one of them worth millions. and the other far more. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. s. i'm kasie hunt, a special edition for you and to the. the results of which even tony romo can't predict. just in, the president sending more u.s. forces to the border with mexico. plus, we have a brand-new scoop out tonight from axios as they get hands on months of the president's private schedule. let's just say there's reportedly a lot of executive time. and later, i'll ask republican deputy whip tom cole

where negotiations stand to keep the government running, with the clock ticking down. but first, when former white house chief of staff john kelly introduced the concept of executive time, it was to assuage a president with a distaste for the heavily structured scheduling that typically accompanies the oval office. but a new exclusive report from axios details just how long is that time stretches. according to axios, the president has spent around 60% of the last three months in so-called executive time. this according to a white house source who leaked nearly every day of president trump's private schedule during that period. among other activities, the president reportedly uses the time to read newspapers, watch tv, phone aides about what he sees and reads and to hold spur of the moment meeting, some of which he doesn't want most west wing staff to be aware of. according to axios, president trump has had more than 297 hours of executive time out of a total of nearly 503 hours of scheduled time.

white house press secretary sarah sanders reported to axios' reporting saying, quote, president trump has a different leadership style than his predecessors and the results speak for themselves. with that i'd like to welcome in my panel on set, political reporter for axios, alexis mccannia, who broke this story. senior executive for "the washington examiner, david drucker and msnbc contributor teresa kumar. thank you all for being here tonight. alexi, great scoop. let's start with -- let's dig in a little built to what exactly it is the president is using ulf all of this time for. this seems remarkable to be elected president of the united states and have so much of your time completely unstructured. >> that's because you mentioned earlier john kelly introduced this concept of executive time because the president himself said look, i don't want to be tied to a regular schedule. executive time is one way for him to do things that he sees

fit. that could be tweeting, which we know he loves to do, that could be phoning congress am aides or republicans or informal advisers to get ideas or their thought on what he could be seeing or hearing, watching tv, read be newspapers. or having meetings with people he doesn't want west wing officials to know about immediately for fear they will leak. one example i got for january 31, this past wednesday had executive time blocked out. a more detailed schedule we didn't get but were shown that goes to a very small group of people is that's when he was meeting with harold cane to talk about him being reported to the federal governorship. >> i remember the twitter accounts, many too many of them. how does this compare to previous presidents? we in the past have known -- had so much more information first

of all in general on a public schedule about what our presidents have been doing. but this has to be in many ways unprecedented. >> yes e. it's a great story for axios and they have a series of different pieces with this. some do details of what other administrations look like. one thing, you've seen this the past few weeks with the shutdown. often we don't see very much information at all about what the president is doing all day. there have been over the past week a number of days with glittering nothing on the president schedule. we know george w. bush had a very strict sense of time, he

had a very regimented schedule. so this is in real contrast to that. some people would say i think that it kind of a comparison would be the early age of the clinton white house, which was loosy guicy, a lot of in and out of the oval office but efforts were made to rein that in. i don't think everyone has a comparison this is like other white houses. as with everything with this white house, this is a very different president. >> is there lack of transparency who he's meeting with during executive time and that is something the public is used to knowing who is meeting with the president and this provides that loophole. >> often what happens with us and when you're reporting on this white house, a lot of who he's doing and meeting and calling, you find out from reporting later. sources tell you they heard about a call and meeting and details come out after the fact. >> it just brings up modern communication with a modern president and that information flow. if he's having meetings with folks he doesn't want people to know about right away or executive time and calling them on the phone during executive time and not putting that down, what does that say about the influence these people have on him and policy decisions down the line? >> there's a whole circle of people the president talks to on his cell phone all the time. most communication with the president goes through the chief of staff, these are scheduled, even if they're after hours, they're part of a regiment. this president has basically, ironically being the first businessman elected right into the presidency, runs this without much of a structure, without much of an organization,

much like he ran things at trump tower with trump organization, sitting in his office, calling who he wanted when he wanted. this goes on with people we often are not even aware of as opposed to, well, we know he's calling members of congress. we know he's speaking with this official or that official. these are people who have been part of his life for many years. he picks up the phone, they pick up the phone. and this is the way he has chosen to do things because this is how he's most comfortable. i think it's all fine as long as the american public decides that he's running things well. it's one of those things the minute it's not running well, they go you're not actually doing your job. >> when it drives members of congress crazy -- >> to say the least. >> and when you're expecting -- and i know you're up on the hill quite a bit, they expect him to do something in particular and then he has a conversation with somebody they're not even clued into and all of a sudden his mind is changed. >> this is why the joke is i'll

tell you when the president's going to do when you tell me who the last person he's going to speak to before he makes the decision. it's one of the reason he's had such a hard time achieving legislation on capitol hill. it's one of the reasons so many members of congress, democrats and republicans, do not trust him. he dells them yes, he tells them no. then something happens. the next day he changes his mind. you cannot do business on capitol hill that way because they want to be around for a lot longer than he's going to be around. >> they're going to be around. >> number one commodity on capitol hill, you talk to anybody who's done this left, right or center and it's trust. the president thinks he's keeping people off-balance. he thinks he's keeping them guessing. that makes him comfortable. but it's one of the reasons why, for instance, on something like immigration he hasn't gotten more done through legislation that would be lasting. it's because everybody is afraid to walk the plank and take the vote if it's going to be a waste. >> what we see really with the negotiations around the shutdown and now is a try and see if they can work out a compromise in the conference committee is a lot of people on both sides of the

aisle saying it would be better if the president hangs back. we don't actually want him involved. >> he's not shown a tendency to do that. speaking of immigration, the pentagon announced today that it is sending nearly 4,000 additional u.s. forces to the southwest border for three months to provide additional support to customs and border agents. it's a move the president reviewed in a tweet on thursday. once again, targeting caravans that come from central america. meanwhile, here's what the president had to say about ongoing negotiations with nancy pelosi over border security in an interview they aired on cbs. >> she offered over a billion on border security. >> she's costing the country hundreds of billions of dollars because what's happening is when you have a porous border and drugs pouring in people and people dyeing all over the country because of nancy pelosi who does not want to give proper border security, she's doing a terrible job for our country. on the 15th we set the table

beautifully because everybody knows what's going on because of the shutdown, people who didn't have any idea, a clue as to what's happening, they know exactly what's happening. >> it's almost as if he's setting the stage for a potential executive declaration or such. because as we can tell there's no reason they need thousands more troops on the border, is there? >> i think the american people have spoken and said we have 99 problems and the wall isn't one. >> it can be worse. >> and he keeps digging down but the reason he's digging down saying i will protect your border even if pelosi doesn't want to so he can appease the thugs of the world. and he's tired of hearing the democrats say we don't need a fence. we don't need a border, we need a fence.

>> is there a point the republicans start to have a problem with this? sending troops to the border, does that make any uncomfortable or just taking the next step or declaring a national emergency? >> i think that will be a problem. most americans, if not all of them, are in the same place when it comes to border security. the president, if he hadn't poisoned the well with the politics he practiced could have done a lot better for the american public when it comes to pushing for a border wall. the republicans what they're concerned about, number one, is another government shutdown. they're desperate not to have that happen. they're also real concerned about a national emergency. they're very concerned about the constitutional precedent it might set if the president went ahead and did this because one day it will be a democratic president who might have

different ideas. one thing on this national emergency, there's a very good chance house speaker nancy pelosi will run a disapproval resolution in the house and it would force -- it's binding, and it would force senate republicans to vote on this. the whole national emergency has been out of our hands, no shutdown. and all of a sudden they would have to vote on it and there's a chance the president would lose the vote in a republican-controlled senate. >> privately there are some republicans acknowledging it might be better if the president did that and we had a fight in the courts and might get it off our hands, but to david's point, it's a real problem. >> initially we heard this is a way to move this off all of our plates. he does this. but i've heard the same thing if a number of people, that this is a concern. there's also concern about what a national emergency would do in terms of funding other initiatives.

members all have different things they're concerned about in their states, different priorities and they don't like the idea of reinforces being moved off. but the president is not suggesting he's going to speed anything up. we will see how the process plays out. privately white house advisers say they're looking to see if there's a way to do this. the problem, of course, all of us agree there's a way to get there. it's semantics, what you call a wall or fence, but it might be so politically entrenched, it's impossible. >> thank you so much for joining us tonight. appreciate your insights. up next -- virginia governor ralph northam said it wasn't him in that page but he did wear blackface in the '80s. how will the country move forward? and i speak with congressman tom cole as president trump prepares to deliver the state of the union.

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upending the news cycle this weekend, virginia governor ralph northam and his refusal to step down after a decades-old racist picture surfaced from his yearbook. this a perhaps at times surreal news conference yesterday where he reversed course, suddenly denying his in the photo after issuing an apology one day earlier. but before it ended, he admitted wearing a blackface costume of michael jackson that year. with democratic senators from his state and even longtime supporter terry mcauliffe saying he simply can't go on.

it's important to remember the moment in which northam was elected, in the wake of the charlottesville clashes, a flashpoint he used to try to draw contrast with his republican component ed gillespie. here's part of the interview with northam back in 2017 >> you have a photo of donald trump and your important and white nationalist reels torches in charlottesville. do you think ed gillis pi is empathetic? >> ed gillespie had over 70 days for standing up and not calling these supremacists out for who we are. as i told the church supporters, with he need to heal this commonwealth and country. reconciliation needs to move forward and it starts with leadership.

>> the panel is back, along with former virginia state delegate michael few trel. welcome back. we were having a conversation that was spirited which relates to how this conversation struck a cord. how about ralph northam be able to continue to governor the state of virginia? >> i don't think he can because he's so isolated. there's nobody in virginia, republican or democrat, but especially democrat in this case, that is giving him a pass. there's nobody that is saying let's see how this unfolds. everybody is saying he has to go. and i think the bigger issue here as well because national leadership can have such an impact in these situations, the fact that democratic presidential candidates, they're not virginians but they are going to set the tone for the

party over the next year and a half, the fact that they're calling on him to resign just adds to the pressure, and i just don't see at this point how he can get out of the fact that he's going to have to resign because -- especially with the reasons why he's being pushed out of office by his party, i don't think they get to the point now that we thought about it, we see mitigating circumstances. this is so sensitive -- >> and beyond the pale. >> and there's no going back. >> this is ralph northam talking about whether he was in that photo but his other sins around this same issue. take a look. >> my belief i did not wear that costume stems in part to my clear memory of other mistakes i made in that same period of my life. that same year i did participate in a dance contest in san

antonio. in which i darkened my face as part of a michael jackson costume. i look back now and regret that i did not understand the harmful legacy of an action like that. >> mike futrell, what is your reaction to that defense? what would you say to ralph northam he should be doing? >> i'm very, very disappointed of this process. to tell you when i was elected in 2013, ralph and i had been able to build an amazing relationship and to watch all of this come to pass has been one of the most difficult things ever in the 3500,000 people of color of virginia who voted for him are just as shocked as i am individually. but here's the thing, ralph's initial thought process was correct. we saw all of the reports ralph was going to resign and step aside and fairfax was going to step in. after a night of sleeping on it and getting into a room with a lot of bad advisers, they made the decision they were going to

reverse course and say now that wasn't me. >> which story do you believe? >> there's no doubt in my mind that has to be him. he said it himself, i'm going off of his words, i'm not going off my words, he said it himself, that was him. what happens when people get so close to losing power, all of a sudden it becomes by any means necessary. the longer that he stays here, the worse this is going to get for everybody. there's no doubt in my mind eventually this becomes scorched earth and how do i destroy everybody around me to make myself look better >> i think he knows he would not be re-elected to any other type of public office after this has come out, after the way he's handled this and the reversal he showed us the next day sort of seems like he's ignoring the modern legacy of the greatest stain on this country's history which is racism and race institutions perpetuated from the very beginning.

he could have resigned. he could have come out and said let's talk about the racist history of virginia in the past years and tears alone through our entire nation under the last two years but he didn't. he's taking himself out of this by doing light jokes about doing the moonwalk >> can we show that? he was talking about michael jackson, so he was asked some facetiously if he could still moonwalk and seemed to come very close to actually doing it. take a look. >> i have had the shoes, i had a glove, and i used just a little bit of shoe polish to put on my cheeks. >> you danced the moonwalk? >> that's right. >> are you still able to moonwalk? >> my wife says inappropriate circumstances. >> talked about being saved by your wife. >> the fact he still doesn't understand the mess he's in. let's put it in context, this hand in 1984 when we had the

very first real viable presidential applicant in jerry jackson. and also grappling with apartheid. he was a 24-year-old medical student, he knew better. when people say he was 24, give him a pass, that was 25 years ago and allowed bigotry to fester and racism to fester and that's why all of a sudden we had charlottesville two years ago. we basically said that was okay. it's time for america to have a reckoning and that is to make sure we don't give these type of things a pass because we need to literally root it from the very roots to make sure our generation, we're not talking 35 years whether or not this was okay. >> here's the other thing though, and this is what we need to make sure we're addressing as well. this is not a one off. there are a lot of questionable thing that's have hand. we had the issue where they removed justin fairfax off the mailer during the election time. >> good point. i had almost forgotten about all of that. >> we have got the coon man and when he chose to dress up for

halloween as his favorite governor, who was a slaveholder. i don't want us to look at the snapshot. i want us to look at the full motion picture. i'm not saying that's who he is, i'm not attacking his character on this, but i don't think -- >> i don't think anybody would blame you if you did. for what it's worth. >> there's no way he can lead right now. the fact he's still here tells me this is about his ego, this is not about the commonwealth of virginia. if thchs about the commonwealth of virginia, he would do what's best for us to heal and move forward and take the first step and move down. >> there's a big difference between a private citizen looking for redemption and governor refusing to step down. thank you both so much for coming on tonight. up next -- congressman tom cole is in house republican leadership. we'll talk to him about the critical couple of weeks of negotiation that's lie ahead. and we're going to head to tuesday. stay with msnbc for all-day coverage of the president's state of the union address.

welcome back to "kasie dc." with the clock ticking, president trump said the negotiations are a waste of time, saying he most likely will declare a national emergency for funding for a border wall. meanwhile, mitch mcconnell personally warned the president and concerns that that could ldf surfaces. try dawn ultra.

welcome back to "kasie dc." with the clock ticking, president trump said the negotiations are a waste of time, saying he most likely will declare a national emergency for

funding for a border wall. meanwhile, mitch mcconnell personally warned the president and concerns that that could force them to pass a resolution expressing disapproval. joining me now, congressman tom cole. thank you for being here. >> glad to be in here. >> what is your response to this? >> it's not, i have a lot of confidence between senator shelby and a lot of confidence in representative lloyd, chairman of the house appropriations committee and kay granger. let them run the negotiation. number one, they will bring back billions of dollars more than you had in the original bill. number two, they will find some way to split the difference in the wall/no wall debate, which has really been pretty obscure. number three, they'll set the table to get the rest of the

government to fund it permanently through the rest of the fiscal year. again, let the legislators do their work >> are you confident nancy pelosi will be willing to sign on to whatever this compromise is that the committee comes up with. she did say no money for the wall. that seems like a line in the sand. ? i'm not confident. that worries me. it seems the biggest obstacle to the negotiations are not the people in the room, it's the people outside of the room that are playing a political game that are trying to determine who the winner and loser is rather than just come to a deal that everybody can be a winner. so when you've got people as powerful as the president and speaker laying down lines without, frankly, always knowing the details of the negotiation, i think you run a big risk. so we need to get out of this game of political chicken between two really important and powerful people. again, let the appropriators who are good at splitting the difference go back to work.

>> there's discussion as we mentioned of a poem resolution disapproving of a national emergency on the border that would come out of the house of representatives and potentially force the senate to take a tough vote. how would you vote on such a resolution? >> look, i think -- >> would you vote to disapprove? >> i think there is an emergency on the border. look, i agree with what the president is trying to do. i just don't always agree with the way he's trying to do it. we're apprehending 60,000 people a month on the border. that's up from recent years, although down from the worst of the period in the early 2000s. >> but how would you vote on the resolution? >> let's wait and see how the resolution is worded. i have never seen it or taken it. but i do think there's an emergency on the national border. i don't have a problem voting for an emergency. the real question is a solution -- >> you don't think it would be an unconstitution move for the president to declare it a national emergency? >> the courts will decide that. i think it's an unwelcomed precedent. i think declaring emergency when's you're going to immediately go to court will be litigated for months where it's not immediately obvious to everybody in america is a

high-risk proposition. and i would rather try to come up deal. look, at the end of the day, the president is going to get billions of dollars more than frankly either he asked for or congress originally voted. that's going to go for more border agents. that's going to go for more containment facilities, that will go for judges and sensors. it's all going to make the border safer and he would have done more on the border than everybody else. will he get everything he wants? probably not. that's the nature of negotiation. would i like him to get everything he wants? sure. but again, we don't have the votes for that in the house and frankly never had the votes in the senate. we can't get to 60 there. let's work within the framework we have and frankly make sure that the government is open and operational. i don't mind the president keeping things on the table. i think he's wise to do that as a negotiator. but at the end should be a deal we both celebrate, not a deal

where we point fingers at one another and try to determine who the winner and loser is. >> the president's approval since the shutdown have dropped to some of the lowest since his presidency. are you concerned about the fundamentals of his favorable ratings heading into 2020? do you think there might be a legitimate republican challenge? >> no, i don't think there will be a legitimate republican challenge. i think the president has maintained his hold within the republican electorate very well. i think most republicans agree with him about their concern on the border and are supportive of it. on the other hand, i think you win politics by addition, not subtraction and division. so you need to reach out to some people who didn't vote for you. you didn't win a majority of the votes last time. at some point you need to start adding people to your side as opposed to just holding on to what you've got. i think the president's got a great opportunity to do that in the state of the union address on tuesday, and i am hopeful that he will take that. certainly there's some pretty encouraging signs coming out of the white house on that score. >> finally, i realize you're, of course, not from the state of virginia but clearly thats had back national news.

ralph northam first apologizing for appearing in an extraordinarily racist photograph. and then a day later saying he didn't appear in it, insisting at this point he's not going to resign. do you think ralph northam should resign? >> let me start by saying i'm not from virginia, i'm not a democrat, and i certainly wouldn't have voted for the governor if i had been. that should be taken into context. if i were him, i would ask three questions. if i say, can i help in the healing process? i think the answer to that is clearly no. leaving will help the healing. second is, could i be effective if i stay? the answer there is clearly no. his own party deserted him. republicans will not support him. i think he will be almost a pariah when it comes to things like recruiting industry in virginia. the third is do i have a capable replacement and he clearly does and one that will probably do a better job of healing in this wake. he shouldn't leave the public arena. richard nixon didn't leave the public arena but he knew when he needed to go. and then he wrote books and participated in conversation and

rehabilitated himself. that would be my recommendation to the governor, leave but don't leave the debate. talk about what happened. i think he can bring something to it. but if he stays as governor, i don't see how that's good for the people of virginia. i don't think that's good for the national dialogue on race. personal opinion, he ought to go. >> congressman tom cole, thank you so much for today. >> thank you. when we come back, a massive fight broke out this week as howard shultz entered the presidential fray. but he exposed a riff that's going to play out for months among 2020 candidates over medicare for all. as we go to break, a favorite pastime of ours here on "kasie dc," senator john kennedy said what? >> you can't secure the border without a barrier or a wall or a language doodle or whatever we're calling it. >> i don't know much about mr. schultz. my personal opinion is there's not enough pilate instructors in america for him to win. i think mr. stone is a total beavis.

i want to expand medicare. i'm for universal coverage. i have helped the senator of rhode island with the public omgs and medicare for all. i want to help people quickly. i want to pass medicare at 55 or even 50. >> medicare for all is the best framework. >> the bottom line is we need to make sure every american is able to get health care. >> you don't have to go through

the process of going through an insurance company, having give them approval, going through the paperwork, all of the delay that might require. let's eliminate all of that. let's move on. >> top democrats with 2020 hopes weighing in on the future of our health care system. meanwhile, senator cory booker, who announced his white house bid on friday, has also been a backer for med kash for all. but unlike senator harris, he isn't quite ready to do away with the private market. >> would you do away with private health care? >> even countries that have vast access to publicly offered health care still have private health care, so no. >> while medicare for all is a popular idea among many on the left, former starbucks ceo and potential independent candidate howard schultz is of a different mind. >> you just played senator harris saying she wants to abolish the insurance industry. that's not correct. that's not american. what's next? what industry are we going to

abolish next, the coffee industry? >> a recent poll from the kaiser family foundation shows that 56% of americans favor that type of health plan, where as 42% oppose it. but when democrats were asked what they want congress to focus on, 51% said improving or protecting the affordable care act. only 38% said passing a national single payer system. joining us to help make sense of all of it is chief washington correspondent for kaiser health news, julie rov ner. also with us yahoo! senior political reporter john ward, an marie teresa and david are back with us as well. i think first we should point out after the remarks kamala harris also said she's also a sponsor much a number of bills that would keep the private insurance industry while also offering a medicare option. that said, the policy here is

very difficult. what do you sacrifice, when new candidates are out there saying i want medicare for all, what's the political price of that? what are we, the taxpayers, going to pay in order to have that? >> we're going to pay higher taxes in order to have that. people who think it's going to be free, it's going to be free of the except you're not going to pay out of pocket in premiums or co-payments and deductibles but you are going to pay it to the government in the form of higher taxes. i have been doing this long enough, i covered the clinton health plan which failed and one of the reasons with failed is people were uncomfortable having big changes to health insurance they liked. that was what the obama people took away from the clinton plan and they decided to build on the existing system and not to rip up everything. it was a very incremental approach. we're sort of back at the splams. do we want to keep going in an incremental way and tear the whole thing down and start over, which is now sort of the object of everybody said that's where we would like to get. the question is do you get there all in one fell swoop, which seems probably unlikely, or do you get there incrementally and i think that's why a lot of these candidates are trying to have it all ways. yes, that's where we would like to go but maybe go to the other places first. >> john ward, i covered bernie

sanders campaign because this was a question he never really wanted answer. he was out of the forefront of i want medicare for all but when you pushed him how are you going to pay for that, he never had a great answer. that's why this may be popular when you say it initially but when people realize they have to play higher taxes or they might lose their own health plans, support wanes for it. >> the nbc article about this, we had poll numbers you just showed a minute ago, the nbc article i was reading earlier supports medicare for all but at the very bottom of the article that said there's a paragraph, once you inform people they're going to lose their plan they oppose it by more than 20 points. >> there it is on the screen now. i think when you're talking about it in large scope, it sounds good. but when you get into the details, it gets more complicated. >> where do you think this will fall out in the primary and does this become -- that sound bite, i mean, let's talk about kamala

harris for a second. that kamala harris is going to be a real problem for her if she wins the nomination and she's fighting a general election. did she make a mistake? is this piemary going to push democrats too far to the left. >> i think what she's doing, she's testing the waters. if you talk to most presidential candidates they're creating sound bites to see where things land. right now we're still two years away from the presidential election. so i think she's fine. the challenge is who will be running in the democrats versus independents? a lot of people say in the democratic race, everybody have big ideas, let's have this debate. the challenge folks are having with howard schultz is he's siphoning off individuals who could potentially come into the democratic fold and that's what is scaring folks. the idea where do they land on medicare and health care, it's a debate the democrats have to have and have to demonstrate the difference between them and the republican party. >> for republicans, this has

always sort of been viewed as, they usually like it when the debate is over, medicare for all, because they feel it will push people away. do you think there has been a shift on this issue in a way that brings into that fundamental calculus? >> i think it depends on where the democratic presidential nominee, whoever that's going to be, where they shake out on health care. i think the president running for re-election is going to have to do a better job of preventing health care policy other than finally finishing getting rid of obamacare. we saw in 2018 i'm going to repeal and replace obamacare but i don't know what i'm going to place it with is not a winner. one of the things we know about health care policy, even with president obama's decision to incrementally divert on our system, it was still radical change. and when you have radical change, even increment am, voters are really unhappy. and it affects taxpayers.

there's not enough so-called wealthy people to tax and take their money in order to pay for it and leave out the middle class and that's a problem. >> julie, what's your sense of the state of the affordable care act and the political pressure that they might put on the health care system as a whom? is there a political imperative for change? >> i think what kamala harris was talking about, i think she articulated very well the frustration people are having with their health insurance. the medicare for all, u.s. push for medicare for all goes back to the 1910s but we've seen it sort of slowly grow in popularity. i think what senator harris is trying to figure out has it gotten over that hump where people will be frustrate enough

with the current system that they're willing to let go and do some radical change? polls suggest that the public is not there yet but it's not clear that the public might not get there in a relatively short period of time. >> i guess we'll see. julie, david, maria teresa, thank you all very much. coming up next on "kasie dc," "camelot's end" a new book journaling ted kennedy's ill-fated primary challenge against president jimmy carter in 1980. the lesson it's could teach president trump as he looks ahead to 2020.

i congratulate president carter on his victory here. i am confident that the democratic party will reunite on the basis of democratic principles and that together we will march towards a democratic victory in 1980. may it be said of our campaign that we kept the faith. may it be said of our party in 1980, that we found our faith again. >> that was senator ted kennedy, acknowledging defeat at the 1980 democratic convention. after failing to claim the party's nomination from president jimmy carter. in his new book, "camelot's end," john ward says that primary fight could be a lesson for president trump. john writes for a serious challenge to emerge from within his own party the president will

likely have to be so politically weakened that his unpopularity threatens the re-election of large numbers of congress. that is what almost happened to carter. while trump defined his career on defying conventional wisdom, john, congratulations on the book. i highly recommend it. i'm still at the beginning, making may way through it. i really enjoyed what i've read so far. let's take the lessons you learned from this story, carter versus kennedy, a nasty interparty primary. we gave president trump a preview. you want to look where carter was the beginning of his third year, where trump is right now and where carter was the fall of that year. carter the beginning of his third year was about a 50% approval rating, just clenched the middle east peace deal the previous fall and the spring of '. >> in doing quite well. he was doing well in spring of

'49. unforeseen external events, gas lines and it hurt people in their pocketbooks and hurt people in a crisis where in the fall of '49, carter at 29% and one poll had him at 22% approval rating. actually, i might have that wrong, it might have been 19%, lower than nixon at watergate. the lesson for trump is you don't know what's around the corner. presidents always have to deal with crises. he hasn't had one yet, a sign there may be one in the cards. >> around the corner. >> you pointed out in that excerpt we read the risk might be republicans potentially losing if something bad does happen to the president. has our system changed too dramatically since 1980 for that

to be a realistic possibility. the campaign season is longer than ever, you have to get in so early. some of these republicans are in safe seats. do you think that's feasible? >> for members of congress to be worried about their seats? >> yeah. >> you're right, gerrymandering and polarization of the public does mean there are more safe seats. any time a president starts to tank in the approval rating and molls, you are going to have some core members of congress, certainly in the swing districts but also senators who are going to be -- have a little more leeway, i think, to push on the president, you are going to have some number of lawmakers worried about their re-election. the real question, though, is how bad does the approval rating for the president get? how low does it go? that does mean you have to have some number beyond a small number of members of congress worried about their seats. >> what are the lessons for democrats out of this? to a certain extent this was an example of moderates versus the

left wing of the party. we're already seeing that start to unfold? >> absolutely. the last week has been so interesting. you have to ask this question. kennedy in '80, was trying to push the democrats left. he wanted national healthcare. as you enter 2020, you have the same debate going on between democrats over national healthcare or just a more moderate plan. carter put it on the back burner then and kennedy, that was part of why he ran against him. at the time of '80, the country was in a conservative mood, wasn't ready for the kind of liberalism kennedy wanted. i don't know where the country is now, i think we're so divided on many issues. a growing chorus saying the democrats are already moving too far left, even somebody like sherrod brown saying we can't go this hard on pie in the sky type of proposals. it will be fascinating to watch that debate play out. >> you mentioned how carter and kennedy really hated each other. how does that personal dynamic

play in these situations? >> the key to understanding that, carter came up with very little. he grew up with no running walter and no liquid knit. kennedy grew up the son of the ambassador to the uk with great wealth and great privilege. i think carter resent that and kennedy thought carter was a weak leader. he watched him give the speech in response to inflation in the summer of '49 and said, this guy cannot lead us in a time of crisis. i will take his place. >> the book is "camelot's end," congratulations again. that will do it for us on this special edition of kasie dc. we'll be back with you in washington.

. in a wide ranging interview president trump is weighing in on a variety of issues. he says another shutdown could be on the table. he doesn't know if he wants the mueller probe made public. new reporting on how president trump spend his days according to a white house leaker. nearly 60% of his schedule has been executive time. a growing number of democrats are calling for the resign nation of virginia governor ralph northam. he was digging in over the weekend despite a racist photo featured on his yearbook page.