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tv   Deadline White House  MSNBC  November 23, 2018 1:00pm-2:00pm PST

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♪ hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. someone tried to teach the president a new word this week. decorum. a term that was very closely associated with every former american president except maybe nixon. here's donald trump trying best to use decorum in a sentence. >> decorum. yep, practice decorum. we'll have rules of decorum. you can't keep asking questions. you can't take three questions and four questions and just stand up and not sit down. we have to create rules and regulations. you have to act with respect. you're in the white house. >> i'm not sure that it means what he thinks it means because
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each of those lectures on decorum came as part of an attack on the media. it's clear trump hasn't grasped the concept. a lesson on decorum rings hollow from a president whose insults and attacks on twitter now number in almost the thousands. they target democrats, republicans, military heroes, immigrants, u.s. allies, athletes, women and people of color. and that might work for a reality tv star, or a schoolyard bully, but when you're the president of the united states, lack of decorum can pose a danger to the country. in the case of the president, can mean the destruction of the constitutional norms that once made america great. here's donald trump and his brand of decorum. >> our justice department and our fbi have to start doing their job and doing it right and doing it now. because people are angry. people are angry.
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what's happening is a disgrace. >> great confidence in my intelligence people but i will tell you that president putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. >> wouldn't it be nice if we got osama bin laden a lot sooner than that? living in pakistan, beautifully in pakistan, in what i guess they considered a nice mansion. i don't know. i've seen nicer. >> i know you're not thinking. you never do. >> low life. she's a low life. believe me, she would not be my first choice. that i can tell you. >> you know what i'm talking about. and now we're starting to find out, and i won't say it 100%. i'll put a little tiny question mark at the end, but we're probably not going to need it but we have the fake news back there. >> decorum. joining us now, some of our favorite reporters and friends from the associated press, jonathan lemire, kim atkins for
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the boston herald, phil rucker from "the washington post" and ben rhodes, former deputy national security adviser to president obama. all of them, lucky for us, msnbc political contributors. what was behind the introduction of this word decorum? recent days? >> well, one of the ways president trump has been able to go after the media by revoking press credentials from jim acosta at cnn which is something he's wanted to do for many, many months and been held back by his aides, is citing decorum. talking about reporters aren't behaving themselves at press conferences. they're not acting professionally. that they're not treating him and his office with the respect he thinks he's accorded. and so this is just become a talking point for the president and for sarah sanders and others in the white house to say that the press or reporters are just not act with decorum. of course, a tloeft president's critics say he doesn't act with decorum when he's in the white house or in the oval office or
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when engaging with reporters. but that's another story. >> in fact, some of the president's closest friends will not argue with a straight face that he ever acts with any decorum. this is not his thing. it's not part of the trump brand. >> just in the last week sore so, we saw him talk about congressman schiff on twitter and misspell his name which was deliberate and not a typo beep saw him attack a number of reporters by name including three african-american women reporters that he accused of being stupid or asking a racist question. this is part of his brand and something that some of his supporters really like about him. that he is impolite. that he is on the attack. that he calls ted cruz lyin' ted and so on and breaks the norms of the office poopts harder for him to assert with a straight face and insist reporters act with di corecorum when it's the furthest thing he does. >> when you are small, and when you are not even close to as smart as your predecessor or
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really any president that came before you, you distort the power structure. so by acting like an animal in those press briefings, by as you just said, assaulting verbally the reporters in the room, exercising their first amendment rights, to make yourself feel big when you are small, you trot out this phony debate about decorum. but not for yourself. only for the reporters. >> right. we've seen repeatedly the president hold other people to standards that he does not hold himself to. and this is a part of that. and he also rolls this out when he's losing. so in the cnn challenge, that was a first amendment challenge, courts, including the u.s. supreme court, there are few other amendments that are stronger -- more strongly protected than the first amendment. and that case was likely a loser which is one reason they withdrew it. they love a fight with the press but knew they were going to lose this one and came out with this decorum rule instead because, you know, they know that -- he knows he complained to his base
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the press is out to get him and they're acting terribly when they're trying to ask questions, get their questions answered and i wouldn't be surprised if this rule also gets challenged if he uses it in a way that's essentially shielding himself from answering any questions and blocking the press. >> and if block blackballing reporters. it always struck me that the two public appearances from the two presidents that came before trump, george w. bush and president obama, the point of their public remarks were to protect the free press. president obama went to the briefing room on one of his last days. i think the second to last day. and talked about sort of the challenging dynamic between any president and the press that covers him. but basically gave them a pep talk. stay strong. reminding the country of how important their jobs are in holding any government accountable. george w. bush completely out of the spotlight in a sit-down interview with this -- with nbc made the same argument that a
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free press is absolutely essential in a thriving democracy. i wonder if you can talk about how president obama feels and why he felt that was important. >> essentially, free press is the only way in many cases that power can be held to account, that difficulties can be uncovered, that factual analysis can be done that inform house policy is made. if you take a free press out, you cannot have a democracy because you can't have an objective set of facts available to the public to make their own decisions. president obama believes deeply in the role that a free press has to play in shining a free light in places that sometimes people in positions of power don't like. and, look, i mean, jim acosta asked a lot of annoying questions when we were there, but not only did we not think of shutting him down. we advocated for his right to ask a question in cuba of raul castro. and it was a dramatic moment. raul castro had never taken questions at a press conference and jim stood up and asked a brilliant, difficult questions
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about political prisoners in cuba. we advocated for it in our country and countries around the world. i hear this decorum thing and i'm reminded what he said about kim jong-un, the way the people treat him with a certain respect and deference and he wishes that happened here. i think he truly does live in a bit of a fantasy where he could be a dictator and have a compliant fox and friends state-run media. >> let's go through the three areas we laid out. the war on justice. new reporting this week from "the new york times" we're learning that president trump told his white house counsel don mcgahn that he wanted to order the justice department to prosecute two of his political adversaries. his 2016 challenger hillary clinton and the former fbi director jim comey. the lawyer don mcgahn rebuffed the president saying he had no authority to order a prosecution. mcgahn said he could request an investigation, that, too, could prompt accusations of abuse of power. to underscore the point, he had white house lawyers write a memo
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warning if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment. so we talk about impeachment as a possible end point in the mueller investigation. it looks like the white house counsel don mcgahn thought the president could end up impeached for wanting to prosecute his political rivals. >> yeah, that was an extraordinary story. and it just speaks to how much trump has wanted throughout this presidency to make the justice department his own personal legal affairs shop. he wants his roy cohn as attorney general. the reason he was so steaming mad with jeff session overs all these months is that sessions wouldn't act unilaterally to protect him. >> wourecused. >> that's not how the government worked. how america was set up as a country. that's not how a democracy functions, and trump is having a difficult time sort of coming to those realizations and this is not normal. >> do you think that with the
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installation of a loyalist now at the justice department that he may pick up some of these efforts? >> he could. you wonder if a loyalist like matt whitaker or whoever the permanent attorney general is may take it a step further than sessions was willing to take it or whether with mcgahn out of the white house counsel's office whether the white house would enable trump's order to become a little more real. that's not to say they'd follow through and prosecute hillary clinton, but could it get to step b or to c or to d or e or f, we don't know. there were those guard rails are not there. >> those guard rails aren't there and jeff sessions who under intense questioning from the president's allies inno the house intel committee said to jim jordan, a second special counsel to investigate hillary clinton is not necessary. as we've been talking about, really, all week, all year for the entire presidency, the destruction of the guard rails is as much of a danger as anything else. >> certainly. and sessions drew the president's wrath mostly because of the recusal. but he wasn't happy with that decision. there was pressure from the white house to get the special
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counsel to go and look into headquarter. t hillary clinton. you don't look into your political enemies. the president tried to -- we're hanging on some alleged violation of law but comey's case, the idea he passed on classified information, but really this is about punishment. going after someone who crossed him. that he felt like was disloyal or became a political foe. and there have been, to this point, some checks that have kept him from his most dangerous and most unorthodox impulses but yet with sessions gone, whitaker in. we don't know who follows whitaker or how much longer he'll be in that post because his appointment as taken more heat from both sides of the aisle but some of those guard rails may continue to disappear. >> we've been around this table where we ask the question y does the staff stay? in charlottesville was one where i know you were here with me. bleep hole countries was another one. you're hearing all those -- but
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this idea of why they stay may have been to prevent the president from prosecuting hillary clinton and jim comey. >> we still don't know the anonymous letter brigwriter who trying to save the president from himself. but the one guard rail that may still be in place is whenever the new replacement for jeff sessions is named. or the people in the senate who have to advise and consent on that nomination. we're going to see questions now -- >> if we get one. he said to chris wallace he's not in any rush. >> if we ever get one. but the questions that will be on the table from the democratic side for sure will be what would you do in the event that the president orders you to prosecute his enemies. has the president talked to you about this? it will be another opportunity to open up that door and we'll see whether that affects the confirmation or sends a signal to the white house. definitely if it's both sides. we'll have our eyes on senate
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lindsey graham that this is not acceptable and that this is not how the justice department is supposed to work. >> we're talking about the obliteration of norms. the president's assault on his justice department. after the break, we talk about his assault on the intel community. insurance that won't replace the full value of your new car? you'd be better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with liberty mutual new car replacement, we'll replace the full value of your car. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪
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this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. he told me that he had nothing to do with it. he told me that maybe five times at different points. >> what if he's lying? >> do you just live with it because you need him? >> well, will anybody really know? >> yes, your intelligence community. that was donald trump being asked by chris wallace last sunday about the intel around the brutal murder of jamal
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khashoggi. we know the cia did offer an assessment that mbs absolutely ordered his murder. >> yeah. first of all, on decorum, vladimir putin and mohammad bin salman seem to be the only two people with whom trump treats with extraordinary amount of deference and respect to decorum. but also this pattern of denigrating essentially and disagreeing with his own intelligence community overseas, in very high-profile cases. it's got to be incredibly demoralizing to the men and women of the cia and other intelligence agencies. it undermines the credibility of the united states. we've been in scenarios, you and i both served in administrations where the abillity of the intelligence committee to be trusted in its finding was important and sharing that information with another country in foiling a terrorist attack and trying to get cooperation and to have the president of the united states basically undermine the credibility of his own intelligence agencies is going to do lasting damage, i think, to american credibility because it's giving license to any other leader to say, well, why should we trust anything
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that the u.s. intelligence agencies say? so it's fundamentally unprecedented in terms of a commander in chief relating to his own intelligence community. >> and you almost wonder if he's like the most gullible president ever because -- >> putin told me five times. >> five is the magic number, right? >> he takes the words of these autocrats over the rigorous reporting and fact-finding of the intelligence community. and just because mohammad bin salman tells him a few times on a phone call, no, i hadding in to do with it, i had nothing to do with it, all of a sudden, new u.s. policy with saudi arabia and we'll give them a pass and not hold them accountable simply because of something someone says on the phone. >> it's remarkable the flattening of information is remarkable. normal presidents view classified information from the intelligence community and assessment based on inputs that come from signal intel and human sources and they view that product. the product comes from multikel agencies, allies, sometimes
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countries we're not great friends with but share information. and they view that has having more creed eps than a phone call or five calls with a foreign leader or something he saw on fox news. >> that's just it. you hit the keywords there. fox news. that's often -- the president seems to value what he sees on television from a cable news broadcast, particularly his favorite one, more so than, at least as much as what he gets from the classified intelligence reports. he doesn't get the rigorous briefings some of his predecessors did. much shorter, more graphics. he doesn't give it the same weight that president obama or president bush would have. and in this case, he is inclined to believe a putin in helsinki or to believe mbs in these phone calls. and in this one, particularly with saudi arabia, it's just a very blatantly transactional operation where he says in this statement that came out earlier this week saying, maybe he did have something to do with this murder. maybe he didn't. that's not going to change the relationship.
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we value saudi arabia. i've invested too much in this. it's been two years. we believe we need them in the middle east and he prioritizes that and the money from arms deals and business deelals. that's more important than the statement about a human life of an american citizen. >> the president in a war of words with the -- one of -- someone thought of as one of the greatest living individuals in the american military right now. someone responsible for the bin laden raid and the president hasn't abandoned his talk of my generals. watch. >> i have generals that are great generals. these are great fighters. i see my generals. generals are going to keep us so safe. this is central casting. if i'm doing a movie, i'd pick you, general. my generals and my military, they have decision-making ability. all i can do is ask my generals. now central casting is admiral mcraven. >> yes. oh, absolutely. until he is not in line with the president or criticizes the
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president. the president shoots back at the people who don't agree with him and criticize him. even his generals. look at general mcmaster. he was one of his generals behind him until he wasn't. the president, i think you're exactly right. it's the president sees things as transactional. he sees other people as either political allies or adversaries. there's not a lot in between. no matter who you are, whether you are an american hero, whether you are in a gold star family, whether you are a grieving widow of someone killed in niger, whether you are a member of congress, if you say something that is not flattering to him if you criticize him, he will attack you. it doesn't matter if -- matter who you are. and that's what we've seen. >> secretary mattis, the relationship there is not what it was at the beginning. some of those clips he was talking about secretary mattis. what is the white house view on secretary mattis right now? >> the relationship is clearly frayed. but mattis is seen as effective in his job. he has huge respect from the
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military at the pentagon, at the dod, and there's not a push in the white house to get rid of him, although trump has had mixed feelings about him in recent months. and i would not be surprised just based on reporting the last several weeks if trump were to try to replace him at some point down the road. but there's a sense among trump's advisers in the white house that mattis is doing a good job and certainly has the respect of those in the military. >> president obama said in his midterm campaign stops the character of the country was on the ballot. i don't think there's anywhere. i don't think anyone would disagree the character of our country is very much found in military households, military families. what do you think he thinks about some of these assaults on military figures? >> he's essentially completely politicized the u.s. military. he hides behind it when it's convenient for him when he wants to pull a political stunt like pulling troops to the border but can't bring himself to show up at arlington to pay tribute to our troops.
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disrespecting them by keeping them away from their families at thanksgiving for no other reason than he wanted a photo op on the border in the run-up to the midterms. it undermines the basic trust. the u.s. military, one reason it is so trusted is it's separate from politics. and it's kind of sacrisanct from politics. trump is trying to break down those lines. it's got to be uncomfortable for people like mattis. mattis went ahead with that deployment because it's an order. i have to follow it. makes me wonder what other orders is donald trump going to give this military in the next two years when it's his name on the ballot and not just a congressional election. i think president obama is getting at the very real concern here that he's potentially changing the way in which a commander in chief operates with the military and the context of american politics. >> he's changed everything else. phil rucker and ben rhodes, thanks for spending time with us. with the count of trump's lies reaching more than 6,000, we dissect the patterns in his
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mistruths. when democrats take the house in january they have a slew of investigations on their to-do list. but how many is too many? our panel weighs in on the democrat iic strategy. stay with us. but he has plans today. so he took aleve this morning. hey dad. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. tylenol can't do that. aleve. all day strong. all day long. now introducing aleve back and muscle pain, for up to 12 hours of pain relief with just one pill.
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in just the past few weeks, we've heard from president pinocchio that voters change their appearance in order to vote more than once. and that you need an i.d. to purchase cereal. yep. ballots in florida were massi massively infected and the caravan will be an invasion and the finnish people rake their forests to prevent fires. the thing linking all these
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poi points, together, they are all lies uttered by donald trump. "the washington post" has kept a tally since he took office which now hits over 6,000. and the frequency of his lies are accelerating. the post reports in the first nine months of his presidency, trump made 1,318 false or misleading claims. an average of five a day. but in the seven weeks leading up to the midterms, the president made 1,419 false or misleading claims. that's an average of 30 a day. if you can't do math like me. washington correspondent of the trontso star daniel dale has also been keeping track of the lies. he points out patterns have emerg emerged. listen to the president long enough and you can almost sense when a lie is coming. if he tells a story in which an unnamed person calls him sir it's probably invented. if trump claims he has set a record, he probably hasn't. if trump cites any number at all, the real number is usually smaller. i believe that journalists need to be just as tireless in
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combath the president's lying as the president is in telling the lies no matter how repetative or podantic it can make us seem. bret stevens is joining the panel and karine jean-pierre, senior adviser to moveon.org. you have sort of pointed some of the dots that connect donald trump's conduct in office to that of autocratic leaders. the lie seems like the biggie. >> yeah, we should be careful in our own speech to distinguish untruths where he just doesn't know what he's talking about and the actual lying. and there's plenty of lying. if you look at the totalitarian states, soviet union, nazi germany, part of the method of the totalitarians was to obliterate the very concept of truth to say basically whatever the person who has the gun in his hand says is the truth at that particular point of time. and that's, in fact, precisely
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the method being described if you read george orwell's "1984." and there is this eerie parallel in which trump basically, i think the strategy of trump's lies or untruths or misleading statements is just to create a kind of blizzard effect so that at some point people sort of feel defenseless in the face of it because there's just too much to unpack at any given day. now there are however many per day, seven, it would be better -- >> 30. >> 30 per day. >> if there were 60 per day because those of us in the media couldn't keep up and people in the public stop to care. and that's the key point. people become apthetsic to the questions of truth and falsehood emanating from the people with power in washington. >> let me push back a little on something you said at the beginning. you're right. there is, in addition to the lies, there are also things he gets wrong out of idiocy, lack of preparation, ambivalence. but it is not on us. this is part of the lowering of
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the bar for him to say, well, we're just going to call the lies lies and everything else -- it's not on us to categorize them. >> i completely agree. you remember the agonies the bush administration went through on the question of the words involving uranium coming from niger. the idea that there was something untrue, not a lie, but something untrue in something the president said in a state of the union address. that was, what, 15, 14 years ago? and it is incumbent on the white house to make sure every word that comes out of a presidential statement, and out of the president's mouth is as close to the truth as possible. i had this experience just over a year ago after i interviewed mike pompeo on stage at the aspen institute. and a member of the white house said something untrue about the interview. i demanded a correction. i never got one. i went to the cia. i'd known mike pompeo for a long time. i said this is a falsehood coming out of the white house being repeated about what was
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said. they backed away and did nothing. that set the tone this is an administration that is utterly indifferent to trying to come at least as close to being accurate as possible. on the traerks it's their strategy to sink us into a swamp where it's difficult to tell what is true and what isn't. >> how do you combat that? it is this assault on truth. and the two choices seem mutually exclusive. you either get to the mud because that's a trap democrats get put in this box, but hillary clinton couldn't figure it out. jeb bush couldn't figure it out. ted cruz couldn't figure it out. how do you combat this blizzard of lies? how do you pull the curtain and show this sort of naked cravenness. but what they're doing is a creative political strategy. >> i'm going to disagree just with you for a little bit, brets. i think what we saw november 6th
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is that american people said enough. they were tired of it. they are not stupid. i think during 2015, there was a lot of distraction. people weren't really -- some folks were not excited about the election. they weren't paying attention. and he got in. i think the last two years, people, we've seen it in 2017 elections and now this big midterm election that just passed by is that folks are like, no, we're done. we're going to put democrats back in the house. they flipped some gubernatorial seats, took back some state houses, and i think the american people have finally said, no, no, no. and the president lies not just about big things but about little things. he lies in between and says a lie after a lie after a lie. and it's exhausting. it really is exhausting. and what's the most dangerous part about this is he's the president of the united states. and there is going to be one day where he's going to actually say something that we need to believe him on and we're not. >> now that's the perfect point and it will be a day like 9/11
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where when you tell people, you know, to stay calm n nand not listen to law enforcement. he lies from the rose garden day after day after day, no one will believe him or it will be a day like the day anthrax started killing people in florida where he'll want people to feel like they can answer their mail again and then they'll believe him. you're right. some day he'll want to be believed. >> two points there. one is that's assuming he steps up to the plate and says the things he needs to say to reassure a nation at a time of crisis, which he doesn't seem to have a big aptitude of doing. i think there are a lot of people who said enough and went to the polls. the election showed how divided we are. there are a lot of people who buy wholesale everything he says. it's astonishing how many times i hear americans say george soros is funding the caravan. people who i'm not even sure they know who george soros is.
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that people from mexico are bringing diseases and they're criminals. that there's -- just anything that comes out of the president's mouth, it's repeated almost verbatim by a lot of his supporters. and that's what he's counting on. if he was just saying these in an echo chamber and they weren't land, he would stop. >> what's so striking is the same conservatives, i think of people like bill bennett who spent the 1980s and 1990s decrying the left's assault on the truth, on certain foundational concepts about the rule of law, the importance of the following the constitution and so on. now are perfectly indifferent to the questions of truth n falsehood or questions of the rule of law and violence against the law. questions about decorum. none of that matters to them at all. so we should also point out that hypocrisy of the conservative movement that's gone along with trump. they are following a man leading them in the opposite direction they claimed was their own just three years ago. >> it's also a white house that
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doesn't hold much responsibility to that idea that higher power of the truth. the president and the white house, everything is politics. it's about trying to get ahead. one step at a time. not even thinking in terms of the president months or two-year campaign. how he wins that minute. he says something that wins that news cycle whether it's true or not true. that's what he's always done his entire life, even as a businessperson. i've said this before. but trump tower is 58 stories tall. but it's listed as 68. he lied about the height of the building because he thinks it's more impressive. this is what he's always done. that's what he continued to do even in this office. >> lied about his weight. coming up -- donald trump has predicted war with democrats in january. how did the democrats make sure they don't let their newfound power in the house go to their heads? stay with us.
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offering a my way or highway scenario to the democrats? you're saying -- >> not at all. >> if they start investigating you, that you can play that game, investigate them -- >> better than them. >> can you -- >> and i think -- >> can you compartmentalize -- >> i think i know more than they know. >> can you compartmentalize that and continue to work with them for the benefit of the country or are all bets off. >> no if they do that, then all it is is a war-like posture. >> i know more than they know, but not from my intelligence community. from sean hannity. it does seem like the democrats are prepared for a standoff. they have already announced some investigations they'll pursue come january. that includes blocking matt whitaker's appointment. and investigating ivanka's use of a personal e-mail. so much corruption, so little time. >> so much corruption, so little
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time. i do believe that donald trump is going to see something he's never seen before in his entire life which is accountability and oversight. that is definitely going to happen. but democrats are going to have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. you have to make sure that we investigate, hey, what happened in puerto rico to 3,000 americans that died? we need to look into that. family separation. we need to look into that. but there are ways to make sure that we -- that they put out policies that are complete, you know, contrast to donald trump. which is make sure that people are protected with pre-existing -- who have pre-existing care. protecti ining medicare, medica. they've already talked about last week there was a story about how they'll deal with voter suppression and voting rights act and how that was gutted back in 2013. so there are things they can do that will be beneficial and that would show that they are trying to move the country forward. but we are in unusual, not normal times. >> i think it's a trap that the democrats have fallen for this false choice that they can
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either investigate him or govern. i think the congress is structured so that a normal functioning congress can do both. and i think sort of they've fallen into this messaging war where donald trump and the 40% of the country that believes everything he said, all the lies included, have put it out there that the democrats have to choose between the two. and that's never been the case before. >> and they don't have to do that. there are so many important issues. there are reasons why the house is now going to be led by democrats. i was out there. we've talked about it many times. i went to texas, georgia, orange county. and they really cared about issues. the economy, health care. when i say they, the folks on the ground who were -- knocked on the door and talked to them. voters. that's what they want to see. and they also want to make sure they have -- house democrats were going to be convey through their behavior in the house that they are a party that's ready to
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govern. so yes, you can do both but there is a question of emphasis and also a question within the investigations of what sort of noise and what really matters. there's a real constitutional issue when you have guys like john yu, president bush's lawyer, saying that matthew whitaker's appointment is unconstitutional, this is a serious question about the senate's constitutional role in advise and consent to a principal officer like the attorney general. the question of ivanka trump's e-mails, i think that's a lot of noise and plays into the president's strength which is create a lot of confusion and say, these democrats are out to get me for every little thing and they are not interested in governing the country. so there's going -- obviously, you need to be -- you just need to be smart about it but constantly tell the american people, this is what we really want to do for you. the moment we get rid of this clown in the white house. that's the point. >> and for a long time, that has been a concern among democrats
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or something they should have been. it's not a matter of can they do both. they must do both. at this -- there were calls for, at the time, for example, when the republicans were trying to repeal the affordable care act. the democrats could have not only opposed that but also said, look, these are our fixes for health care. we're ready to govern when the republicans were going back and forth on immigration. democrats could have stepped up and said this is our plan. when they're done playing games, we are ready to move forward. they have to do that plus now because they need to pass some legislation. they need to talk about health care, which emerged as the big issue in the midterm elections. moving forward, if they're going to have a shot at 2020 and beyond. not just the presidency. republicans also have twice as many senate seats up in 2020 than democrats do. 2020 is going to be an incredibly consequential year and the next two years what democrats do in the house is going to be crucial. >> i think that the democratic-controlled house will
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make donald trump a democrat again. >> it's the white house's response -- our reporting will be on two tracks. i think there is going to be some degree of trying to work there. i think there are modest goals but they think there are some things. we've seen the criminal justice reform perhaps already. real room for compromise on opioids. infrastruct uwe'll see but the president has said, he's told people around him that's something he'd like to try to get done. and i think there is a degree of appetite to work with chuck schumer and nancy pelosi. it's happened before. it's happened before. but they are also ready for the war-like footing which the president just said in the news conference. they're going to paint this in stark political terms. accuse demtrat krocrats of overg and go after the committee chairs. they are going to make them famous for all the wrong reasons and try to tie them to the presidential candidates in 2020 and start ramping up. you'll even see, and we can laugh about this, it was told me to me that the president will start going after them on twitter and giving them
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nicknames. that that is -- >> fantastic use of his time. let me follow up here with you. what is -- i mean, i have the opposite assessment of the white house's capacity to walk and chew gum than i do of the democrats in the house. i don't believe this president has the temperament or emotional stability to run both. i don't believe he can work with some democrats on an inf infrastructure project while being responsive to schiff's responses for subpoenas. how does the white house plan to grapple with what is imminent rage from the president? >> the white house and his aides have tried to keep him on track to be productive, including early in the administration with the republican health care plan. he went off the rails then, attacking fellow republicans. now this will be even easier in some ways for him to slip the leash and go after the democrats. i think there is a sense that they will try to keep him on track. try to work on x even while doing y. if he's triggered, inflamed, we know how he'll lash out.
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>> can we mark how stunning it is we talk about him like a puppy? if he's triggered if he's grumpy. >> we've seen him blow up deals before. it certainly could happen. >> i'm going to say there was an opportunity for trump to be the different republican. he would have worked with democrats early on like after the parkland shooting or las vegas shooting where he could have worked toward comprehensive gun legislation. he turned it down every time kn. why? because he's not an iconoclastic guy or former democrat. he's an extremist, bigoted republican, a member of the very far right of the party. that's who he is. that's his base, the people who come to -- those are the rallies. and he is going to want to be the guy who is popular at those rallies. that's when he feels most alive. most himself. so don't expect a new sort of chuck and donald love affair here. >> squashing my holiday week cheer. coming up -- looks like one party missed the pink wave memo
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an unprecedented number of women were elected to congress in the 2018 midterms but it's not bipartisan phenomenon. democrats have elected 35 new women to the house compared with one for republicans. the next senate class will seat 23 women but only six of them are members of the gop. the panel is still here.
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all women are good choices usually better than men. i love men. i love the men in my life and there are lots of good men out there. our politics are broken. if you look at a man and a woman, why not fry ttry the wom. >> and in terms of republicans, if you look at history, republicans used to be the ones out front in breaking the gender barrier when it came to nominated people. they put women out ahead first. now they have fallen way behind. they sort of retreated into this standard that they are focusing on the interest of white men and they are the face, increasingly bei becoming the face of the party and the democrats are being more inclusive in terms of who they are reaching to ining out to an
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message. way back in 2012 when republicans made the assessment they need to be a more inclusive party or they will die. it seems to have forgotten all of that. i think this is one example of that. >> i'm amazed when i see the numbers of how many women do support republicans. there are record numbers of former military members running as democrats. the gravitational pull, the candidate recruitment is on the other side of the trump question for a lot of reasons brett outlined in the last block. the republican party under donald trump is associated with grab them in the bleep and good people on both sides racism. it seems to be like low hanging fruit for democrats. >> it is. it was the year of women or woman but it was not just about women but what they to do for. i think that's the difference. i think that's why democrats got more women in office.
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it's they stood for education. they stood for gun reform. they stood for health care. that's the underlying difference. that led to muslim women winning races. that led to native american women leading races. women of color winning their races. it was the messaging that it was the women but it was the messaging and what they to do for and standing up against donald trump. >> if the republicans need one more reason to try to challenge donald trump from within the right, it would be a candidate, a woman or a man, who can attract female voters. >> what she said. >> smart man. good job. >> someone like nikki haley. that are hugely talented republican women in the field. they are out there. i think the core point you referenced to the 2012 paper or 2013 is the right one. the republican party faced a
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choice and if they had been smart, they would have become a party that was much more inclusive than it ever had been before. they nominated and elected donald trump. with that brought all the wrong lessons to bear. i wonder if it will take four years or a generation for them to learn it. >> i vote generation. >> certainly. they made that choice, short term gain in terms of winning the white house but it kboulcou the long term pain. this is the president saddled with increasingly poor poll numbers among women as he starts to ramp up re-election rallies. every time talk about him lying, he cites the wrong number. the number he sites a white women. not overall women. that's a much smaller number. that's something they are facing and after the kavanaugh hearings and the sort of furrow around
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that, that something that set them back. >> i'm not sure when he cites the wrong number that it's a mistake. i think he knows what's he's doing because he's not interested in piappealing to th other women. the republicans have signed onto donald trump. donald trump is the leader of the republican party right now and as long as he's there, they will continue that trajectory whether that does a generation's worth of damage, we'll to see but it's likely. >> we're going to sneak in our last break. we'll be right back. air frying all in one. with our tendercrisp technology, you can quickly cook food, juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside. go from fresh to deliciously done in half the time. which means it may become the only thing you use in your kitchen. (tapping) for cooking, at least. (upbeat music) the ninja foodi, with tendercrisp, the cooking while parenting technology.
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that does it for us.
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have a great weekend. see you monday. well, good day. happy day after thanksgiving. you're watching us after you spent all this money at the mall. do people even go to the malls anymo anymore? i'm kidding. i hope you're enjoying your holiday and thankful you're spending time with us. welcome to a special hour of mtp daily. as america starts to digest a whole lot more than last night's turkey and mashed popotatoes, t democrats taking back the house.

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