of the moment clearly is this situation with the mueller investigation, and the important element that we shouldn't overlook is that kavanaugh has been explicit, explicit in saying the president should not be subject to investigation or prosecution during his term in office. >> let's bring back tonight's panel, zerlina, susan, philip. what was remarkable about that durbin interview, lisa, is that he said the mueller investigation was the biggest thing and not roe v. wade. >> yeah, i mean, i do think that in this current moment, it is the most important thing, because the roe v. wade situation is something that probably would have been applicable to any republican pick. so the point is is that kavanaugh specifically is bad because he has said a president can't be indicted and essentially, would say the president can't be subpoenaed and it would impact the investigation that's happening right now. the roe v. wade issue is

something that would have happened with any nominee, and it is a larger issue. and it is also not something that's only applicable to the issue of abortion. when we're talking about roe v. wade in this context, we're also talking about state laws, like heartbeat bills, that effectively outlaw common forms of contraception, like birth control pills and iuds. so it's not just abortion we're talking about, affordable access to basic birth control in certain states, 22 of which would effectively do away with many of these things, right away, as soon as he was confirmed. >> so he's going to get confirmed, it looks like. i mean, the math is difficult for democrats. >> but they don't -- >> you're right, but if you put -- like, you just put forward a really good policy, logical, things to think about. >> mm-hmm. >> some of those democrats, i can think of one who had a spartacus moment, who was doing an audition for 2020. they weren't using it the way you just did. and that was part of the problem

and why it got discounted so very quickly. they were just looking to get their time for -- >> phil's shaking his head. >> i don't agree. a lot of the senate democrats -- the problem is the cory booker moment to which you were referring got a lot of media attention, but it's not as if that was a function of how he said what he said and how he actually said what he said. >> but there was no truth -- >> there were a lot of conversations about roe v. wade. there were a lot of points brought up by the democrats that under another context, under another presidency, and more importantly, under a less partisan moment would have been more effective in spiking the kavanaugh nomination. there was the question of these e-mails in which kavanaugh had said questionable things under oath during his previous hearings about whether or not he had seen these things or -- >> the patrick leahy stuff? >> yeah, the prior stuff. the polling is bad on him. he has the worst poll numbers from the american public since robert bork. >> so why did they not focus on that -- >> well -- >> and do it in interviews, when

they took a break from those hearings, why didn't they walk up to the nearest camera and get on msnbc or cnn or fox or whatever -- >> because maybe we were waiting for trump to speak at campaign rally. >> we had a few senators out there making headlines for themselves and that's it. >> they put themselves before the good of that body. >> to be fair, there's a lot going on in the news every single day. so you know, getting the media attention to phillip's point is not always as easy as just walking up to the cameras. >> but it's also not the case that democratic senators have proven themselves particularly adept at handling the media. >> small correction, 51 voting republican senators, i should say. the math is difficult for the democrats. i mean, they've got to keep their entire caucus together. and it's unclear whether the red state democrats are going to stay with the democrats, because they're worried about their re-electi re-election. manchin and heidi heitkamp, et cetera. but, if they are unsuccessful in keeping kavanaugh off the court, which it looks like they will

be, are they -- is there some sort of maneuvering going on here, so that when these e-mails come out, the full documents and records come out, and they will potentially next year, after i think the presidential records acts takes effect , that if the find something where he perjured himself with those e-mails, are they holding, you know, a trick up their sleeve for a potential argument to take him off the court afterwards? i mean, is that -- is that too far? >> i mean, it's possible -- i mean, i think they were trying to prevent his nomination. i think they were hoping they could present these facts and there would be one or two republicans on the other side who would look past the partisan moment and how popular president trump is with the republican base and say, you know what, i'm going to stand with you on this thing, that's a very tough ask in this political moment. >> you think so? >> no, i don't think it will actually work. but that doesn't mean you don't try. there are so many historic moments where it looks like an uphill battle or something impossible, but that doesn't mean that you don't try. and you know, to your point, though, i don't think it's realistic and i would use clarence thomas as a an example

of why it's not realistic. >> what about forcing him to recuse himself for any subpoena that might come up their way in the supreme court, from the mueller investigation? >> i think that the pressure would probably come within the court, itself. >> yeah. >> not necessarily any other from the senate. >> do you think it would come within this court, particularly? >> yeah, we mean -- >> i don't think they're shy people. >> possibly. i could see chief justice roberts trying to do the right thing here. >> right -- >> he has shown himself to be pretty moderate and he also cares a lot about his legacy. >> right. >> and that means that he may be -- he could be a fifth -- he could be -- >> he could be the swing vote. >> so what happens if he recuses himse himself. how does the president react? >> ahh! >> there's probably a tweet. >> how he reacts to jeff sessions -- >> we're going to -- >> is he going to try to tear down the supreme court the way he's tearing down the doj. >> that's an interesting question. >> of course he would.

what's the hesitation? >> i'm wondering if there's any sacred cow here. >> no. >> yeah, trump. >> no. guys, i guess we all agree on that. judge kavanaugh. we'll see what happens on thursday, potentially even next week, wiif the democrats end up delaying it. stick with us. still ahead, the 100 women candidates who could change the face of the u.s. house, at least on one side of the aisle.

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welcome back. 2018 is proving to be the year of the woman. and that means there could be a lot more women on capitol hill next year than ever before. a new analysis shows that a record-breaking a hundred women may be elected to the house this year. consider, right now, 86% of house republicans are white men, compared to 41% of democrats. and the democratic caucus may end up looking even more diverse next year, while the gop decidedly doesn't. this all comes after progressives like alexandria ocasio-cortez and ayanna pressley scored primary upsets over longtime incumbents who were, you guessed it, white men. meanwhile, the number of republican women in the house might actually decline. several of the 23 house gop women are at risk of losing re-election this fall. and others opted to either run

for higher office or retire. so, we could end up seeing two parties in the house next year that look very different from one another. i'm joined now by david wasserman, house editor of the cook political report and an nbc news contributor, who wrote about this trend. welcome, david. thanks br hofor being here, fir all. >> thanks, katy. >> let's talk about what's going on with the gop and women. is it likely that there will be less women in office for the gop come november? >> yeah, that's right. and americans are poised to elect more than 100 women to the house of representatives for the first time in history. there are likely to be between 30 and 40 new women in the house in 2019. keep in mind, back in 1992, which was supposedly the year of the woman, that set a record of 24 new women in the house. we're talking about between 30 and 40 in 2018, so this could make that look tiny. and what's remarkable is that

the parties are pulling apart demographically. this is entirely driven by democrats. democrats are going to probably expand their ranks of women by a third while republicans could lose up to a third of their current women. >> well, let's talk about 1992. i listened to a fascinating interview with dianne feinstein that the "new york times" did last week, about 1992 and that being the year of the woman and what this year might mean. and she said that year, it was anita hill's testimony on the hill and the whole saga with clarence thomas, that ignited women to say, hey, listen, maybe we need more people who look like us sitting in the senate, who can ask these questions, so someone like anita hill would not get totally dragged through the mud. it's 2018, donald trump is president. he's been accused by multiple women of harassment, abuse, and worse. he's denied all of those things. is that contributing to all the women we are seeing running for office, especially on the

democratic side? >> yeah, this is the year of the fired up female college graduate, as much as 1994 was the year of the angry white male, so to speak. but a lot of the attention has been on alexandria ocasio-cortez and ayanna pressley, but there are a lot of democratic women who, i think, will be national figures and household names in the future. people like katie hill from california, who ran an anti-homelessness nonprofit. mikey cheryl who was a navy fighter or an undercover cia officer. and i think there is a chance that this class of recruits on the democratic side, and let's be careful with the word "recruit," because most of them chose to run themselves -- >> yeah. >> this could produce a future presidential nominee. >> and in looking at these successes, the female house candidate successes in the primaries so far this year, there's a big disparity between the democrats and the republicans. 69% of female house candidates

won their primaries in 2018 for the democrats. only 35% of female candidates running for republicans, though, won their primaries. what do you -- how do you explain the difference there? >> well, clearly, there is a backlash to trump, much as 1992 was a backlash to the clarence thomas supreme court confirmation, as you hinted. and what's unique about this year, the reason why the numbers are just through the roof, totally unprecedented on the democratic side and primaries, is that democratic primary voters are really responding to this message that congress should look more like the people that it represents. republican primaries thus far have mostly been about who's more loyal to donald trump. and so you're seeing that play out on both sides of the aisle, very different. >> and in looking at the gop, are they going to pick up any seats with women this year? >> there are three states where republicans could elect new women.

and those are new mexico, south carolina, and west virginia. but keep in mind, there are seven republican women who are leaving the house this year. four of them to run for other office, including two in tennessee, marsha blackburn and diane black, who will be replaced by men. so in tennessee alone, republicans are going to lose two of the 23 women who are currently serving in the house. they'll lose another in south dakota. meanwhile, democrats are poised to add four women in pennsylvania and three each in texas. and perhaps florida, perhaps minnesota. so, these gains are all over the map. >> can you say that the driving force for the women who are winning are votes from other women? >> yeah, i think this year, more than any other, we're seeing the candidates running on the democratic side reflect who's energized at the base level. and the reason why trump's

historically abysmal approval rating with college-educated women is just so damning for republicans is that they're the likeliest demographic to show up and vote in a midterm election, to begin with. so the fact that his approval rating with that subset of voters is in the low 30s or i've seen, you know, in the july nbc/"wall street journal" poll, it was even of 26%. that's just dreadful. and it's the intensity of that disapproval that is so potent, particularly in suburban districts. >> david wasserman, thank you so much for joining us. we appreciate it. >> thanks very much. >> keep an eye on november, that's for sure. >> all right. next, keep your friends close and your former political enemies closer. is president trump ted cruz's only hope to save his senate seat? >> i'm going to tell you what i really think of donald trump. this man is a pathological liar. alright, i brought in new max protein

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this is real and it is a serious threat. cornyn is planning on a fund-raiser for cruz next month in d.c., and the party's most popular figure may be on his way to texas, as well. president trump tweeted a few days ago, "i will be doing a major rally for senator ted cruz in october. i'm picking the biggest stadium in texas we can find." trump loyalists could end up being the key for cruz's victory chances in texas. with o'rourke galvanizing support in the state's big cities, cruz needs to turn out the state's reliably republican voters in rural areas. to get them to show up on election day, republicans need to present cruz as the candidate backed by president trump, not the candidate who called president trump a sniveling coward or a pathological liar in 2016. republican cavalry or not, this texas senate race has certainly moved its way on to our radar this november. more "mtp daily" right after the break. ♪

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time now for "the lid." the panel is back, zerlina maxwell, susan del percio, philip bump. guys, ted cruz and what's happening in texas, i'm finding totally fascinating. because you just assume, texas wash, it's going to be republican no matter what. in 2016, there were some moments when hillary clinton's camp thought, right, maybe there were some openings in texas. >> certainly. >> there was certainly less enthusiasm for trump there than was expected. >> right. >> ted cruz was running after him hard, calling him a sniveling coward and a pathological liar. but now ted cruz is -- he needs the president. it is -- it is one of the purest examples of political opportunism, i think, there is out there. >> yeah, but it's not surprising that it's related to ted cruz, when we're talking about opportunism. and i think that it has to go to the demographics that are changing, not just in texas, but around the country. and some of the specific policies that this administration has put forward

that impact communities of color and communities on the border, that you may not necessarily need to be undocumented to understand how damaging these policies are. because maybe you're related to someone who is undocumented or you know somebody closely in your community who's undocumented or, you know, afraid that they will get picked up by i.c.e. or another government agency. so i think that that is impacting, actually, the success that beta o'rourke is having, because the demographics are shifting. so the people who are actually going to vote look different than -- >> i think you're right, i think you're right. but whenever we talk about demographics shifting in the democrats, there's always big talk about demographics shifting, and there being a democratic wave in places like arizona or texas, et cetera. we haven't yet seen that come to fruition with those voters. is beta o'rourke the person that's going to inspire them? >> that's a key question. so we're talking about two candidates here. it's not just this abstract question. it is two people, ted cruz, who is not well liked by his

colleagues, and who sort of implements -- he came up with the idea that if you ran as hard as a conservative as you possibly could, you would get conservatives to come out to vote for you and republicans would come along for the ride, as well. this was the strategy that trump ended up using to actually win the presidency. ted cruz is identified as being a really, really hard-right conservative in a moment when, "a," this is not an election cycle that is going to reward that, and is running against someone who is a very compelling candidate, right? so, yes, you're right, but there are two bits of data that i would add here. >> i love when you have the data. go ahead. >> always. first is that the 2014 electorate was as diverse as the 2008 electorate, according to sinus b census bureau data. that's an issue of where those votes are distributed around the country. so that is a problem for texas. but texas was a more blue state than iowa in 2016. iowa used to be a swing state, but texas actually came had better margins for hillary clinton than did the state of iowa. so that shows that texas is actually changing. and to your point, yes, these changes are happening.

>> and i think this would be surprising to a lot of folks who don't pay close attention to texas. when you look at the cities in texas, with dallas, houston, austin, san antonio, as well, they're pretty blue. they're deep blue places. the r. and are those cities are going to turn out enough voters to offset the rural voters, or is ted cruz going to have enough enthusiasm make those rural voters get to the polls in november? >> two things. one, to your introduction, ted cruz is looking really transparent and very washington. and that's not what people want to see right now. and to your point of seeing will people come out, will those demographics show up? all i would say is, doug jones, if you want to see -- i would think that the democrats -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> doug jones was accused of things that ted cruz never was. >> roy moore. >> roy moore, sorry.

>> there was an appeal to get out voters, and african-americans coming out to vote and moderate republican women staying home was that change. if you want to see an example of how this works and to prove to that demographic that your vote really matters, that's what you should be pointing to. because it does make a difference, and it could here, although i would say it's not quite the time. >> you would say it's about two candidate candidates. i would say three candidates. donald trump, if he comes out to texas, i'm wondering what impact that will be. 38% approve, 54% disapprove. cnn, 36% approve, 58% disapprove. those numbers will be different if we just focus on texas. but how effective and how successful is he as a -- as a impetus for voters to come out and vote in the midterms?

president obama, very popular, not so great with midterms. >> and that issue was, to some extent, that president obama's core base was not a regularly voting base, right? donald trump's core base is a regular voting base, which plays to his and his party's advantage. >> are they entirely? >> yes, he has this core base of people -- >> [ overlapping speakers ] >> the democrats have so many more places to prospect voters versus the republicans. >> that's hard. >> it is hard, but people are on the ground working. you see swing left, that's the organization that scares me as far as a republican and winning races. >> that's the point. the demographic shifts are important, but since november 9th, people who never have been involved in politics before have decided that this is their moment. and they're organizing their communities to ensure that

democrats win in their specific districts or across the country. >> ted cruz has to tie himself to donald trump in order to win texas, and ted cruz is asking the president to come out, so you can say he is. why aren't -- why isn't another democratic team or super pac down there running ad down there where it's just ted cruz calling donald trump a pathological liar or refusing to endorse him at the republican national convention? >> because it's september. those messages are hard to burn. they're very expensive to burn. and the democrats have other concerns that they have to start looking at where they can put their money. so it's going to be very hard to burn that -- >> go ahead. >> i think the issue isn't ted cruz's hypocrisy with ted cruz. he's not going to lose voters for that. they're going to praise him for coming around to donald trump. and everyone knows that ted cruz is linked to donald trump.

>> i wonder if he can tear off some republican voters -- hold on real fast. money is pouring in from other republican groups to help ted cruz if texas. is that at the expense of florida? >> that's at the expense of everybody. >> i don't think so. it won't hurt florida. florida, the money is still going to be there. you have a candidate running for senate that is self-funding. [ overlapping speakers ] >> money that goes to one place isn't going to another. >> in new jersey, they're looking for money there for a very blue state. we'll see. >> guys, thank you very much. next, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. >> he goes, trump. i pick up, i said, hello. you remember me? i said, i don't know. fact is, every insurance company hopes you drive safely.

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