talking political discourse i'm joined by my guests in washington richard goodstein he is a democratic political strategist and a former advisor to hillary clinton's two presidential campaigns we also have christopher baron he is president of right turn strategies and we have rena shah she's a republican strategist and a principal and relax strategies are a cross-like rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate richard you know i'm going to go to you first. hillary clinton's she wanted out of the woods and had a interview and talked about civility which was pretty hard for me to swallow and then a former attorney general kick them i mean i can understand why people accuse donald trump of pulling down the discourse and that would be fair ok but should these two other figures be doing this as well go ahead richard as a point of reference donald trump said to his supporters if you see a protester punch him and i'll pay your legal fees so that's it's kind of

a baseline ok i already richard i did i would i actually gave you i already gave you that i already gave you that ok but why understand why it's holiness and only clinton doing it go ahead get. i would urge your viewers peter to watch the entire interview people like you would support donald trump and others i tell you that one i don't support. i don't well then listen to the whole interview she said we want to be civil but what she's saying is when we're being dealt with in a way that's uncivil when the rules are being broken you know bill clinton famously said it's better to be strong and wrong versus weak and right and i think what she was saying is we democrats have been we can write and we can't do that anymore that's what she's talking about this notion that she's suggesting that people be uncivil again is wildly out of context please i totally and viewers what's not out of context that isn't poor by the way she did ok. the democrats that is what it is

not just one letter in the seat innings really really nice warm fuzzy things and now they're going to play tough go ahead christopher. i was going to say look first off it is hilarious for us for us to pretend the democrats have always been so civil look it was hillary clinton who took the unprecedented step of actually running not just against donald trump but it's running against the people who supported donald trump never before have we had a major presidential candidate campaigning against voters not against her opponent not against his policy won by the kids million she was by through doing precedent and. she's not president i know you guys are so upset about the rules but every time we win you guys want to change the rules here's what i would recommend you do i would recommend that you guys not try to outrun trump because you're never going to be able to do it and it's a really really want to have a discussion about the policy that's fine it's just like the questions i sent out

through my producers this asymmetrical thing this is what donald trump and this does and the democrats don't understand can't comprehend it and don't know how to fight back against it ok. it's also about in washington here i mean if you want to talk about civility i'd like to know what brett kavanaugh its opinion about what civility is in washington today go ahead. well i'll just start by injecting my own opinion is that civility really is dead here in twenty eight thousand in the united states i as i've traveled the country since two thousand and sixteen i've just found pockets where people seem to be more than just angry they literally feel like they've been wronged and something needs to be done about it and i see that on both sides i'm a centrist at heart and what i saw with these cabinet hearings and essentially the confirmation was just all that coming to the surface again a very visceral response from both sides and people just not willing to see the gray area here this was tough for two people dr christine blasi forward and judge

kavanaugh. undeniably judge kavanaugh want out he is now a justice on the highest court in our land and he was able to prevail but you know republicans are willing to leave it alone they're sort of saying you sullied the good name of a man who worked his whole life for this democrats are stomping mad feeling like you know this is just the worst thing that could happen in our lifetimes i'm sitting here saying that when are we have americans going to start acting like americans again and seeing each other for who we are our differences but under saying that there's more that unites us than divides us i'm going to save time and not ask a question go ahead richard go ahead richard. i'm not sure if this is the single worst thing that's happened in our political life time but it makes people gag when the president says at his swearing in mock ceremony he was proven innocent that's a lie it makes people gag to have him say to a rally making fun of this woman who years ago told her therapist about this

incident and told her husband and told others it makes people gag that are present united states already mocked a handicapped reporter mocked john mccain for getting shot down by the north vietnamese mock this woman because when she was fifteen she couldn't remember who drove her there she remembers the bed she never having to hand over her face remember the music being turned up crew member of the laughing at her she remembered having to run out of the house you remember all that and donald trump the presidents they mock sir that is not right and i mean i already lot of going by the way by the way but if you know what chris would hang on here you know it wasn't that he said she said it was she said and they said and they did not cooperate or ok fine only one other person though there was no one corroborated or no one go and i don't even i know if that was a life you guys long ok i know you i know the democrats want blood revenge ok we'll see the midterms christopher go ahead. but if you want talk about

a victim of sexual assault who were corroboration at the time contemporaneously who told people it's what he did broderick who i spent a week with during the cabin are here and who was viciously raped by president bill clinton and by the way we still have democrats out there today defending bill clinton so i don't want to hear anything about what dr forth went through i don't want to hear it in the media and brought it about totally the president trying to. look i'm tell you right now it is a discreet what was done and what is continue to be done by juanita broaddrick ok let me go back to you i think she was under oath when she was under oath sheets and i did christopher go check the record why do i need a brother who is put under i know exactly by the way i do exactly what i don't want to do but i don't want to do the very first time she i don't you know we're going to how we're going to hear about the clintons after the election on their tour ok let's save it for them ok in washington also there. you know one of the things and

being a centrist because i appreciate that it seems to me when i look at the democratic party's friendly media c.n.n. amisom b c washington post new york times i mean do you think that it's in their favor to just continue this trump rage because that's all it is ok and i think that you've already made your mind up about donald trump i mean who in the world hasn't by now ok it seems to me it's counterproductive i can't even watch those two channels because it's they say the same thing twenty four seven i haven't heard from them two years ago go ahead read it. yeah you know so this is where we're at it goes to my earlier point of us just not being able to listen to the other side i grew i was born and raised in southern west virginia which is country how many rallies has the president done out there i go back every few weekends and my family enjoyed great prosperity and the southern part of the state and we still very much love that part it doesn't matter to me that people say to me that donald trump is.

the next you know sort of like a demigod around there let's just admit it and i couldn't be further from supporting this president but look the thing to me is i understand that these people felt depressed they felt like donald trump offered them something and offered them so lucian's to their woes now that's remains yet to be seen right now in this moment the economy's doing great we know this may not last forever but people in my home state of west virginia felt like they wanted something else and clintonian policies and they just didn't feel that hillary clinton like i did really could relate to the plight of the average american woman because she'd been out of touch with it for a while now the great irony there is that donald trump with his billionaire commodes in trump tower. you know look like he was the guy if you asked me could it really relate to the average west virginian either but we have to understand all the points we have to take all point and that's what america is that its core is when we listen to each other and come together to craft solutions when i was on capitol hill as an aide things only get done when you work with the other side in

this moment i was so disappointed to see democrats do you're on the judiciary committee acting the way they did during the kavanaugh hearings because it was it was pure theater and this is what we're doing we're doing a disservice to american people when we get on platforms and just talk about really again the ugly side of things let's talk about what we can you know what i mean the economy is doing right now and i'm happy for that it's very you know richard it's really interesting apparently over and over at c.n.n. an embassy in d.c. you can't use the word mob right now when referring to the lot of the protests violent protests that we've seen over the last few weeks here but that's the difference between the two americas right now it's in the eye of beholder some people say it's a protest other people say it's a mom getting back to what mina said how do we how do we bridge that gap because i look at fox's coverage of it and it certainly looks like a mob to me richard go ahead. so again donald trump is in fox are using this mob notion because the always need. and other m s thirteen it would be alexandria

ocasio cortez of donald trump could pronounce her name so it's maxine waters it's hillary clinton talk about locking her up locking her up so many people around donald trump his campaign are going to jail and brought so they talk about the mob because they need and there's something to scare people with well the mob they have to worry about are the mobs of democrats who went to the polls during the primaries and look like they're going to be coming out the general election and that's the mob that i think trump and fox need to worry about yeah but you know it is let me go to christopher before we go to the break here but that's what they said about the tea party didn't they right exactly was known to many of them a lot is that what you thought when you saw that we have them here when you saw that too when you saw the tea party would when you saw the tea party gathering and being upset about the policies of barack obama and what was happening in washington we heard about how awful the tea party was and how it was a mob and now we have actual mobs out there banging on the doors of the supreme court throwing things at people attacking people we're seeing violence and we're

not supposed to call it a mob it's pure gaslighting be honest about what it is it's ugly it's absolutely ugly right and you shouldn't be trying to turn a blind eye to it and you turn to i got to go to i got to go to a hard break here after our short break we'll continue our discussion on whether the mob rules state with r.t. . you need to lead the audience you need to let people decide what is the relevant to them you don't need to filter the self censoring so john author self censor themselves he believes he knew better he believes you do the work the needs or these folks and that's self-censorship which is such a and this is completely wrong and this is why we have been sleepwalking into the next financial crisis how john off there's been a gonzo journalist i've been a property the new. generalises eve how do you how do you not self censor himself

as this next crisis unfolds people would be better prepared to deal with it but they won't be because the failure of fake journalists like a lot of. this is credible. and soon they need to actually physically hold it out of the ground you would have well well. there's a lot of money with the oil and with that comes. a lot of a lot of people from all over the country. if you don't make a hundred thousand dollars a year. as a minimum there's an issue. here maybe. they were told sixty dollars a day it's hard work for the workers not used to work and so they want to relieve

their stress and how do they relieve the stress these men that outweigh these men that comfort these men that. people have been murdered up here people been raped their massive drug issues up here you have a boom you have everything else that comes along with money. and your own pal. coming up out of a gun type of time told paul enough. in film put in there is a trade in young girls sold into an underground six in the street sometimes but the people who trust the most. time and it's not a lot. welcome

back to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing whether the mob rules. let's go back to remain in washington one of the things that's come out from this whole spectacle i would call it because it was pure theater and it was really quite disgusting and i think you know i can and i can agree or variety of reasons why it was disgusting and fair about that there but you know how is the how are the american people supposed to accept this because it seems like it's you know not just chaos on one side but it the entire political process is here i know richard for example has been very critical of the electoral college that's a fair point but it's part of our system it's what we have right now can we have

a normal conversation say wow it's kind of a two hundred years ago when the country was very different and maybe we should date our institutions here i'm not saying should be done because it weren't then you just have these archipelagos blue archipelagos on the west coast on the east coast and they'd run the country that's not the whole country but i'm open to a discussion but we know here that go ahead. well the middle of the country is why i think we have donald trump entirely is because there were mistakes made by the clinton campaign and sort of discarding those states the fly over states right and when you discard and dismiss exactly some of america you just don't understand you don't understand what it's going to take to really bridge us and bring us together so what i'm going to say about this is that yes this moment is tough for all of us i think especially as a woman in two thousand and eighteen i just i was a very young girl during i need a helen clarence thomas but i thought we were better than that i would thought we were better than talking about this stuff in

a public forum and having people really just lay into people for for what they're feeling because we talk about feelings a lot and being careful about you know respecting each other's feelings in a modern democracy what we saw was just completely disgusting on both sides i had mentioned what i saw from democrats performing what i thought was just art in motion but look republicans were also at fault lindsey graham the tone he took and for me i supported judge kavanaugh until i saw him appear before the senate judiciary committee after dr four and i thought his i question his temperament when he said what goes around comes around that really scared me know just is at least the ones that he says that i. shouldn't talk like that that's what's so fascinating about this because i thought cavanagh's presentation was spot on some of the great ones some of the greatest public speaking in my life time a man defended his good name i thought it was remarkable let me go to richard here richard a lot of people uno no actually i don't want to talk about that comment on the

whole thing because i don't have a real question for you i think a good one ok i mean you've been on this program critical of the electoral college we have some democrats leading democrats questioning the legitimacy of the supreme court right now a lot of people on the conservative side would say this is what you liberals do you want to break down and destroy institutions you can't control ok how do you react to that. so the last two republican presidents both of whom got fewer votes and dollars from case way fewer votes than their competitors are responsible for four of the nine justices on the supreme court did they win the electoral college they did i will stipulate that we can be is it fair to say the american public voted for donald trump to do x. no because most people voted for hillary clinton or jule styne who was even more liberal or a lot of them voted for gary johnson who agreed with clinton's time so i would say way more than half of the people voted for the policy is quite the opposite of

donald trump so it is you know we've got a one man they have a constitutional amendment to change electoral college know why because right now seventeen percent of the u.s. public represented in the senate by these small states can basically get judges confirmed they make up fifty one of the senators ok and but they would you also need them to get a change electoral college that's just not going to happen so democrats aren't braying at the moon to change the electoral college they would like to see more people vote counting as opposed to fewer but the reality is what it is that hillary ignore certain states and miss kind of campaign of course she made mistakes that the russians and komi voter suppression all that help that didn't help her either ok all right we're still waiting for that big report ok anyway christopher and can i mean richard comes on this program very often and i consider him a friend ok so i'm not dismissive of him but you know again you know it's like the

liberals moving the goalposts post all the time here i don't care if it's the administration and it's immaterial who won the popular vote because we have the electoral college it doesn't matter ok that's the rule two seventy you win ok nothing else matters here so again you know this perception if you don't like the institution how it works it doesn't work for you because you want power. were you dismissive of it don't know you want to change it or get rid of it go ahead christopher. and by the way that's what that's what we've seen from democrats and first off donald trump won seven of the ten largest states in the country so this idea that he only won because of west virginia and kansas is ridiculous secondly we've heard them say that the electoral college is flawed we need to do away the electoral college it's not fair it's not fair how the senate works we should have more proportional representation it's not fair the way the supreme court is currently but you know compromise we need to stack the court you know expand it to eleven or thirteen justices at the end of the day democrats should try winning by

the rules that we have in place now and if they can't they should admit that the reason they want to change those rules is because they can't win by the rules that we've all agreed to play by for the last couple of hundred years it's simply absolute ridiculous to me here the democrats come up with excuse after excuse after excuse after excuse about how fundamentally the problem isn't them or their candidates the problem is our institutions i think that is fundamentally wrong. recent polls have shown let's talk about that saying go ahead now that's the point of the program jump in go ahead. you know i just have something as something constructive to talk about and i certainly don't mean to sound a jest or at all sexist but i mean there is a problem with women being represented in our federal government especially when we are comprising more than half of the u.s. population so i've been working on a lot of things to get just more women across the political spectrum involved in u.s. politics at all levels because i think more women will lead to

a stronger democracy but something constructive we could do when i was sitting here watching all this in the u.s. senate and i just thought to myself we need term limits i mean a lot of these people are so out of touch and just not with it they don't either they're not using technology the way that most americans do they've been comfy in their jobs for a very long time so a lot of the they're not willing to take risks a lot of the decisions i make are rooted in can i come back i'm going to be that is . i'm going to be fair if these people are and elected if you like them or not people do. and i think that will slowly but surely have to do to maybe on a slightly different point i remember when. facebook was test of testifying in front of a congress most of the country didn't even understand how facebook work thing so i get your point in not being up with that oh i had a thousand questions ok but we're rapidly going to richard richard here. and going towards the midterms it looks like the democrats are going to just double down on

everything they've done since two thousand and sixteen is that wise is that winnable go ahead well. i would say every pundit and i take myself out of that in washington just look at the polls district by district the democrats look like they are likely to win control of the house of representative into generally something that would have been impossible and hillary clinton won we wouldn't be talking about the democrats flipping the house the question would be can republicans get sixty votes in the senate now looks like they may be kind of in a struggle to kind of hold their own i think what democrats are going to talk about is not impeaching not impeaching kavanaugh but about health care and whether people with preexisting conditions will or won't get coverage donald trump would have the answer be no we're going to talk about corruption and more importantly i check on donald trump it's not about how horrible it is and i'm mocking handicapped people or women it's the fact that they feed him in gauging in a way that they want somebody in washington looking over his shoulder and right now

there is not so that i think why democrats are going to win control the house ok chris threw away in on that because there does seem to be an indication again i'm holding my breath because the polls got it all wrong in two thousand and two thousand and sixteen so who knows what's going to happen here but there seems to be the republican base is seems to be coming out of it slumber ok it's getting a little bit more energized the kavanaugh thing certainly energized a lot of people for me personally it was one of the most horrific thing public spectacles i've ever seen in my life i could not believe my eyes it was so horrifically horrible in so many different ways christopher. yeah i would say one thing if this election were held in july democrats would have picked up sixty to seventy seats in the house it would been a complete and total wipeout the democrats can't get any more juice out of that lemon essential either most voters were as motivated as they could possibly the cabinet hearings were a complete and total political mis played by democrats i talk to campaigns all

across the country republicans are seeing a surge in enthusiasm they're seeing motivated republicans something that by the way not many republican voters have been motivated you know it's almost not good by the way i don't damage the moron that's almost an oxymoron imo to motivated republicans. right now yeah absolutely like yeah i was going to say look republican voters are motivated by trump and trump space is not motivated to go out and elect a whole lot of republicans in the house and the senate who quite frankly haven't done a good job of pushing the president's america very good job in the kavanagh hearings motivated and mobilized people i'm telling you i'm seeing it all across the country from campaigns i'm talking to where they are getting inundated with volunteers people who've been sitting on the sidelines who are finally stepping up and see what is really at stake in this election and i will tell you this much if the democrats win back the house in november you can guarantee donald trump gets reelected in two thousand and twenty it is the absolute best thing for the president's reelection is a speaker pelosi. that's

a rigid thought about that go and everybody was not going to go see you last minute come on. he really wants donald trump wants democrat take over the house and he can blame it on a polo say ok let's be honest and i will i just want to lay it out here donald trump is not a republican republican donald. and i agree that for himself and what has happened is that americans across the country felt the energy i remember driving in two thousand and sixteen and getting nervous when i was working against the president and again i'm a lifelong republican what i thought hand made signs in southwestern virginia i mean these were not signs distributed by the campaign from new york these were signs that were painted by. supporters i mean this is this was a movement and i think now america is grappling with like what do we do with this guy that is shaking things up in such a way that it's scary to those of us who really care about institutions and the freedom of the press and other such things that he seems to sometimes in danger but he is not all bad and i don't know that we can ever get to that moment where the

left can even acknowledge some good that he's done because we're just so divided so here we are in a moment where we're going to see what happens with the midterms but i think what are exactly the youth votes going to come through peter we'll see at the midterms many thanks to my guests in washington and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.c.c. a next time and remember crosstalk. join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. i've been saying the numbers mean something they matter to us is over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten dollars timestamping each day. eighty five percent of

global wealth you long to be old for rich eight point six percent market saw thirty percent is one of your home with four hundred to five hundred three per second per second and that one rose to twenty thousand dollars. china's building two point one billion dollars a i industrial park but don't let the numbers overwhelm. the only numbers you need to remember is one does not show you know for a minute the one and only. made. it's manufactured to sentenced him to public wealth. when the roaming clubs assume protect themselves. when the primary go around lifts only the woman was told. to

ignore middle of the room signal. going to the real news room. when i was a child's seemed wrong when all the roles just don't know all. the world yet to shape out just they become advocates and engage equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.