cause you use the source for your beliefs or whether the jury knows it's garbage real. the white house on all fronts against the media is this really a winning strategy on this edition. welcomes of politicking i'm laura schwartz in for larry king nearly from its start donald trump's administration has been at war with the media the president's claims of mainstream press reporting he calls fake news about him and his staff have become all too common of an occurrence but lately it seems the accusations have taken on a darker tone and the very important relationship between the free press and the white house seems to get a little more strained each day we'll get very different perspectives from

breitbart senior editor at large joel pollak and from the former white house special counsel to bill clinton lanny davis let's begin with lanny who joins me from washington d.c. and addition to serving a special counsel to president clinton he is also a strategic media and crisis management expert and co-founder and partner of trident d.m.g. welcome lanny thank you are nice to be back well it's good to have a say have you back with us here on politicking lanny this last week there was an especially divisive press conference at the white house where deputy white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders in the briefing room ripped on c.n.n. for again this new term that's becoming familiar fake news and then a local maryland editor later accused her of being inflammatory there seems to be quite a dichotomy going on between the white house press office of the trump administration and the media mainstream and otherwise what do you make of it. well first of all

i'm completely shocked shocked shocked that the trump white house is. attacking the media it's like. casa blanco being shocked when he walked into the gambling casino that he owned and said i'm shocked that there's gambling going on in life because you know. trump white house the trump campaign mr trump himself has made it a political strategy to attack the media and for thirty five percent of the country which is approximately somewhere between thirty five and forty percent of americans approve of his presidency. and that's as low as it is as it gets in recent history of any president who will do well with that thirty five to forty percent attacking the media but he won't get much better because most of the american people know that democracy depends upon the free media that gets it right sometimes and gets it wrong sometimes but when presidents describe the media as the

enemy of the american people as opposed to just criticizing the media which the media deserves to be it's a very big difference and that i think makes the donald trump presidency so narrow kest in its public appeal and why president trump's approval ratings among other reasons such as not yet accomplishing very much in the congress that he promised his base to accomplish there are other reasons why he's not popular but i don't think it's a wise idea to personalize to demonize the media but certainly i do agree the media should be criticized but with specifics as to when they get their facts wrong. well it's interesting lanny because this really has become the story as well as some of the scandals of the administration versus they're weak on infrastructure they're weak on energy that they are that they've been discussing this last week

and it's really taking away from one of the biggest policy. goals which is repealing. replacing obamacare now just this week the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell had to move that vote from this week after the july fourth recess because they simply don't have the votes and they're certainly not getting coverage in the coverage that they are is showing a nearly thirteen percent approval rating by the american people when it comes to health care this new plan in the senate what do you think is that correlation between the media coverage and health care and health care even has a chance anymore. but either way there may be some change about trying to get a vote done before the research says so i'm not sure. changing situation going on but look i think president trump has to learn how to govern and to get things done by working with a congress whose party is in the majority that he is the same party

when president clinton was president he had two years of having the same party in the congress and he had his difficulties he did actually a lot better when the republicans took over and there were negotiations where you were able to get bipartisan agreement and i think the republicans and mr trump are making a serious mistake that we democrats made in trying to get the affordable care act passed on a pure party line basis rather than trying to get a bipartisan consensus i am a strong supporter of president obama and the affordable care act i think we would have been much better off had we gotten bipartisan support and gotten less than one hundred percent of what we wanted but gotten bipartisan support now the republicans are doing the same thing that we democrats did and making the same mistake by a process that is all republican and all partisan so your point about the media is extremely important every time he picks fights with the media or post

a tweet that completely diverts attention apart from the fact that it's just not something a president ought to be doing he's off topic off message where he should be focused on his campaign promises about health care reform about tax reform about infrastructure investments that's really where he would be. to give them advice it's going to help them sincerely in the in the loyal opposition but that's really where he should be focusing not on tweets and not on demonizing the media but where do you think lanny that demick. and you just mentioned how you know the republicans have been doing this you know behind closed doors and all along party lines what are the democrats doing to get a message out there that they're involved or are the democrats just happy sitting back and watching the republicans nearly fail at this measure. well i know some in the congress think that's a good strategy mitch mcconnell announced in the ultimate hypocrisy in washington

and i think he's a fine man and i respect senator mcconnell but the ultimate hypocrisy him a smile when he goes home because i know he'll probably agree when president obama was first elected what was the first thing he said is press conference our job is to oppose everything that president obama supports and they were the party of no for a long time now i see democrats doing the same things for me what we should have done is introduce reform legislation to try to fix the flaws in the affordable care act it specially yeah absence of a public option to give private insurance companies competition meaning the same insurance policy that members of congress get to pay for the american people should have had that option unfortunately we couldn't get the sixty votes to pass the affordable care act and we had to give up that public option and now we need to bring it back and propose something positive to reform. obama care of the

affordable care act rather than just being in opposition and doing what the republicans did lanny davis everybody thank you so much for being on your good luck to you continuing the conversation i'm now joined in studio by joel pollak senior editor at large and in-house counsel at breitbart news he is also the co-author of how trump won the inside story of the revolution joe thanks so much for coming back good to be with you so if we just heard lanny davis talk about the media bashing by the white house and its possible effect on legislation and at the trump. base voters i'd love to get your take on is this media bashing is it calling out fake news what's your thoughts on this well the media in washington in particular is seen by many people who voted for trump and many people who didn't as politicized as biased and they have a problem with regard to their integrity that problem is compounded by the fact

that many of them really don't like don't trump they don't like his policies they don't like the fact that he rose through the republican primary partly by going after the media and they're trying to bring him down there's this narrative i think that's common in the mainstream media that he's about to disappear it's taken on various forms first it was that he wouldn't win the primary then that he wouldn't win the election of course then once he had won he won't serve i remember c.n.n. the day before inauguration saying what happens if he gets assassinated this kind of fantasy that he's going to disappear somehow somehow now it's about impeachment so forth and trump is pushing back against that i think a lot of his supporters are with him because although people in general want an independent media they want the journalists to hold politicians accountable they see what's happening as not real news coverage but as part of a political process designed to get rid of a democratically elected president so there's a real pushback not just by trump but also among voters against what the media are doing well every time trump mentions this at a rally his his base goes wild but when you start looking at the legislation he's

trying to get through congress as if you're looking towards re-election for donald trump is this a really smart stance to take i mean it gets a lot of coverage but it takes away from the coverage of everything else so the base might be happy but will it be enough i think it's an important part of connecting to the base which is basically showing is that he won't be pushed over by anybody and the base of the republican party is used to electing politicians who back down in the face of media pressure over and over again i think most other republican presidents would have abandoned some of the legislative efforts that trump has. embarked upon already because of the resistance from the media pun intended and i think that he is showing them that he's going to fight for these priorities fight for the things that he promised he would do and so in a way it is a way of connecting to his base when he attacks unfair news coverage in the media and i use that word resist and that here in america is definitely come to identify the democrats that are resisting that are against the the voters that were never

forgotten probably never will be for donald trump do you think it's fair to lump the media in the resistance along with the democrats and is that even a good term for them to be getting out of sure many of the media personalities high profile journalists white house press corps so forth are very happy to be identified with the resistance by the way i think the resistance is a bad term and i actually agree with democratic governor jerry brown on this he doesn't use the term assistance he says he finds it inappropriate because resistance is something that happens in foreign occupation world war two nazi regime you know and i find it offensive as a conservative because if they're the resistance you know where the nazis basically so i think that the term opposition or other other kinds of ways of referring to it would be better is not helping democrats reach those voters that they lost in pennsylvania michigan they're thinking only about their own internal conversations not thinking about what the american people want and i think the media are coming on board they've certainly given fawning press coverage to protest against on from to the resistance and to various efforts to block from subjective orders

to starting pietschmann processes frivolous lawsuits and all that sort of thing so i think the media have sided with the so-called resistance i think any press corps will have a naturally oppositional relationship with any administration is pretty natural the problem that we're encountering now is partly because the media bend in that role under president obama so when you're looking at the media suddenly protest against things they find inaccurate in president from statements or things that he does that they don't like in terms of exercising broad sweeping executive powers a lot of those criticisms don't fly with trump supporters because we. saw the media basically give obama a pass on doing all of that anymore for the last eight years and so there is a credibility problem that predates donald trump with the mainstream media and so by signing on to the resistance what they're doing is not really covering a political phenomenon but enlisting in a political cause and i think that's why people are resentful and why they fall

into trench attacks on the media invigorating rather than polarizing yeah definitely working with the brace the base we'll see if they continue to see resistance or a switch to one of your words i say right there more politicking right after the break. about your sudden passing i've only just learned you worry yourself and taken your last turn. to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each pair. but then my feeling started to change you talked about more like it was again still some marshawn to view those that didn't like to question our arc and i secretly promised to never be like it's one does not leave a funeral in the same as one enters in mind it's consumed with this one different

speech as there are no other takers. claimed that mainstream media has met its maker. the mission of newsworthy is to go to the people tell their side of the story our stories are well sourced we don't hide anything from the public and i don't think the mainstream media in this country can say that. rich you were. are to america has a different perspective. we're not hearing one echo chamber that one stream media is constantly spewing. we're not beholden to any corporate sponsor no one tells us what to cover how long or how to say that's the beauty of.

your posts we hear. it we question more that. not letting anything get in your way to bring it home to the american people. politicking joe pollak senior editor at large an in-house counsel at fright bar news is my guest so thanks for sticking around let's get back to our conversation and move towards donald trump's credibility especially donald trump's credibility as it comes to his firing of f.b.i. director james comey we saw him testifying capitol hill we saw donald tweets and aftermath interviews following that where does donald trump's credibility stand

today i think it's very solid i think the most important thing that establishes his credibility is the claim that he made that he wasn't under investigation which the media and democrats cast doubt upon republicans knew better doubted his claim and then of course when komi came before congress several weeks ago and testified under oath he had to admit that yes he had told them from three times that he himself wasn't under investigation so i think trump came out of that exchange looking better having established that he was telling the truth about not being under investigation and you can debate whether he should have fired komi or not it was definitely a discretionary move in this. instead it wasn't necessary given political realities but it's something he wanted to do partly because komi wouldn't clear his name publicly even though he had told the senate privately that there was no investigation of donald trump he had led at the time right he let on publicly that things might be otherwise and i think trump was frustrated so i understand there

was some debate inside the administration about whether or not to do it but certainly on the democratic side there have been demands that komi be fired that he lost all credibility because of the way he handled the hillary clinton investigation and the late announcement in october right before election day that she was being investigated again so turned out you know there was no need to have ever have you know on that well it's interesting you know you talk about you know he came out well through those hearings because trump was almost validated for example but the new york times recently did an entire full page on donald trump's lies and misquotes so in a way do you think that he come it came out with credibility on the comi case but at large is he really getting through to the american people well the york times is not necessarily the measurement of credibility i mean they're being sued right now by sarah palin for libel because they got the story so completely wrong about the tucson shooting in two thousand and eleven when they were commenting on the recent . and they made they they made the correction but yes there's

a i think now even though again that's one of those issues where if they had treated obama the same we were great pains often in conservative media to point out things obama said that were inaccurate and of course if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance all that stuff they try to polish all of that and sell it along with the obama administration so it doesn't really carry much weight i think with at least a conservative reading public to see that the york times is keeping track of things donald trump said they disagree with and some of the things on that list i've been talking about that was a little bit with people some of the things aren't really lies so to speak there are things that don't trump said that they disagree with they fall under opinion and there's just this effort to discredit this. president that is not done with other presidents what certainly wasn't done with barack obama and again that's the new york times enlisting in a cause rather than covering what's happening i think that the media tried to pretend the komi testimony as a private citizen his first and so far only testimony was devastating for don't

trust because comey said some nasty things about him but again he shored up trumps factual claims and i think that's why people have largely forgotten what comey said and why it's now moving on to all this other stuff you don't hear much about the russia investigations you don't even hear much about what happened specifically with firing james comey now we're into all kinds of other areas was not quite on his regulations or our nest as that he wants but for especially with health care it seemingly to be stalled in the senate right now the leader of the senate mitch mcconnell has recently delayed the vote on the health care bill until after the july fourth recess so now what's so i think there are two things going on here the first is about the health care issue in general people right now are afraid of any change because their experience of change to the health insurance market under obamacare was so negative so i think the country and yet now more people approve of the care people when it first is pat people like the insurance they don't have under obamacare more than the insurance they might have under the republican plan so there's just this fear around health insurance in general because the last big

change was so traumatic i think that will fade in time i do think the republican proposals are pretty good. i have another theory in this is the second part of my answer which is that i think the republicans want to be in town in washington d.c. overall just they're not in a rush to pass this they don't want to go home to their districts they know that their opposition is strongest in the town hall meetings that the resistance in the individual movement in all these different groups have been staging protests at these town hall meetings and what better excuse could there possibly be than to say look i've got to stay in d.c. to work or can't come home i'd love to be with my constituents after labor day but we've got to get this done we've got to have tax reform done so i think part of this is a bit of community theater to allow the deliberations to continue into august even though washington d.c. is insufferable in the it's and you have a lot of here's a way it is quiet but they'd rather be hot and humid in washington d.c. than under the glare of the cameras back home in missouri or wherever they go yeah that actually that's a really good theory to see that we've even seen some democratic congressman i

think is john maloney representative upstate new york actually went to his neighboring district where that that republican representative wouldn't show up for a town hall meeting so the democrat went over to the other district to just have a town hall i think you're right on that i think it's definitely more the republicans that are facing that backlash and certainly people are protesting their offices and picketing and they're waiting they're waiting to speak raissa face we'll see if they can dodge that by staying at the same in d.c. what do you think will happen i mean whether it carries on through august or not what do you think would happen to the republican majority if they are not able to get health care through they've got a republican majority the senate in the house in the white house if they can't get this right i think that's a really important question i don't think it's going to threaten their majority in the senate right now because republicans only have eight seats up for reelection democrats have twenty three or if you can be independents twenty five but on the house side it's really going to be a problem if they can't repeal and replace obamacare to the satisfaction of their

voters remember this is a republican majority in the house that exists because of a. backlash against obamacare because they campaigned in two thousand and ten on the promise of doing something about obamacare then they had the house they told the voters will give us the senate then they have the senate in twenty fourteen is there well we still need the white house now they have all three right what's happening so i do think it's fundamentally about them on ring their commitment to the voters and i agree with you that if republicans can't pass something that is credible to their base the bulk of the base then i think they're in serious trouble not because democrats will win in some of these district will run better candidates we've seen democrats struggle in special elections but because the conservative base won't show up to vote in november eighteenth they'll send a message by staying home and so that's what is so important for republicans right now as they go into the next few weeks of deliberation what kind of what kind of message do you think donald trump a sunday right now from the white house because this last you know during the campaign he said i promised you all americans a wonderful beautiful terrific new plan for health care and then this last week

when it all the senate at the white house he actually said and i quote. we're going to you know if the senate doesn't pass a bill. we're going to like it and that's ok and i can understand it you know we're going to like it it's ok i can understand it yeah but does that message compete with the senate right now or with his own voters what he is saying is that he can walk away from a bad deal it's a negotiating posture and it's not just a posture he probably will do it but he is trying to avoid being the customer shows up to a used car lot and says i absolutely need a car today i need to make a deal today the car salesman says ok well i can sell you anything at any price if you need a deal today i can lease you recently and trump is trying not to be fleeced he's basically saying i can live without a deal my alternative is better i can let obamacare collapse and i'll run on that message through the midterm elections and let the voters punish the democrats now whether they actually will punish the democrats is debatable but he is posturing or setting up the next stage of negotiating by saying i can walk away from

a bad deal so the deal on the table had better be good so is donald trump a deal maker who we will see if those other customers of the car still lots of all right so pollack and right partners thanks a lot for joining us thinking and i'm sitting in for larry today because he's traveling overseas for some interviews and while he's in london this week he talked with comedian actor and activist russell brand you know him from his starring roles and forgetting sarah marshall the remake of arthur and of course get him to the greek with jonah hill it would be impossible that talks russell brand without getting into film politics and that's just what he and larry did here's a little bit of that conversation what's what do you think of our president back across the pond i mean and i'm sure you've met him a number of times out there i mean one thing i do think about donald trump is these two very well i think is what is determining the numerous global political changes

of our time these people have begun to spare of a lack of often to city people the same thing that people. the political figures are not real a lack of integrity. would call to double speak the language that is superficial and donald trump ninety many things and he almost certainly is but what you also is is authentic i think he really is or that that because does he have a philosophy that i don't think philosophy and authenticity necessarily correlate larry i think that when donald trump. is glib about race or about agenda even if you think my god i don't agree with what he's saying or agree with what he's doing compared to other figures that occupied the political landscape he has a kind of veracity the only other figures that have it are i think jeremy corbin in this country is an authentic man but i would agree that he's

a principled and beautiful human being bernie saunders in your country seems like you had a kind of integrity but was stifled uncontained and marginalized by this political process and i think that that i think that that authenticity to use a ludicrous pun trumped a political turn if this is aimed more appealing to a liberal sensibility what is happening in the world are we going through some of the yeah i think so don't you i mean you know what is it what do well i think the rejection of globalization and a return to nationalism as a result of that there's a danger in that we'll get the reason of course because of fascism for kickoff but like but but also nationalism one isn't going to work at this point nationalism is a bogus ideology and all of these ideas are in the service of political and financial elites i think that what we are an important point and the result of the last british election gives me some cause for optimism because there was

a return to socialist values and you know socialism in the nineteen fifties in your country was attacked. gresh and side of the line that it's impossible for people to have a kind of an open view of it now is simply sharing that it doesn't have to like this socialism in this country socialism had its roots methodism there's a famous quote the british type of them as much to methodism as it does to mock so it has a kind of a christian underscoring it's not me i stick in what became the terrifying version of communism that we saw in so go away shows us where they have like a not so gentle socialism you know. everybody. gets held for them it seems like that would be the onset isn't it larry those with there are only five million people right you think it's manageable so the centralization seemed like you know to be out of the other sort of communist trope that one would challenge is the mass centralization doesn't seem to work we need smaller communities we need

really what i think a more your man chump ski says is that close with the close ordinary people off to political power while the berries are decentralize where possible have people politically engaged in their own communities and i think if the powerful continue to resist ordinary people having any form of power there will be these bizarre grotesque anomalies such as donald trump or breaks it or internationalism while people reach for identifiable signal identifiable symbols and recognizable narratives unless there is significant real change you don't want to. i'm. not fascism look at my head you can't have learned fascists it's a rule russell brand is currently on a stand up to or called rebirth he also has a new book coming out in september called twelve the full interview with russell brand airs soon and larry other program larry king now check larry's twitter feed

for exactly when that so will air thank you for joining me on this edition of politic in thank you to larry king for letting me sit in this chair with the. to day remember we love hearing from you join the conversation on larry's facebook page and as always you can share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting at kings things and using the hashtag politics i also invite you to join me on twitter at laura schwartz that's all for this edition of politicking. about your sudden passing i've only just learned you worry yourself in taking your last wrong turn. you're out caught up to us we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could spy right these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each time . but then my feeling started.