to mitch mcconnell's thomas about a concern of a deal d.g. briggs a troll i think mitch mcconnell is doing his job his job is to be the chief fundraiser to make sure that republicans have enough money to be able to defend their seats but if you look at these seats one by one as you mentioned i worked for senator cruz in a sixteen campaign working for his in his eighteen real act there are four seats on the democrat side there are more likely to go republican in two you get to the first republican seat likely to get go democrat and those are in north dakota heidi heitkamp is likely to lose to kevin kramer in montana jon tester is likely to you lose to matt rosendale in indiana joe donnelly is likely to you lose to my braun and in missouri you have claire mccaskill likely you'd lose to josh ali and so you get through those four before you get to the first republican competitive seat which is a nevada so i gotta say i really like where we republicans sit right now far more than i would like it if i were democrats and to be clear that's not usually the case it just so happened because we're coming off of the reelect of those who the democrats who won in a very difficult cycle in two thousand and twelve where democrats pick up

a lot of seats that you know in the republican states where trump won last time so i guess i think mcconnell's doing his job but it's republicans are good shape right and. i think chris is right i think mitch mcconnell is just doing his job his job is to raise funds for republican candidates and so he's doing his job if i had to venture a guess i would say that democrats would probably take the house i would say that right now i think the senate is probably in safe hands with republicans i think chris is right you know for every race that a republican could possibly lose that democrats could flip the reality is there's a couple of seats there that republicans could flip in their favor we're talking about montana we're talking about north dakota we have a very interesting race here in tennessee where phil bredesen the democrat former governor of the state of tennessee he is up consistently in the polls against marsha blackburn the republican congresswoman and so we have

a seat right here in tennessee that could very easily flip to democrats that would be almost unprecedented at least in recent history in tennessee but i think chris is probably right i mean again if i had to venture a guess i'd say democrats take the house and probably republicans hold on to the senate curses ted cruz and dravot. you know i think better orcus running and history race and certainly raising a lot of money but i think one of the reasons why you have democrats and other states struggling is because the work is cannibalizing the national fund raising ted cruz will be fine texas is a republican state he has led in every single poll that has come out both public and private that i've seen but you know it's one of those things where it's good to flex your muscles it's good to have to run a competitive race and i think ultimately the senate will be better be with ted cruz sitting back in again in twenty nineteen chris is a good conservative and strong republican. are you concerned or does it bother you a little above bob woodward's book see here. that you know i. should.

say it does bother me i think others are a lot of reasons why does bother me but i want to be can with you larry i haven't read it yet i've read the excerpts i did download it you know used to be you go to the bookstore and buy it i downloaded it as soon as the became available and had every intention to start last night but i fell asleep instead so i could be honest but having said that i think you know bob woodward has made a career off of a really solid journalistic. success seven years ago and since then he is really further that career by writing books that are very critical of republican astray sions and very and do a lot of praising of democratic ministrations and i the my challenge the problem i have with this book from what i'm aware of or right now and i want to keep stating that is it really seems like every time he writes about a republican ministration it's from devolve little bit further into gossip and we're really almost the kitty kelley version of what's going on ministration and so far i haven't really seen anything that comes out from a press perspective that michael wolff didn't write about beforehand and so from that standpoint i would love to come back on after i finish the whole book and get

a full credit but am i concerned about what he talks about yes am i concerned about the truth behind it i think that's the bigger issue because it's already being sort of disavowed by some of the sources behind it in the same way that michael wolff was and we end up with another fire and fury remake here then we're all going to be real disappointed when it's whenever we're done talking about it right. have you read it. i have not read the book and the reason i haven't read it larry is because it's not telling us anything that we don't already know about the trump white house let's think about it larry what is bob woodward telling us in this book that amorosa didn't tell us in her book what it all rossa tell us in her book that fire and fury didn't tell us in that book what did fire and fury tell us that people like rex tillerson john kelly jim madison mean all of these people time and time and time again whether it's administration insiders whether it's a journalist whether it's a writer each and every one of these people are senator in tennessee bob corker they all indicate that this is a white house that's in total disarray and that trump is incompetent and he's not

up for the job now is every single one of these people lying if every one of them is lying well they're really good liars. those are the good so you marly about what's going on. no you have that was the logical you have done some good. there certainly there's certainly a painting of disarray and i think where i would maybe separate a little bit in terms of feeling about how i feel about it the clear morally is i don't have an insider perspective of exactly what's occurring and i am the last one to cast aspersions on you know what's one man's disarray is another man's a manner of staffing and i heard josh holmes who is mitch mcconnell's former chief of staff go on talk about this weekend where he said they were it was a comment about papers were taken off of the president's desk were good sign them and josh said well some of us just call that staffing and i had to chuckle

a little bit having worked with a lot of elected officials that i think there are a lot of things that go on behind the scenes whether it's in the senate in the house or in the white house that would give all this discomfort the differences we're almost living in a reality t.v. type of environment right now in that the twenty four hour news cycle the proliferation of internet news has driven us to where we are looking for the salacious story of the day and i think that feeds these books in a way that we didn't see in past white houses and i think until we have a comparative point of view with it in terms of what was going to bomb a white house which were didn't do that he was only full of praise for the for the obama white house is a little different for us though sit here and pass judgment on it i will point out though there are more jobs available right now in the united states and there are people looking for jobs we have an economy that is rolling into a period of unprecedented growth in the some extent if that's what disarray brings about is a more money in our pockets and more jobs for people in the united states well you know that's probably a little bit when trump said was coming to washington with dollars from got elected he said he was coming to shake things up there's no question he's done that he's

definitely doing things differently or did you make of the op ed piece run in the sun. well again much the same here larry you know the question is being asked who would write an op ed like this and what are the repercussions of an op ed like this i think a better take on it is from my senator bob corker from tennessee who earlier this week said i think the question we should be asking ourselves is not who would write this op ed at this point of the game who wouldn't and bob corker is one of the few voices in the republican party who from a very early day was sounding off on his concerns inside the white house that time and time and time again whether it's people like rex tillerson who bob corker was very very close with it was wrecked teller's rex tillerson it was one of the first republicans to voice his concerns about trump's mental capacity his mental stability and this week you know i chuckled when bob corker said instead of asking who would write this op ed at this point who wouldn't i think he has

a pretty good point. presumed from discussing the hurricane florence said that's. easy to do on some success if you agree with that. it's difficult for me to grant to the status of success and to any situation which you have a lot of peace as many deaths as took place in puerto rico and i do think there were challenges vista that you know i as you know larry i do a lot of work in the state of texas and i do think donald trump's reaction in the white house reaction to hurricane harvey was a significant success i think the president's reaction to a lot of national and natural disasters has been a success and it's clear he has and then a reverence for first responders that hasn't that didn't exist in the white house for the last eight years and so from that i do think there's an appreciation from president trump and the white house to the people we're going in responding and

a commitment to making sure that we are dealing with hurricanes in disasters in a way in which people are taken care of and like i said i believe the reaction of hurricane harvey was a success i think you know that's maybe there were some lessons were learned from puerto rico that allowed for a better or for a more improved reaction to the next one that came along and hopefully what we're what we're going to experience of florence and and i pray that we don't it doesn't reach the level what happened with with puerto rico with harvey but you do can you can see a pattern of improvement there and one that hopeful that in self to whatever to whatever happens a sustained and well handled reaction brian to using google is a success. larry i really don't know what to make out of a comment like that the fact of the matter is we now know that three thousand americans and by the way they are americans it's worth reminding the rest of us that puerto ricans are american citizens three thousand of these people died in the aftermath of that hurricane to call that an incredible success is not only tone

deaf it's insane now the fact of the matter is i'll be fair to donald trump the fact of the matter is that puerto rico has a lot of its own problems they have a lot of government corruption down there and so the first line of defense should be the puerto rican government and unfortunately for the puerto ricans their government is in disarray but the bottom line is the buck stops in the white house the buck stops with the federal response trump was pretty good i think chris is right you know the response in texas was pretty much ok but to call puerto rico an incredible success is it's insane it's a slap in the face to these people who are americans and deserve more support from us brian stay right there we'll have more politicking right after the break.

it's a rush and it's. in a world of big partisan movies not use and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time. to fight for the middle for the troops the time is now we're watching closely watching the hawks.

in russia and. i'm trying to say that all in reality if we take action for through the actual like energy efficiency the new energy. actually generate the more money and the more jobs and they were higher the gross including social media but short of that suck it up i mean you reap what you sow if facebook and google are biased against republicans well guess what fox news is biased against democrats rush limbaugh is biased against democrats we all know this that's the way it works today larry i

know i live with the fairness doctrine for a lot of years chris and i tell you it worked you think we gave you what was what is what was wrong with giving equal time you know i am not larry i can't speak to the fairness doctrine is not something i have a lot of familiarity and it sounds like you and brian do i will say from a standpoint of right now to say the fox news or to imply that fox news somehow has the same level of power penetration that facebook and google do i think is a bit of a misnomer i think the the difference is in terms of the amount and share of voices coming out of those but again to be clear i don't feel like we're far apart here i do not believe at this point the government should get involved i don't think that there should sort be any. government regulation handed down on on facebook google i again hope that mark zuckerberg would do what he said he would do when he was in front of congress and we're for the senate sorry that he would oversee this himself and make sure that there was a fair administering of the way they handle exact i do believe the free market is the best way to deal with these issues and so let me just say that's what i hope is

the end result here is that a good idea to meet was kim jong loon again. well larry i'm questioning why we have to meet with kim jong un when the last time we met with kim jong un trump told us that the problem is solved he literally tweeted out americans you can sleep easy tonight the nuclear threat in north korea is over and the negotiations were a success now of course we all knew that was a sham we all know it's a lie but you know at the time people who brought this up and said i don't know if i would trust these north koreans we were all shouted down we were shouted down by trump and his supporters and here we are a couple of months later shocker there's been no developments with the north koreans there's been no advancements and this is played out exactly as i would have anticipated it playing out kim jong un you could say a lot of things about kim jong un one thing you have to say about him is he's smart he's a very smart guy he's diabolical he's a murderer those are as bad qualities while he is he's

a pretty shrewd guy and he knows how to play donald trump like a fiddle and that's exactly what he has done why do we need to meet with him again when the problem was already solved what do you make of it chris you know it's i am not to go so far to say is everything is a failure it was all a disaster and he should have ever met i think there is value in us having conversations there i do i think you've got to look at the positives the pauses are there have been a nuclear test since the first meeting and when he had his military parade there were not missiles used in that parade now those may just be those may just be aesthetics and trying to trying to appease us but i do think i hate to say that oh we just should meet because if there's no chance for success clearly we're getting more more done or there's we're moving forward to success right now but we were in the last eight years of obama with the whole doctrine strategic patience the amount of development it was done for their nuclear do their nuclear weapons program during that time period is really the challenge we're having to deal with right now

and why this is taking as long as it has so i don't i'm hesitant to say that oh they should never meet again i have discomfort with it so it will probably get. author on this issue that we are far apart but i am hopeful that the meetings and the conversations are going to get us farther along than just the obama doctrine of strategic patience piers and brian is always thanks so much for your time today thank you larry thank you larry. the white house says that north korean leader kim jong un is asking for another face to face meeting with president trump this is the international atomic energy agency and other watchdog groups warn that north korea has not abandoned its nuclear weapons program as the world was led to believe following the single poor summit for insight on this we turn to gordon chang expert on asia and north korea columnist for the daily beast he's also the author of nuclear showdown north korea takes on the world gordon joins us from new york

kim jun lin is asking for another face to face what do you make of that gordon well i think what kim wants is really to prevent president trump from changing america's approach to north korea you know since the end of may america's policy towards playing on has actually been very kind and favorable and i guess kim is starting to see that there are people around president trump john bolton the national security advisor mop mike pump aoe the secretary of state and others are basically arguing for a change in posture so my guess is it basically that kim would like to make sure that trunk continues this generous policy. north korea recently celebrated its national day with a series of massive spectacles but the kickoff military parade did not include ballistic missiles from cold is very positive do you see it that way. well is is

better that they don't test missiles and don't test nukes but we've in the past had long periods where the north koreans haven't tested anything but they've continued to work on missiles and nukes so just because we've had a couple months where there's been no big event that is not really indicative i think that in the parade what they want to do is to continue their charm offensive and that charm offensive larry is not only directed against the united states it's also towards south korea because kim would like mungy in the south korean president to shovel even more money into the hands of the young young regime so was his aim kim jong un overall is it's a keep ballistic missiles is it not is it to come together what would be once his goal you know i'm sure his goal is to keep both his missiles and his nukes at the same time build links with china russia south korea even the united states alternately of course kim wants regime survival and right now he's getting

a lot of what he needs so he wants to preserve the status quo which is actually quite favorable long term the one goal of the kim family that hasn't changed over seventy years has been the take over south korea and right now he has in moon jay in that south korean president he is someone who also wants unification and so this is a very favorable time for kim jong on a time where he can really make progress on goals that his father and grandfather his predecessors were not able to make own of torx going goods we know and then some of the korean. well those are actually going to go very well moon j.n. is going to pianka on the eighteenth of this month and right now you know moon is opening up his liaison office in the case on industrial complex which is this area just north of the militarized zone which separates the two koreas when that complex had been open in the past you had south korean light manufacturing operation shovel

somewhere in the neighborhood of ninety to one hundred million dollars a year to north korea and so kim would like that opened again boone wants it open but there's a problem of u.s. and u.n. sanctions and so at the particular time i think that kim wants to get on his side to gang up against the united states according to bob woodward's new book fear trump in the white house former economic adviser gary cohn snatched the leather of the president's desk if sign would have was drawn the united states from the u.s. korea free trade agreement known as chorus what do you make of that. the that's really interesting you know president trump wanted to renegotiate course and a lot of people in washington regardless of their political party also wanted the same thing what trump was different i think than from everybody else was that he was actually willing to terminate that agreement as

a bargaining ploy you know as it turned out chorus was renegotiated but there weren't really that many changes so you know at the end i guess gary calling got what he wanted and trump went along with that so you know at this particular time you know it's sort of scary but it may be worked out for the best russia recently launched this law just never military exercise several thousand chinese troops taking part in this is trouble you oh it's certainly very troubling what it shows is that the partnership between beijing and moscow is as strong as ever and they've been cooperating in the military sphere for a number of years in two thousand and sixteen they actually had a much smaller drill but which was even more scary and that was the russians on the chinese practice island seizing missions and that of course was a warning to everybody in the region this particular exercise vos stock eighteen is massive almost three hundred thousand russian troops and clearly what they're

trying to do is to say to the united states you know that china and russia are on board against you so you know we should take this and really worry about the consequences gordon thank you so much oh it was great having you oh thank you larry gordon chang and thank you for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politic hash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking.

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was before. much of those who heard it's a preview or most few other movies to see him with the north we will forgo. that move the bulk move but it. will show you the sneak preview of the liberal media since the glitter of good the . more muslim also his girls will give you films for good girls. to go to shows a look but look you just seem you belong here to show your story to the you should go. to startups to hold off some to the to meet until it was the littlest they'd say look it is it's. just us them understand statistics not it's the mash told. to stop the president on the screen trying to talk to students .

those who have produced a ghost in this world to sniff them little knew it because that was the cousin with you sir your supporters to your ship station shouldn't for you should cook dorothy one who's devoted to the request. watchdog announces that it will discuss reinstating the russian anti-doping agency is a member declared non-compliant in the wake of the twenty fifteen doping allegations . but his foreign minister reiterate moscow's willingness to cooperate with britain

on the script in the case but not on the principle of assumed guilt so after some strong reactions from u.k. politicians. you see.