tv Meet the Press NBC September 9, 2018 10:30am-11:31am EDT
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resistance at the white house. the fear, bob woodward's explosive new book describes a nearho mutiny in the white against president trump. >> this woodward book is a total -- it's a total fraud. these people, libel laws, libel laws the resistance, an anonymous white house official wting that colleagues are working diligently from within to frustration rts of his agenda andist worst inclinations, the president calling on the justice department to investigate. >> i think it's a national security matter, they should look ait, they should look at it very strongly and we should find out who it is. >> is president trump in charge of his own white house? plus the supreme court,
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brett kavanaugh says very little, while protesters and senators. >> there is clearly rule that applies. >> then apply the rule and brinh the ges, bring it. >> take the spotlight. my guests this morning, counselor to president trump, kellyanne conway, republican senator ben sasse of nebraska and democratic senator dick durbin of illinois. > also, gues who is on the campaign trial. > you need to vote because our democracy depends it. >> and guess who is listening. but m sorry, i watched it, i fell asleep. >> joining me for insight are analysis abc news correspondent katy tur, democraticrn pollster l belcher, danielle pletka of the american enterprise i and erick erickson, editor of the resurgent. welcome to sunday. it's "meet theress." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, th longest running show in television history, this is "meet the press" with chuck
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todd. >> good sunday morning. it's not every day that we have rds and phrases likehese thrown around so freely here in washington. constitutional crisi 25th amendment, sleeper cells, polygraph examinations, nervousa own, orange jumpsuit and administrative coup d'etat, but that's what happened this week when we retreated to two disturbing accounts of white house dysfunction, a one-two punch describing top officials working quietly to thwart a prident they see as uninformed, unprincipled and perhaps unhinge first came bob wood describing aides so unnerved by president trump's impulses that they have taken to swiping papers from his desk. "the new york times" printed an extraord op-ed he is say in effect confirming woodward's reporting that senior officials are working secretly to frustrate the president's worst inn coli cases, quote, americans should know there are adults in the room. weully recognize what is happening and we are trying to
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when donaright even trump won't. in other words, the call is coming from inside the house. much of this isn't shog shocking, with he knew from the chaos fromy michael wolf, ope rosé and own own reporting. we didn't knowse theor staff was working at odds with the man that the voters elected. it rses the request he is the president trump is control of his own white house. >> is itvesub sion? is it treason? it's a horrible thing. >> president trump is fuming, intensifying his campaign against the author of that anonymous op-ed who claims to be iart of a group of administration off working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenan d his worst inclinations. president trump accused the times of treason and on friday he called on the atoorney generainvestigate. >> if he doesn't investigate it will you fire jeff sessions finally. >> we will look and see what happens. i think it's a national security matter. t,they should look at they should look at it very strongly
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and we should find out who it is. why should we live with smebody the white house who is really subversive. >> as a parade of officials, dozens athe top of mr. trump's government rushed out public denials promising it's not them. >> i wilthanswer your oer question directly because i know someone will say, gosh, he didn't answer the question. it's not mine. >> that is just nuts. nuts. of course i have nothing to do with this. >> they ought todo the honorable thing and they ought to resign. >> now multiple sources describe the president's ve as volcanic. >> they have to step back d ask themselves why is this madness going on. >> back on the campaign trail for democrats, even former president obama criticized the anonymous op-ed. >> they are not doing us a service by actively promoting 90% of the crazy stuff that's coming out of this white house and then saying, don't worry, we're preventing the other 10%. > the op-ed follows a new bombshell book by journalist bob woodward. >> this idi woodward who wrote this book. >> like the anonymous op-ed the
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ok is filled with anecdotes of senior officials working to put up guardrails in the white house nd keeping information documents from mr. trump. including one incident where formermi econoc adviser gary cohen describes stealing a letter off the president's desk to preventim from withdrawing from a trade agreement with south korea. >> i would fire a person so fast if he ever touches my desk. snatched from my desk. this woodwar abook is total fraud. these people. libel laws. >> and inside theis white house president is only becoming more isolated, even from some of his senior st af. >> i thi of us have witnessed the fact that, you knowwhthat people work around the president do work constantly to keep thing in the middle of the road. >> joining me now is counselor to president trump, kellyanne conway. . conway, welcome back to "meet the press." >> thank you, chuck. >> let me just start with to geo
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you to r to the central allegation both in woodward's book and this anonymous op-ed that the president isn't fully in charge of his presidency how doou respond with that? >> i totally disagree with that, so do general kelly, general mattis and other people that have come out topush back on quotes attributed to them. i think general mattis' denial denied vant for what he and also what he affirmed. in denying that he would ever use con temp use language against the elected commander or tolerate it in the very last pentagon that he oversees. he also affirmeom histment to the successes in the defense and national security space that the thisresident has hieved. general mattis mentioned that the isis caliphate is all but gone. he mentioned that the pay raises the first military pay raise is quite a while, that defee policies are received honorably and alicably on capitol hill. there are tremendous differences, tremendous gains.th k the president's consternation probably derives
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from the fact that we always have a handful of sources and this is like the fifth consecutive book where it's basically few people. we why should we take your -- why should take your word for that? you say -- you said five books, i will go with we had the michael wolff, omarosa, various reports, now you have woodward and the anonymous op-e you say it's a few people. that's a lot of - are you saying a few people are the source for allf these faults? that's a lot of people. >> -- somebody who above board met with bob woodward to figure out what the book was about or how i might help and came back and took that to the white house as we all know. >> did you stop the president frompeaking to bob woodward. >> i did not. >> he seems to think there was a disagrrement in that rding. he seems to at least indicate he wanted to speak with bob >> and he said this week it wouldn't have helped. >> but he did want to speak to him. >> the president likes to speak to everyone. >> did you just not bring the requt. >> no, i on tape saying
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exactly what is true, which is i brought the request back and it was rejected. >> to the president? to the president? >> i also -- >> to the president? you're not answering whether you brought the request to the president. >> i didn't bring the request to the president directly and the president said she could have because she has direct acces to me. all that doesn't matter, this does. what the president said about woodward matters. he said, bob, i hope the book covers this boom economy, the labor, wages, manufacturing jobs, construction. you can't deny and even somebody's poison pen in anonymous op-ed or the vitriol un all day long on some stations can't really touch the corners all across thi country where people are feeling the feel mic boom, where they safer and more prosperous. you can't touch it. he has given skrois and visibility to follow, who felt invisible and nforgotten. >>fairness, actually, the unnamed person who wrote this, because it's obviously not anonymous toe somele at the
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"new york times," theon unnamed peid write don't get me wrong, there are bright spots. effective derisulation,ric tax reform, a more robust military and more, but theses succesve come despite not because of the president's leadershmp style which is tuesday, add ver sail i can't remember, petty -- >> that is the intersection of arrogance and ignorance. in this person had the kind of courage and skills that some of us do,'d the come forward. you would put them right in in chair today, you would haveou cleare the whole round table if that person would come forward. i'm sure the would get hero's welcome, but why, chuck? you are a long time and responsible person. would you have given anonymity, uld nbc ha felt comfortable doing that if it turns out it's not a true senior administration official? why are we em bug credibility and authority to somebody who it?n't earned we can't run around all day saying facts and truth and transparency and credibility.
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if w are i'm bug credibility to every anti-trump messenger that comes along. o>> what kind west wing is it that everybody is quietly, gary -- >> everybody is not doing tcut. me, everybody is not doing that. >> okay. more than a handful of people leaking anecdotes, venting their frustration. >> you real lying a lot of peopleedave been fout and fired, other people left on their own accord. it's tough to not be -- >> let me ask this -- >> it's not for everyone as the resident has said, it's not for everyone. >> who runs the staff? who is in chargee staff? >> the chief of staff. >> is the chief of staff doing his job. >>yes. >> if there is r so maue leakers. >> put down as pro general kelly. >> who are these people who dot listen to him. >> don't listen to whom? >> general kelly. >> these are people in books and in, i guess, anonymous op ed's, i'm notkn sure the the president or john kelly, who are, i think, motivatedco by eit and deceit and that
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person is going to suss out himself or herself bes use cowake criminals always tell the wrong person, always confess their crime to the wrong person. >> do you trust everybody you work with right now. >> yes i do. >> why? >> i will tell you what happened this week. the team tightenedp even more because of all this, folks who don't even workca together be they deal in different portfolios, different issues, folks who don'tac knowother that well, some new, some have be around since thempaign like me, we are tighter this week because we are so joined in ououtrage and, yes, i hope the person -- i hope we learn the identity of the person, but why elevate the person? m more interested in giving voice and visibility to folks -- >> do you understa the president doesn't trust the staff right now? >> i think the president should ve real concerns about having large meetings with sometimes there are people included or who are substituting for other 'tpeople that maybe he doe know well and i think every president deserves to have a leak-fe --
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>> sure. >>- anonymous op-ed free type of white house. >> are you going to fire these leaks if you find out who they are? >> there are some leakers who are long gone, they are justle ing no you to authors and books so they're long gone. actually, thu's gotten better. i think that president trump deals best in psaller gr because he loves to hear dissenting opinions, disagreements among his stafan d he will have somebody who is for this and for that on different si s of the spectrum on a particular issue, but he knows he is the democratically electeprcommander andident who ultimately makes that decision. that's leadership. somebody surrounds himself or herself with people who disagree but who try to brief the president properly. you are not covering all the good things. i mean -- >> let me ask this, he called it treason, why is it treason, the op-ed writer? >> it depends. if this is somebody who has access to national security information and the president hashemade clear doesn't want to be in a meeting with somebody china, with russia,
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north korea who has access to that type of information and then is using it. how do we know what the -- >> what is it in the op-ed that would make it treason? >> what mak you think how are we secure, chuck, that the four corners of any a op-ed all that somebody that -- who doesn't have the guts and the courage to come out a put their name to that -- to that op-ed, how do we know they haven't promised other things? how do we know they are not taking other documents? we know early on it was leaked the president's calls with the presidents of mexico and atstralia -- >> we are not war with anybody so you can't really accuse anybody of treason.ot we aret war. >> the president is saying -- oh, come on. people are open talking abo the 25th amendment and impeachment. such nonslose. at the spectacle on capitol hill this week. brett kavanaugh will be confirmed later this mone and willeated before the october 1st supreme court term because that man is as qualified and dignified today as he was when he was first i know you want to avoid that, but -- >> i'm not a viegd anything.
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>> all this is noise ultimately in history. brett kavanaugh will be there for decades. >> the president of the united states wants the general to investigate. what law was broken here tha a thorney general needs to investigate? >> it depends. there could be and there could not anbe. so you don't know that and i don't know that. >> so he wants -- so he hasde d the attorney general -- >> nobody is investigating an op-ed. the s he ordered investigation of who wrote this op-ed? >> i won't talk about that. he has said publicly that he thinks we should find out who is person is. i don't believe in giving this person so much elevation and oxygen, but we all wnt to know who it is. >> it's possible he has given an order to the department of justice to investiga? th >> he has said publicly what he feels. you can roll the tape. he said it several times. >> i understand that. should it be taken -- should the attorney general take it as an order? >> if the attorney general, the partment of justice and fbi feel like they have oversight on a matter like this they will make that decision. >> does the president believe gh they have over >> what the president believes is that nobody wants to cover
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what america sees an feels because of his leadership. there is no denying -- there either are or areot 201,000 jobs created, yes, wages and bor and growth up, yes, yes, yes. we were told there was going to be alobal recession. president obama preend around what's he going to do with a magiwand, he going to create jobs and he's doing it without a magic band. he refused taxes, he deregulated when president obama added to regulations he doesn't believe in some phoney red line in syria where weave aumanitarian crisis. this president responded swiftly and dee sis ifl against assad when h gassed his own people not once but twice. >> did he ever suggest toar secrmattis kill the guy? >> i certainly never a heard it. >> it's possible he said it in gist. >> general mattis has decide bat was said in thatk and i want he err everybody to read his denial and affirmation. there is a reason people like
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general mattis and general kellh are servin president. they very much believe in the agenda, in a strong military and peace through strength, in trying to bring denuclearization, getting out of the wrong headed iran deal. benjamin netanyahu in his orssage is crediting this president being a great partner. this president kicked out a nazi, kicked out a nazi that other presidents refused to and e moved the embassy to jerusalem, keeping the promise of many presidents. thanks for having me. >> wow. you even had wrapping up a thank you. kellyanne conway, we will leave it there. joining me now from the other side of the aisle is democratic wip dick durbin who sits on the judiciary committee. senator edurbin,ome to "meet the press." >> good to be with you. >> let me start quickly on this issue of the op-ed and the president. what should congress' role be? if there is an unelected cabal of people thwarting the will of
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the people and trying to stop the president from doing things that he campaigned on ing, for instance, ending a trade whatment with south korea, is the role of the legislative branch in dealing with a troubling -- potentially troubling situation like that? >> well, of cours there is a formal role. congress under the constitution has its own authority, but it is an authority that is exercised in the extreme. the 25th amendment, the question of impeachment, but i think there's a more important role for congress to play and especially the president's own party. this is a matter great seriousness and gravity. we should not be dismissing it.n it like his blizzard of bizarre tweets. we are talking about consistent reporting over and over again abouted untable, unprepared, unstable behavior by this president. in a matterre of national security and defense, can we trust this president to make the proper decision?
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to make a thoughtful decision? thes tare things thatnk should be addressed by his own party but instead we hear the silence of tlambs. they are basically quiet, have nothing to say when it comese o thents except for a few, bob corker is one of them who stepped up and said a few things. what concerns you more, there is an unelected cabal or the reports that come outh frome anonymous sources? doesn't the president deserve to have a staff that doesn't -- not just disparage him this way at times, but stops him fromly actu doing the job that he believes he was elected to do? >> well,, of courut you have to ask yourself what kind of circumstances in the white house would even give rise to this possibility? under president obama eight t ars without an indictment, eight years with major scandal, you know, they had their problems, every presidenco does, buing that went to the heart of the question about whether we have a dysitnctional house. if we do, it's inescapable that thpresident bears responsibility. he's the one who gathered this team, he's the one who tries to
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keep them together and yet there is genuine fear obviously among tsome of themt his behavior is going to result in some terrible things for america. hearings. move to the kavanaugh you were -- you are on the judiciary committee, you were there for all of it. is it problematic to you that arit's possible the gs are going to be known more for the decratic and republican senators' infighting than any of the questioning of judge kavanaugh? >> well, i can tell you that judge kavanaugh in an earlier tfe used to school judicial nominees of what say and not say before the judiciary committee and it was pretty obvious in his performance there. there were pracced evasions and mind numbing repetition of answers. he knewow to get throu two or three days of questioning. >> is that on him, senator rbin, or on democratic senators not asking enough questions and not staying o focused only this issue of roe, for instance? >> i can tell you we were
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focused on roe, focused on the affordable care act and denying health insurance coverage to millions of americans. with he tried to go after the e fundamental isd the one i think is the most important at the moment in history and that is what this man, brett kavanaugh, would doon the supreme court if he's confronted with a question involving the white house, theueller investigation. >> you believe that is more important -- senator, that's interesting. you believe that is more important than roe issue and the abortion issue? >> well,e i think they ar all of heportance, but the issue of moment clearly is this situation with the mueller id estigation e important element that we shouldn't overlook is that kavanaugh has beenex icit, explicit in saying the president should not be subject to investigation or prosecution during his term in office. aneven went further in amazing statement saying this president could deem thgs unconstitutional even if the courts found otherwise.
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i mean, th is an amazing ceding of authority to the executive branch which you don't expect to hear from someone aspiring to the supreme cou. >> let me ask you about something forming president obama said about the rising energyon the left with progressives. he actually issued a bit of a warning to progressives and i'm curious of your reaction to it. here it >> there are well-meaning folks, passionate about social justice who think things have gotten so bad we have to do e same things to the republicans that they do to us, adopt their tactics. >> and want to connect it to a story in "politico" from friday. under the headline harrison booker borrow trump's tactics in supreme court frackcan i say, floating an inn send naer charge with little to no factual basis can force the opposition to pro of a negative. it isn't the details that resonate with base voters it's the how. fair critique?
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>> i can tell you this, recent book "how democracies die" talked about beyond the obvious, yond the values of america, beyond the constitution there's mutual tolerance and forbearce theep this democracy on track. e think what the president has said and what i ag with and i think my colleagues including senatorske b and harris would agree with is that we need to be more civil to one anoth need to obviously do our job, but at the end of the day we need to have a focus on the fact that this country moves forward when we do it in a positive way with mutual tolerance and forbearance. i will tell you we have not seen that from this president from the beginning of his campaign through his presidency. >> but the whole fight fire with fight, youurould tell democratic friends, you know, don't do that. i mean, look, senato harris on wednesday night implied there was something nefarious about brett kavanaugh and the mueller probe and then the next day it was like, no, nothing to see here. >> well, i can tell you what she
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said, she had heard what she thought from a credible sottce that bavanaugh had had some contact with this law firm, she asked him, he saidow i don' ll the members of the law firm, he was caught rather flat-footed.xt by the n day he came in and categorically denied it and she said tt's the endf it. that to me is a responsible way to ask the question and to accept the answer as delivered der oat i think she did the right thing. what happens next, thothh, is we need to get into the issues of the moment. >> okay. >> and try to find ourselves away from the personalities. >> senator dick durbin, democrat from illinois, thanks for coming on and sharing your views. much appreciated, sir. >> thanks, chuck. savannah guthrie will interview bob woodward tomorrow morning on the "today" sh. when w come back the white house dysfunction. and later the one bihing that ♪ i was able to turn the aircraft around, and the mission around,
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welcome back. panelists here demratic pollster and nbc political analyst, cornell belcher, danielle pletka, nbc news correspondent katy tur and erick erickson a wsb radio host and e had core the conservative website the resurgent. welcome l. katy tur, did we actually learn ything new this week about how donald trump runs the white house? >> no, we didn't. and this is the thing about that op-ed, it only underscored what was sawa in the wo book, which only underscored reporting that many outlets had done including nbc which underscored the themes in the omarosa book and the "fire andfu " book and the same thing we knew during the campaign. this idea that suddenly people e worried about the president is just not new. they have been worried about him since the campaign. i had countless conversations with sources duramg theign who went on to work in the white house who would say things like, this man is fit for office, this man is dangerous, this man is going to get us into world
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war iiand those people went on to work in the white house and then started talking about how great he was. so this is -- what they say publicly and what they say privately there has always been a push and pull like t ins is the beginning. >> i should -- we did put together a scroll of all t deniers of writing the op-ed and we will put that over there erk, becauswe know the president does keep score. he has been following who has put out statements who had their press person put out a statement instead of them putting out a statement. by the way, nikki haley decided to wri her on op-ed in the "washington post" -- > which apparently has caused controversy in the white house. >> i feel like we've learned a lot more about everybody else in thwewhite house this k, not about the president. >> i think that's a fair statement. th workingry is like murder on the orient express, each of theon deniersibuted a sentence to the op-ed. >> by the way, that has been my theory, it's o person but speaking for others. >> yes, you know, i thk that's true, but i think there's a misperception out there that president trump's voters don't
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believe this. i think it's actually they don't care. he is beating all the people who they've wanted toot beat on sides, not just against the democrats, they have put him in the white house because he spoke for them, he gave them voice. they don't care about this. we can -- >> they almost think it's funny. >> yes, they do. >> they almost are amused by it, aren't they? >> they like that washington is auside down b they feel like washington turned them skrup side down. >> listeng to kellyanne i actually got afraid, i was fearless for the first time. i don't want to be a partis go after the white house on this because god help us, ch we actually have a national crisis because that's keystone cops over there, right? su dysfunction and a congress that sits by and twidless its thumbs, i'm actually fearful for our countrys that we have t level of dis function in the executive branch. if we do have a national crisis, how do we deal with i if that'
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over at the white house? >> danielle, that has beenthe split personality in my head about this. this is disturbing on onea because unelected cabal, they're also painting a picture of somebody who inot fit for office. there is no good evaluation here. >> well, there's no got outcomew but i agrh katy, i don't think we learned anything new about the white house. ere's always the exact same theme which is it's not what happens, it's how donald trump reacts to what happens that causes th trouble. that is really the challenge every white house, i don't care why, people every white house has had officials in it that have sought tong do somet different than what the president says. that's not the problem here, the problem is how donald trump reacts. >> does the president needo assert publicly, though, that he's in charge? i mean, look at the number of people that krit -- i want to put this up here. the chief of staff is quoted as calling him an idiot, tfe e secretary says he has the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader, a former economic adviser calls him a professional
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lawyer and rex tillerson the former secreta of state used f'ing mpron. ident obama had to fire stanley mccrystal when he was -- when his staff was humiliating vice president biden. there was this sense of the commander in chief has to assert himself. doesn't the president of the united states need to assert himself. >> who is he going to hire to put in these places? 25th this case it's the floor of the trump tower. >> the reason why those ring we've been use hearing the same thing over and over for years now. these are not new terms, it's not new to say he has the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader. we heard that before theai ca. we heard that before he was running for the white house. if he fires john kelly, if he fires members of his cabin, there ar very limited number of people who are willing to come in and take that plac than the 25th floor of trump tower. there's a very limited number people who would be qualified for that job to take those spots. >> part of theroblem you're dealing with here is republicans like to tell themselves this is a deep state conspiracy against the president.
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this is republicans against the president. republicans donald trump put there because the people that had surroundedim early on weren't competent to do those jobs. you have the mt competent people willing to do the job in place, you can't afford to lose th people. >> some people are attacking the anonous as not heroes. i'm actually going to be a democrat and say i'm very happy that ty're there and they're doing this. i am, yes, disturbed by what appears be a soft coupe. our democracy isn't perfect, it's the best thing going but it's not perfect andearly something happened, with as a mistake, and i am thankful that we have adultsm in the r who will check the works of this president.ow i t sounds odd, but i am grateful for it but i'm also terrified. >> but this is a slippery slope, danielle. >> the problem is what you just said is thatou are afraid and yet you're glad theseguys are there. you know, if we are willing to accept that kelly and mattis and pompeo and bolton are responsible adlts who have g
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more or less and good moral standing and are here to do the right thing and serve their country then we don't need to be afraid. i think that's the right ays. we don't need to be afraid, but the person who wrote this -- >> i'm afraid. >> you can be afraid. em there really is a lot of concern among manyrs of the administration, senior members of the administration, then i think there is a responsibility to democracy, period, to come out and say what that concern is and to put your nameben it and m to do it in a group so it's not just one person. if they are as senior as they say they are -- ben sasse -- ll, ben sasse told hugh hewitt the other day that this is nothing that is new. he has heard these same things around with white house officials now for two to threewe times a k. i mean, it's not just reporters saying it. >> you're right about it. >> it's ben sasse saying it. >> the problem is i talked to a od friend of mine who does work for the president, loves the president but says this guy whoever wrote th has made their lives extremely difficult now because they've done this the ole time, thepresident suspected it, but now he knows between this and the
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book he knows and it's going to make their job even harder.om >> if you doout and i hear you on that and agree to a certain extent, but the moment you brought up ben sasse' name, you brought up ben sasse' name, i'moing to let the man speak so, the whole world is talking about ai. big, bold promises like... it'll transform the human race! it's gonna solve unsolvable problems! it'll find life on mars! but here's the thing. you don't live on mars. you build wind turbines. supply car parts to thousands of cities. answer millions of customer calls a year. like this one: no, i didn't order this. it's terrifying. you run a real business with real roll-up-your-sleeves business needs. and that's why you work with watson.
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>>verepublicans in congress been notably restrained in their criticism of president trump even when they've been criticva in p. one republican, though, who has been willing to speak out at times is setor ben sasse of nebraska. senator sasse joins me now from nebraska.si welcome, >> good morning. >> let me just -- >> thanks, welcome to nebraska. >> yes, si let me just start with asking you an extension of a question that hugh hewitt asked you the other day about the anonymous essay. your initial reaction was similar to mine, you were like, i don't know how to talk about it yet, i'm still processing it, but you a noted it's very similar to what you hear from oout two-thirdsthe senior people at the white house.
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so you've had a couple of days to digest, what do you make of it and what bothers you more, the unnamed cabal of people thwarting the will of the people or the allegations themselves? >> yeah, i -- i don't think that either/or works because there are lots more us things than those to be worried about. the thing i'm most worried about is our political culture isn't focused on any long-term stuff. elected in t was 2016 because he wanted to disrupt everything and frankly a lot needed to be disrupted, but disruption is toward what end. i've reflected more on the op-ed in the week since it came out or however many days it was. i don't understand the morality of the kntion, i don' why you would do it. if you're worried that the president is too impulsive a paranoid then how can this op-ed do anything other than drive more pair now ican't. to your point, those of you who are trying to help the white house anthe president has surrounded himself with a number of very good people doing good work and trying to persuade him
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to te a longer-term vision, i think those people are doing good work by trying to help the president think a little further down the road. why you wou write about it in in forum, i don't get the morality of that. >> when yo hear about gary cohen yanking a piece of paper off the president's desk to prevent him from ulg pull out of a south korean trade agreement. i know where you are on the issue oftrade, you may personally be, oh, good, but the campaign campaigned on ripping up trade deals. this was what hepromised. where are you on that? >> yeah, so i think we need to be talking about why there's so ch job disruption because there are more than our grandparents knew and people goknew 100 years and there's going to be even more in the future, but it's not because of trade, it's because of automation. i would like the president to understand that trade is good, trade helps producers, tde helps consumers, but individual advisers don't get a substitute eir judgment for the president's judgment what you
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would like is the president to put a chief of staff in place to lead a policy process where a in president ca a dispassionate way deliberate about lots of information and lots odve and wisdom and counsel and then he can make a long-term decision. one adviser shouldn't be substituting his or his or her with is dom for the president's, but there shld be a process in which the president gets counsel. you think it's important for the president to publicly stabilize his staffing situation in the white house? becausit certainly looks a little dysfunctional to thepu ic. >> you know, i don't have any desire to beat the president up, but it's pretty clear that this white use is a reality show, soap opera presidency. i mean, thehe dam ma is drama of omarosa and cohen and manafort and thehe drama of woodward quotes and the drama of these op ed's. what you wld likeis the president so not worry so much about the short term of staffing but theis long-term ofon casting for america. pull us together as a people. help us deliberate about where
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we should go and build a team of big cause low ego people around you. right no it feels like there's way too much drama every day and that distracts us from the longer term stuff we should be focused on togeth. >> you sai something that rang true with me when you said the following on fox on friday. take alisten. >> the congress is a broken institution. we don'tib date about long-term things. you all have an important role to help narrative what's happening in american life, but senators shouldn't aspire to be pundits allay every day. >> megan mccardel wrote the following, said sasse has precisely diagnosed the problem, but american will not recover. ben sasse has become well known for his public statements on character and constitutional order while doing relatively little on the legislative front. have you founde the sen that you can't do what you thought you could do when you ran for the senate? is it because the body itself is
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dysfunctional? >> i think there's dysfunion in both of these main two branches, the legislative branch and the executive branch. i'm proud that we got a piece of legislation passed last month that i offered -- authored on the cyber slayer yum commission which is to try to upgrade american military planning for the cyber age. that kind of stuff is really important and it should come out of theutlegislature, frankly to really focus the attention of then ameriblic on it you need the bully pulpit of the white house. the president has put good people in around him, general paul nacasi is a really thoughtful long-term thinker andudos to the president for promoting him, but we need both the president and ngress and presidency to be focus on helping the american people understand theocus of cyber war. the bigger thing we need is a discourse partly led by theab president stuff that's ten years in the future not ten hours in the future. right now most of d. is just addicted to short term media cycles and we need fewerin peop
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ongress who are that obsessed with tomorrow and that obsessed with their own inn couple bensy and more obsessed with the future their kids and grandkids will grow up in. >> the other thing you said in the wake of the memor honoring john mccain, you said the best thing to do would be to passul meanin tough ethics legislation. e looked up and right now probably the most comprehensiven ethics legislaappens to belong to elizabeth warren. i throw it up here and i'm curious what you thi she proposing a lifetime land on lobbying from former members of anngress, presidents and agency heads, a on senior government officials from owning and trading individual stock, a permban on lobbyist donations to congress and all elected officials and candidateo federal office be required to disclose their tax returns. it sounds familiar to some of e rhetoric you were espousing on this. >> yeah, it's interesting. so i'm the second or third most conservative person in the senate by voting record, but i'm not particularly partisan.
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i don't care very much about these two parties because i don't think either of them have a lobu-term vision,t there is a number of things here that senator warren and i would agree on. a i haiece of ethics legislation i'm going to be introducing that also says that all tax returns and presidential and vice presidential candidates should be disclosed, with he shouldn't have any of this near insider trading happening by members of congress, we shouldn't have cabinet officials spouses raising funds from foreign sources. we should have a longer ban ori cooff period on former lawmakers going to lobby. we are about as far apart on t political spectrum on most things, butn ethics things i think we might see eye to eye. people across the political spectrum don't think they can trust their lawmakers to ever want to go back to our mt. vernons, to go live among our neighbors and coach little league, instead peo office to want to get to d.c. to become lobbyists and get rich while in atoffice. a crisis and that should stop. senator warren and i should talk
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topic. this >> all right. very quickly, you had floated on twitter that you sometimes think about dropping your party.'t that you dlways feel like a republican, you said it again just now. how likely it that you woul leave the republican party? >> you know, i've said for -- i've been in office for, what, y three and a hars and i've said since i got there i conceive of myself as an independent conservative who happens to caucus with the republicans. i would like both of thesee parties to healthier and be competing to be better than the other one amongst a bunch of good ideas instead of trying to be less bad than the other one and always sayw you're ante, ante, it's just not big enough. i'm committed to the pty of lincoln and reagan as long as we can reform it and get it back to being about a party that's about the universal dignity of all americans and the first amendment as the beating heart of american life. right now that's notat w the party talks about very much. >> senator ben sasseho caucuses with the republicans from nebraska, conservative independent from nebras will use your description there.
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sorry about those huskers yesterday, but they look leye e coming back. >> thank you for coming on. >> we will be back soon. when we come back, nike and colin kaepernick, turns out nik ve known what it was doing when it just did it. ron! sohlly? g's go rg on at schwab. thank you clients? well jd power did just rank them highest in investor satisfaction with full service brokerage firms...again. and online equity trades are only $4.95... i mean you can't have low cost and be full service. it's impossible. it's like having your cake and eating it too. ask your broker if they offer award-winning full service and low costs. how am i going to explain this? if you don't like their answer, ask again at schwab. schwab, a modern approach to wealth management. it's no longer enough to be fast. so it's no surprise that the company that led the charge to fast, who built the nation's largest gig-speed network, is already moving-beyond. beyond wifi that just connects. to wifi that thinks about what your customers want.
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welcome b data download time. former 49ers quarterback colin kaepernick who launched the nfl's anthem kneeling protest against racial injustice was annound as the newace of nike's just do it campaign. this sparked outrail on the right with folks take to go social media to burn their nike products. there were attacks from president trump directly and predictions of doom after nike's stock price initially dropped out $3 per share. a closer look shows nike mayac ally understand something critics don't about its consumers. according to data from simmons research democrats are 14% more likely than the average american to buy nike shoes, republicans are 12% lessy.lik african-americans are 56% more likely to buy nike than americans on the whole. whites are 14% less likely. and americans age 18 to 34 are
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37% more likely to buy nike footwear, a group also more likely to support the kneeling . protes in 2018 where everything seems to be political, some voters a fine with companies entering the fray. data from the research firm sprout social shows that of% self-described liberals say it's important for brands to take a stand on social or political issues. while not as high, ari ma of conservatives 52% say the same thing. so despite the outrage, the numbers suggest, num one, nike knows its consumer base is young, diverse and lithral, mayb did a little research first. in fact, online sales for nike 31% this week. i think they did their research is a group more likely to view kaepernick as a cultural icon than a villain. when we come back the midterm elections are coming up and there's only one thing that nctters. >> ann: coming up, end game and postgame, brought to you by boeing.
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election day, i would say the big sortt of developm the week, the conventional wisdom development of the week is, hey, oh, by the way, the senate might be at play and that might matter more anway. this morning mick mulvaney who is has 17 jo in this white house including budget directioner and the consumer financial protection board also did some fundraising last night, an audio that apparently every major news organation got their hands on. he said the following about the midterms igeneral, he was talking about the texas senate race and other senate races and he goes, look, you may hate the president and there's a lot of people who do but the certainly like the way the country is going, adding about voters, if you figure out a way to subtract from that equation how he feel about the president the numbers go going to lose his 17 jobs at some point. >> is he anonymous? >> wow. i mean, you know, out of the mouths of the babes, this is absolutely true. people are happy wiio the dire the country is taking,
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people don't listen to the president, but for those who listen to the president, they are upset by what they hear. right. it would be awesome i we could just subtract the president out of the whole equation in the er mi. >> supply executive producer is a big fan of the buffalo bills, th could beat the patriots if they could figure out how to get rid of bill belichick and tom brady. >> you do have a president with storical low numbers. the number i think interesting missing in the "washington post" that we didn't ta about you now from9% a 4 plurality of americans hong congress should start impeachment now. you have 63ho want congress to check on the president. you cannot -- i mean, the president is front and center in all these races but what's interesting is democrats aren't running ads president. if you look at all the cohetitive house seats, tey are not running ads about the president. >> i don't think they need to. >> exactly, we don't nee to. >> josh holmes, it was funny, it was like a point, counterpoint, he did write about trump or said
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thist i post, his presidency is everywhernd nuance message. what doesn't directly involve hims drowned out by a complete avalanche of news an pundit tree. you have to run with him or no >> you absolutely do. republicans right now are thinking there may be a large blue wave in already blue areas, but the numbers seem to be shifting. if they're shifting as dramatically as it looks that's going to win back the senate bye republicans said we can compartmentalize, this isn't a problem for us, now it's looking like it' becoming a problem. i will say this about theruuture of the presidency, republicans really dislike losers and after four years of saying barack obama, you caused the democratic party to be sla back to th 1800s, that happ,s to the republicans now you're going to have a wake-up call. >> you brought up president obama. his role,ke what do you mf it? >> i think it's interesting. there is the talk that is he going to fire up republicans or are republicans going to want to go out because obama is on the campaign trail. >>wh for thosdidn't see erick erickson is nodding a big
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why he. >> i do think what the mocratic party needs is a leader and somebody who is going to inspire younger voters, inspire minority voters, those who have not turned out in big numbers for thedemocrats since he has left office. is that going to happen with him not on the ballot? that remains to bseen. we know that obama wasn't so great at running in the midterms while he was president f his own party. i do think they need someone to rally around because right now what you are saying although you have 2020emocrats going out and there is all that talk about booker and warre n andmera harris, et cetera, nobody is standing up and taking that mantle and so farnl he is the one. >> this is the thing, when you look at some o these swing districts, right now he's -- he's 15, 20 pointsre popular than donald trump, right. >> president obama. >> president obama is, and when you look at sort of, look, we want -- i worked for him so i'm a teamer, but we want back to back majorities by winning the moderate middle swath america. yes, we overperformed on young people and minorities and democrats immediate that,ut en you look at these suburban
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districts, that moderate middle swath of america, there's no better democrat out there that can speak to. th >> you don't want to remind people, donald trump actually beat an crtgoing deic party, he beat the memory of barack obama. if you want to make thisec on about donald trump and barack obama i'm not sure that that's going to help the democrats. >> would take that a day long. >> i think the question of '16 was it aut obama or was it about hillary and that is something there. >> that's all we have for today. thanks for watching. we will beck next week because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press." >> announcer: you can see more end game and postgame, sponsored by boeing, on the "meet the press" facebook page. ♪ ♪
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