tv Hardball With Chris Matthews MSNBC February 4, 2019 4:00pm-5:00pm PST
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testimony. i'm going to be covering that during the day and of course on "the beat". also roger stone has until tried to make his case on this gag order, a big issue with someone like roger stone. i'll be back at 6 p.m. eastern tomorrow. "hardball with chris matthews" is up next. don't confuse me with the facts. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews up in new york. we have a lot to get to tonight, including the latest from virginia where governor ralph northam is still in office, despite an almost universal call for him to go. and a new picture of how trump is spending his working days, if that's the right name for them. but a new example of trump's
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"look, mom, no hands." the consequences could be dire including a new hostility into iran and a possible military action in venezuela. nothing a neocon like john bolton likes better than a president who doesn't read. in a new interview with cbs, the president expressed lack of faith in them, especially when it comes to their judgment about iran. >> reporter: so you're going to trust the intelligence that you see? >> i am going to trust the intelligence that i'm putting there, but i will say this, my intelligence people, if they said in fact that iran is a wonderful kindergarten, i disagree with them 100%. when my intelligence people tell me how wonderful iran is, if you don't mind, i'm going to just go by my own counsel. >> he went on to indicate u.s. troops should remain in iraq if only to keep an eye on iran. >> being in iraq was a mistake,
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okay. being in iraq. it was a big mistake to go, one of the greatest mistakes going into the middle east that our country has ever made. >> reporter: but you want to keep troops there now? >> well, we felt a fortune on building this incredible base. we might as well keep it. one of the reasons i want to keep it is i want to be looking a little bit at iran. iran is a real problems. >> wlhoa, that's news. you're keeping troops in iraq because you want to be able to strike iran? >> no, i want to be to watch iran, all i want to do is be able to watch. >> is this bolton or is this wag the dog? isis, north korea and russia in congress testimony, the president said his comments were mischaracterized, even though they are clear as a report on the tape. some in the intelligent
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committee are alarmed by the president's "willful ignorance" and intelligence reports describe futile teams to keep his attention to use visual a aides, confining some topics to two or three sentence and rae petting his name as frequently as possible. two intelligence officers have been warned to avoid giving the president president intelligence that contradicts stances he has made public. my fear, not that he's ignorant of what he should know, is that
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his brain is empty and available to people like johnbolton, the way w's was. trouble making people like john bolton and abrams find their way into power and manipulate people like trump. your thoughts. >> well, look, remember from the very beginning he's been skeptical of the intelligence agencies. he said before he took office he didn't need a daily briefing because he didn't need them to tell him what to do day to day. he did change his mind and say they were a useful thing. he doubted course about the russia intervention. he trashed the intelligence agencies his first days in office and i think that accident skepticism as continued to today.
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a certain degree of a skepticism of intelligence is a requirement of the president. the question is whether he's disregarding it altogether. he said to margaret brenner, they may be right about that but i'm going to try anyway. it's a different thing if he rejects their assessment of facts without a contrary fset o information to base it on. >> let me go to kelly. do presidents act like this? i thought the most important time of the day for the president, when they get their daily intelligence, when they find out what they should worry about, where their focus of worry should be in the world, so they can focus our intelligence, our diplomacy being ptic power
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our military power. how do you focus intelligence in blindness? >> the president receives very early in the morning a full daily presidential briefing book. when i was working for president obama, he would have read that book before he even entered the oval office and then he would have sat down with his national security adviser and security team to discuss how to formulate policy. the president gets to choose his own strategy on anything from north korea to iran, but the president is not entitled to his own facts. i think that is where the problem is. this "time" magazine report sort of feels to me like you have the intelligence communities that trying to get the president to eat his vegetables so they've figured out way to present information to him that's as amenable to him as possible. and that's a real challenge if you're actually trying to have an informed strategy on everything. >> does it scare you that the president of the united states is flying blind? >> it does scare me a little bit. it also scares me the president's willful ignorance and ability to disregard the
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facts gives people like john bolton a very easy opening to push the president in directions that are potentially dangerous. >> do you smell that we being directed by a neocon now, we're hovering over iran looking for a reason to strike. it does look like wag the dog. your thoughts. >> i think the challenge is the president has no north star on foreign policy. so whoever is in the room last, definitely the intelligence community, is the one able to get him to pursue an option. he also deeply inconsistent. he was going to run on ending the war and potentially open a new war front in venezuela. there's all sorts of inconsistencies and no national security process around some of these big questions. >> just last week the senate voted to rebuke the president's plan to withdraw forces from syria and afghanistan. the president said there's very
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little left in afghanistan -- >> you could in that vacuum see resurgence of isis. >> we'll come back if we have to. we have very fast airplanes, we have very good cargo planes, we can come back very quickly. >> he in a matter of days said i'm keeping my troops in iraq because i want to have a listening post on iran. i want to keep military forces in to do the work of intelligence. i'm not going to listen to my intelligence people. i'm going to keep armed forces, lots of them in iraq so they can listen. do they listen when they go to dinner at cafes? they're using guys on the ground to do the job of intel. and we're in iraq to make fight iran? what's this about? he flipped again. >> no question iran is a central focus of his foreign policy. he sees iran as the major threat
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in the middle east. everything else is more or less subordinated to that strategic perception and direction on his part. so iraq is not all that important in and of itself. it is important mainly as an ally -- sorry, as a neighbor of iran. it's important to keep troops there to, as he says, to listen there. but also the argument i think that he may not be mackiking th some people make helps keep a check on iran in the sense of iran's influence on iraq. one thing to remember of course is the toppling of saddam hussein that iran walked right in over iraq over the last 15 years. when our troops are not there, m america has less influence there. he didn't articulate it that way. he talked about it as more of an intelligence thing. it's hard to see how that works. you see a lot of consensus among policy makers in washington that keeping some troops in iraq is probably a wise thing because they do feel iran would fill
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that vacuum. >> this is dumber than dumber, though, peter and kelly. here he is republkeeping our trn there after having brought in a shi'a government, which is aligned with iran, having replaced a sunni government which was against them, which was a perfect buffer against them. we destroyed the sunni government, brought in the shi'a, which is pro-iran and said we're sticking around in iraq to keep an eye on iran. it doesn't make sense. what's your thought on that, l kelly? >> the iraqi government gets a vote here. it was clear to me the iraqi government was surprised on his comments. watch that space. i think some things will change. >> they're pro-iranian. that's why they want us there. this is nuts. anyway, thank you peter baker and kelly. we joined by jay baker, former
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secretary under president obama. what do you think? you've been briefing presidents a long time. the president doesn't want to know anything. >> this is my debut appearance on "hard ball." >> not my fall, i tried to get you on years ago. >> three years ago was watching "hard ball," chris matthews, thinking this was some big secret, all of a sudden "jay johnson is the designated survivor tountnight." i almost fell off my chair. you said something that made sense you said "no presidency named johnson begins well." >> did i? >> yes, you did. let's get down to business. the most important part of a president's day is the intelligence briefing. you are flying blind if you
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don't read the intelligence or at least have it read to you. it's like trying to fly a plane when the instruments are down and the windows are fogged up. just as kelly said with the president, read it, including the pbd and then go over it with the braefrs iefers to make sure got it. >> being a professional, you'd fall back from what you heard the day before. his national security is a real hawk. >> not only that, occasionally i'd read a report where i'd have a sense this analyst is a little over his skis. he's reaching an an assumption. it's incumbent on the consumer
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to bring them in. you have to rely on what your braef briefers and intelligence agencies say. without that, that's a huge problem. >> my problem with w. when he was president, george w. bush, he didn't like the nerds, the pencil necks. then he gets to be president and surrounds himself with the nerdy guys. he had no chance of resisting them, like cheney and the bench of them and then he went along with the stupid war. >> the intelligence community should know how to fashion their intelligence briefing for presidents. some people like barack obama are readers. others are not so. so you figure out ways to get them -- >> do you think trump's a reader? anyway, in their testimony last
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week, the intelligence chiefs made no mention of what trump had deemed a crisis is he southern border. when asked about another possible shutdown, the president said he's not taking any off the table. >> would you shut down the government again? >> we're going to see what happens on february 15th. >> reporter: you're not taking it off the table? >> i don't take anything off the table. i don't like to take things off the table. it's that alternative, it's national emergency. there have been plenty national emergencies called. and this really is an invasion of our country by human traffickers. >> what do you make of that assessment by him? >> i've been saying this, at all costs we have to avoid another government shutdown. this last one has caused damage to our homeland security that will last months if not years in terms ofrecruitment.
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if the president and the congress don't keep the government hope for business and pay the workers, they're failing at their most basic responsibility in government. >> okay, plan b, national emergency. he's still talking of it as an option. >> now you're asking me to play lawyer and i was the general counsel of the defense department. the earlier authority they seemed to be floating where they would take military construction money and put it toward another military project really didn't work. that was a square peg in a round hole because that's overseas building. the most recent one having army civil works projects that are already under way and diverting and reprogramming that money to another one is slightly more legal lly plausible but hugely politically objectionable. you're taking money away from the infrastructure projects from damage from the hurricanes and wildfires and i see huge
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opposition to that. >> north ram. tell me what your reaction was when you saw the picture. >> i hesitate telling the governor of virginia of what he should do. on the other hand, my slave ancestors are all from lynchburg, virginia. that is a legacy that in my view the state of virginia, charlottesville aside, has moved a long way away from. the governor needs to think about someone other than himself. y -- he needs to think about the state that he has pledged to serve and whether or not the state can handle the scourge. >> we're having dinner tonight.
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come. >> it the democrats' hot policy issue. medicare for all. and how would you finance it? it our b it's our big idea tonight. and early in his presidency, trump said this -- >> how many days a week are you working? >> i'm working long hours, right up until 12:00, 1:00 in the morning. >> why would a trump staff member want to publicly ridicule the president? much more after this break. e afk [friend] i've never seen that before. ♪ ♪ i have... ♪
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in his 1984 year book, his page. the response from the democratic party was quick and nearly unanimous, he has to go. the governor didn't do himself any favors with his changing responses to the offensive photo over the weekend. >> i'm deeply sorry. i cannot change the decisions i made, nor can i undo the harm my behavior caused then and today, but i accept responsibility for my past actions and i am ready to do the hard work of regaining your trust. >> when i was confronted with the images yesterday, i was appalled that they appeared on my page, but i believed then and now that i am not either of the people in that photo. >> i'm joined by reverend al sharpton and of course host of politics nation here on nmsnbc
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and jeff, reporter with "the richmond times." and i do ask you to speak for the african-american in this country. and speaking as a leader of the community, what do you see when those two pictures show there's two figures together? let's look at them. can we show the pictures? >> well, i can talk while you show them. i think what we see is the klan uniform is a terrorist uniform. you see lynching, you see bloodshed, you see people that were killed because of the color of their skin. is this is not just some kind of comedic kind of thing. this represents to us actual lynchings that all of our families or most of our families had some kind of engagement with. and for this gentleman, the governor, to say that i take
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responsibility for my decisions and then turn and the next morning and say it wasn't me, one, it not only sounds did ingenuous, you have to ask yourself the question, chris, you raised the possibility that you could have been in the picture, which is disturbing because you should know right away couldn't have happened, i would have never done that. the fact that he even entertained it convicted him. then he comes back and says, no, it wasn't me, i talked to my classmates. you have to talk to your classmates if you were not in the picture with the klansman and then said i put on black face to do michael jackson. 1984 michael jackson was on the victory tour. h i did community affairs there. i saw tens of thousands of white kids imitating michael jackson having on the "thriller" jacket and all, none of them had black face. '84 was the year that he won the
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primary that he was in school at virginia. you were mocking at a time of black advancement and you would put on black face and talk about it was hard to get it off? i think he should resign immediately. >> and what do you think he was not alone. these are frat boys, doctors, and they're going to work with poor people. >> i'm so glad you bring that up. that to me is the most disturbing point. when you look at black women's mortality rate, the fact that black women when they're going to deliver babies are more likely than white counterparts to die in the delivery room, and we want to understand why there is a racial gap there and understand these are medical students? we hold doctors and lawyers up to these unreachable standards and say this is the epitome of
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education and embassy lexcellen. one, the college year book editor, why was that okay? >> well, the moderator -- >> why was this something that you said, you know what, i want people to remember me by this. that's what year books are for, to set out this is what i want folks to remember me by. many of us still hold on to our year books. it's hard to believe this was the first time in 30 years he saw this image? not one of his friends said, northam, have you seen your page, it's crazy, you should talk to someone about this. >> i wonder about ed gillespie. what his oppo operation? talk about lazy at the switch. >> a few are coming to his defense. here they are. >> do you believe he should resign? >> i don't today. i think there's a rush to judgment that is unfair to him.
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one, he says he wasn't in that picture. two, i think we ought to fairly ask him did he know the picture was on his page of that year book? and then, three, really he ought to be judged in the context of his whole life. >> i'd like to get all the facts before us. the other thing is how much more motivation could a man have to prove himself and to advance the cause of racial justice frankly? >> jeff shapiro, we need to know from you the local reaction down there. is this guy, could he conceivably sit there and just say i don't care what the world says? >> mr. matthews, we're getting into house of cards territory here and this is becoming an incredibly naughty and uncertain story. not only is the governor facing some serious questions, the lieutenant governor who should succeed him should northam resign is answering questions about sexual harassment
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allegations. so what we are seeing as well is a test at a somewhat micro level in a swing state's policies on race and sexual relations. >> it was a relationship with a woman and something happened. what was it that happened in the area of sexual assault or however you define it? what did he do wrong? >> the allegation is, and this was something that the press did not look into or chose not to plumb, shall we say deeply, before he was in public life that justin fairfax made unwelcomed advances toward a woman. the allegations surfaced on the same web site on which that horrific photograph from government northam's med school annual appeared.
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>> well, we're going to have to find out more reporting on that. it's interesting, reverend, that nbc, which is pretty good on this sort of thing, has yet to prove he was in that picture. >> he said he was and then he said he wasn't. many legislators who appeared in my show said he called me, he was in the picture and he was sorry. you can say that as one of the responders said that you have got to get more evidence. he gave the evidence. his defense was, chris, i didn't rob wells fargo, i robbed chase. i didn't use black face in that picture, i did on michael jackson. what is there to vet? >> i don't know. except standing next to a guy with a klan costume on raise it is a bit higher. i don't know if there was a dance contest. i don't know if he moon walked, it's just hearsay now. >> he gave a tutorial on
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national television on saturday about how to use black face. he said you only use a little bit so that you're able to get it off. i tell you, i grew up in a majority white suburb where halloween would come around and little kids, black and brown, would get dressed up as traditionally white characters. never once did i see any of them use nursing white shoe polish on their face in order to convey cinderella or he man. i'm confused about why he thought this was acceptable or his admission around michael jackson was going to excuse him from sambo -- >> it's a long distance from the mummers in philadelphia and from al joelson in the old days. and this guy's in medical school. >> and this is his defense, which means eight normit's a no kind of things to him.
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it shows you the mentality that somebody could have done black face. >> i think that make-up you're looking up there, what did he do and why did he do it right next to a klansman? it's horrible. and jeff shapiro, it great to have you on sometimes the more enticing topics than this baby. this is a terrible story for virginia. up next, kicking off a new series we call the big idea, a serious look at the topics and policies we think will be driving the debate heading into the 2020 presidential election, especially on the democratic side. first up, the democratic discussion of medicare for all. stay with us. ( ♪ ) (glass breaking) (gasp) not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool! coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells
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now i have to tell you it's an unbelievably complex subject. nobody knew that health care could be so complicated. >> welcome back to "hardball." in 2017 republicans weren't able to agree on a replacement for obamacare and now democrats are trying to figure out their plan with medicare for all becoming the latest progressive buzz word. a majority of americans, 56% and 81% of democrats support a national health care plan, but the field of potential 2020 candidates have a very difference sense of what that plan would look like.
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they range from entire lily replacing private insurance companies to giving all americans the option to buy into medicare to lowering the age that medicare kicks in naturally. let's watch. >> how do we get universal coverage? medicare for all. lots of paths for how to do that. >> listen, the idea is that everyone gets access to medical care. and you don't have to go through the process of going through an insurance company. let's eliminate all of that. let's move on. >> even countries that have vast access to publicly offered health care still have private health care. >> people will say medicare for all, medicare for all and nothing will change. i think if we can make the change of medicare at 55 or medicare at 50, it will make all the difference in the world for millions of people and then we get to the next step. >> when we said that health care is a right not a privilege and that we should create a medicare for all single payor system, i was told i'm crazy, i'm extreme,
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i'm a fringe guy. >> i'm joined by dr. ezek ikial manuel. thank you for joining me. what does medicare for all people mean? >> there are different varieties. on one extreme, if you want to buy into medicare or you don't have an insurance policy or there's not an affordable one out there for you, then can you get into medicare. and then in between there's a variety of other possibilities, but one of them is the medicare advantage arrangement would be open to everyone and among the options there are not just private insurance plans that you could select but traditional medicare. so there's a spectrum of what it might mean, and a lot of people are not defining too carefully
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at the moment their views although senator harris and senator sanders have been pretty clear about their view. >> this is really about financing of health care, not so much health care but financing of it. i was just thinking that the systems i've been involved in from the time you're 15 years old as a stock boy in a drugstore, you're paying into it till you're 65. if you live ten years more, average, 10 or 11 years for a male, you get 10 or 11 years of coverage. if you're a woman, you may be fortunate to get 15 years. to go from that to a system where you're covered for health your whole life, how could you possibly pay into it your working life to offset the costs of your health care from day one when you're born? >> let's distinguish what's the total cost of health care and most of the analyses show if you do medicare for all, the total cost of health care doesn't change, it actually might
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decrease a little bit. so the issue is where's the money coming from? now, yes, as a stock boy or as a professor at the university of pennsylvania, i get my insurance, my employer sponsors it but it basically is coming out of my salary in a hidden way as a fringe benefit. so if you went to medicare for all, that money that's really coming out of my salary would have to be transferred to the government and then the government would dole it out, as you point out, either to doctors and hospitals through traditional medicare or to insurance companies and doctors and hospitals through medicare part c. i think it's important to distinguish one is how the money changes but the fact is it's not going to be more money, it just going to be which ledger is it on. is it on the tax ledger or on the employment fringe benefit measure? >> can we afford medicare for
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all from birth till -- >> as i said, chris, the actual total price is not going to be much different than what we're paying now. it's a matter of which pot it's going to come from, not that the pot is going to grow. medicare for all is not growing how much we're spending on health care. each year we spend $3.5 trillion. that makes the american health care system the fifth largest economy in the world. we in the united states spend more money on health care than the british economy, than the entire french economy and we're just below the german economy. we're spending a lot of money. the issue on medicare for all is where does it come from rather than are we going to grow it. >> thank you. i think we're going to be talking a lot about this over the next year. dr. manuel from pennsylvania. thank you. >> what is executive time and why does it take reportedly up to 60% of donald trump's
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schedule? either that or he's up in his bed. we'll be right back after this. ♪ doctor dave. see ya. ♪ here's your order. ♪ hey. applebee's to go. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. you might or joints.hing for your heart... but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. why go with anybody else? we know their rates are good, we know that they're always going to take care of us. it was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. we're the tenney's and we're usaa members for life. call usaa to start saving on insurance today.
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welcome back. donald trump built his brand as a hard-charging businessman who never quits, never tires and never backs down. throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, he boasted about his incredible work ethic. he also frequently attacked then president barack obama for what he suggested was a lack of drive. and not spending enough time on the job. >> i'm going to fight for every american in every last part of this nation. we have -- we have a president who doesn't fight. he goes out and plays golf all the time. if you love what you do, you don't take vacations. you're happy. >> i love working. i'm not a vacation guy. right? like obama. he plays golf in hawaii, flies on a 747. >> if you're in the white house, who wants to take a vacation?
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what's better than the white house? why these vacations. >> i promise you, i will not be taking very long veacations if take them at all. there's no time for vacations. we're not going to be big on vacations. >> promises, promises. in may of 2014 trump tweeted president obama looks absolutely exhausted. he was not a natural leader, he was not meant to lead, it's tough work for him. a new leak makes this embarrassing. it has to do with his day-to-day schedule and his work ethic, that's the right word for it. and why someone on the president's own staff would go to such lengths to embarrass his or her own boss so brutally. stay with us. s so brutally. stay with us you should be mad at forced camaraderie. and you should be mad at tech that makes things worse.
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tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection or your asthma worsens. headache and sore throat may occur. haven't you missed enough? ask an asthma specialist about fasenra. if you can't afford your medication, astrazeneca may be able to help. welcome back to "hardball." axios has gotten its hands on president trump's private schedules for nearly every working day since the midterms. three months of them. it shows he's spent about 60% of his time, 300 hours, in executive time. it's a euphemism of course inveninve invented by former chief of staff john kelly. for the unstructured time trump spends tweeting, calling his pals and watching tv. former white house staffer cliff
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sims who just wrote a tell-all book wrote "we got these schedules e-mailed to us every morning. consider the sheer amount of time and effort it would take to compile two months worth of schedules. this was premeditated murder. i'm joined by jonathan lemire and gwenda blair. why is this president so incapable of having loyalty upward toward him that they at least wouldn't try to openly sabotage him, which is what this leak does? >> back at trump tower when he was a real estate developer from the whole time forward, his m.o. was to have people at each other's throats. >> his throat? >> each other's throats, to make them feel completely uncertain about their jobs, whether they were going to have them, to avoid any kind of horizontal loyalty and have them have to be loyal to him. but in the white house there's no loyalty at all because they
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have -- there's no long-term project there. >> so somebody sat down, he or she, sat down and tabulated every schedule all the way back to the them up -- i they -- i think they did type it up so they couldn't source it out and put that in an envelope and wasn't in an envelope and sent that to a reporter to embarrass this president. and they did. it is a good story. >> nearly 400 people have access to this information. a smaller group has a more private schedule. that is still one of the individuals that works for the president of the united states took the time to do this and there is no question this is a leak meant to embarrass. does every minute of executive time mean the president is watching cable or tweeting? no. but part of the time he's watching cable and tweeting. and the white house has been taken aback by this and there are furious spinning reports trying to suggest the time is spent calling political allies and world leaders and that is true and some of it, but they
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recognize this paints a part rot of a president who doesn't work very hard. they realize that is an embarrassing picture. >> does he have his feet up? is he sit gs -- sitting around in his bathroom like leslie van cleave -- what is he doing? he's not in the oval office apparently, he's not in the workplace. >> no. what i think it paints is a picture of a president who doesn't hesitate to throw people under the bus. and that is why it got leaked. there is no loyalty at all. >> most of this time, you're right, it spent in the residence and not the oval office. it is -- there are certainly -- this is a situation he created at trou-- at the trump tower an like to have free-wheeling time and it was created because trump was rebelling against the minutia of the day. >> and the minutia is what she should know. and sarah sanders said president
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trump has a different leadership style than his predecessors and the results speak for themselves. and newt gingrich compared president trump to war time winston churchill saying the ignorance of the current history is the same. >> here is what kriechg said. >> 297 hours of executive time, is that too much. >> it depends on what he's doing f. he's watching you exclusively, that is too much time. i would tell him to turn off the tv. i think he's spending time on the phone consulting with people during that time. i know that i speak to him often during that executive time, period. >> the scary thing, gwenda, he's listening in the same bubble that he is operating in. and the anti-trump, they live into a very narrow circle and list doan each other. if he's only listening to his buds and pals and telling them how great he is, that is not helping the world. >> he's using this executive
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time to wall out the world. to keep out that intelligence, to only -- the only thing that seems to get through is people who agree with him. and when he was at trump tower during this earlier time, he wasn't very different. but he had -- he had dad behind him. he dad's contacts, his financial and political contacts who smoothed out the bumps, bailed limb out and did a-- bailed him out and did that stuff but i think donald thought he did it and was the smartest guy in the world and the best deal maker in the world and now in the white house he thinks he knows it all. >> john, put your head around this and you are from the press, if you can't walk up to the lower press office and ask where is he and they don't know, where is he. >> or if you don't see the marine out in front of the west wing which is the sign if he's in the oval office. that means more times than not he's in the residence or upstairs in the second floor of the white house and where he
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spends most of his executive time. and to be clear there is work being done during that time. but other parts is exactly right, he's a consumer of cable news and on twitter and on the phone with political allies and just the old friends from new york who he consults with -- >> does he ask people in the united states government -- kennedy and churchill, they call middle level people to find out what going on? do any of that government chief executive work like you would do it you were president. >> i looked up "executive today for the definition, it is to manage things and make things carry through. it is the exact opposite. he wants it to be in kayous and uproar because that is his -- >> does he know he's head of the government. >> he knows he's head -- >> does he know that. >> -- i don't think so. >> and he views the government with distrust. most of this he painted the picture of the deep state and he's not making those phone calls. >> thank you jonathan la meyer and gwenda blair. and what the democrats are
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telling us for the fight for 2020. i just saw an interesting poll. a couple of them. you're watching "hardball." tomorrow, with the nation divided, president trump delivers his state of the union address. then stacey abrams delivers the democratic response. coverage starts with "morning joe" followed by live reporting from the nation capitol and rachel maddow and brian williams and political experts live in primetime. >> we'll analyze what we see and hear and fact check it on the fly as well. >> the state of the union address and the democratic response tomorrow on msnbc. response tomorrow on msnbc it al. go ahead, ask it a question. tecky, can you offer low costs and award-winning full service with a satisfaction guarantee, like schwab? sorry. tecky can't do that. schwabbb! calling schwab. we don't have a satisfaction guarantee, but we do have tecky! i'm tecky. i ca... are you getting low costs and award-winning full service?
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would not vote to re-elect this president this means there is a good reason for kamala harris, elizabeth warren, cory booker and kirsten gillibrand and bernie sanders all to run. for example, a gallop poll in november shows 41% of democratic leaning independents would prefer the party become more liberal. but here is the rub. that same gallop poll shows 54% of the same people want democrats to become more moderate. a poll by pew research shows the same pattern. 40% of democrats and democrat-leaning registered voters want the party to be more liberal and 53% want it to be more moderate. how will this affect the fight for the nomination. the shape of the field determines the winner. what if a moderate like joe biden jumps in and lets the hard progressive fight it out on the left. each trying to outbid the others in the most aggressive agenda. this might well leave a lot of moderate voters looking for a candidate and this could be what is luring joe biden into the race and possibly michael
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bloomberg or terry mcauliffe and the question is which candidate has the stuff to take on the progressive champ and win? even if it takes from february all the way to the convention. and that is "hardball" for now. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in" -- >> i had a glove, and i used just a little bit of shoe polish to put -- or on my cheeks. >> the racist yearbook scandal continues in virginia. >> he should resign. >> he should step down. >> tonight ralph northam used the playbook -- >> i pledge to be a better man and will never ever let you down. >> and hypocrisy on display -- >> and you want moral equivalence on everything. >> then as the white house explains executive time -- >> i watch absolutely almost all of the time. >> my interview with chris christie sont hollowed out executive. and as the democrats
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