tv Meet the Press NBC September 17, 2018 2:30am-3:31am EDT
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>> she just turned 50. athink about her li what's next. this sunday, historic flooding from hurricane florence. >> i've been here 20 years a this is the worst i have ever seen. g> hundreds without power. so many be rescued. >> i think people thought they could ride it out. they didn't realize how high the river would come. >> the worst the yet the come. plus, manafort flips. president trump's one-tim campaign chief pleads guilty and agrees to cooperation with robert mueller. >> mr. manafort has accepted responsibility. >> candidate trump brought m
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manafort in to rescue his na noon. and praised him for not making a plea deal. >> this whole thing abo flipping, they call it.lm itt ought to be outlawed. >> what can manafort tell prruecutors about the tower meeting? what does he know about trump it's campaign onnection. and could trump still pardon him. adam and schiff and allen dershotz. wall street columnist and the host of the s news hour. welcome to sunday, it's "meet the press." haveood sunday morning, we
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two huge stories this morning, the floodingrom hurricane orence, what fema calls a mike tyson punch to thena caro coast. and paul manafort's decision to plead guilty and coopete with the special counsel. but first, hurricane florence has weakened to a prom depressioicprom -- tr depression, rain continues to fall, up to 30 inches inli north ca, and the threat now is catastrophic flooding which may last more than a week more. $700,000 are without power, and tens of thousands are staying in helters. 13,000 defensepartment personnel are supporting fema and 1,200 search and rescu personnel have been deployed. multisections of i-95 will
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closed. and rescues are still ader way by a aboat. and more th50 4 residents have been rescued after more than 10 feet of storm surge. >> i'm going back for her. guneed help with this guy. hey, s, can i have a little help? >> it was horrifying, juster wog what's going on and where the water's going to go. >> i have lid here 20 years and it's the worst i have ever seen. >> joining i me now the mayor of new bern, north carolina good morning, sir. >> good morning. >> yesterday you announced on the city website that all water rescues has been completed. how out of the woods is new bern? how concerned are you about return flooding, if you will? >> we're very concerned. a lot of the creeks around new bern are creasing by the hour, we have some folks that their yards are starting to get water because of the tremendous amount
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of rainfall from the other eastern parts of north carola that is coming in to new bern now by trent river, bryson's creek, noose river. >> what is i that residents need to prepare for? on one hand they think oh, all the ware reter rescues are dones is going to rerecede. are you worried about the water coming back? >> we're worried about the trees that are going to fall because of the saturated ground aconditions. urging people to stay at home and not travel. we are a curfew in new bern, we have 30 roads in but new bern that are still not passable. we have 40,000 homes in new bern that have been damaged. we have over300 buildings in newt better than te damag bern.
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now we have had to go to the downtown area and caose it down e of the number of folks that are just wanting to get out and ride around. we're t trying to getse power lines up. please, don't get in the way of the electrical linemen as they do their job. >> we have an opportunityheo speak to people in washington, so i'm going to give you an opportunity what, do you need in terms of the federal response in new bern. >> president trump and i oke onsterday and he immediately declared a declara emergency, and governor cooper has given us those resources to get the recovery processes under way. we have 1,200 residents in
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shelters right now. and so at this time, again, the major concern is the power line restor restoration, getting the power back to our customers and keeping folks off of the streets so that we can restore the power. when you'reing around, you're keeping somebody from getting their power back on. ease don't do that. and anybody that wants to help, a lot of groups are comingin, the firemen's association, and different groups are coming int rn so we're staging that as we speak. we have a big stage area for 18 wheelers, we're working on a center in new bern, the omega center to drop off neednd water and other things. >> sounds like you've got a pretty well coordinated response on the ground there mr. mayor. mr. mayor, thank you for talking with us for a few minutes. i know youave to go and run your response. joining me now is fema
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administrator, brock long, mr. long, welcome back to "meet the press." >> how are you doing, chuck? >> we know this is a water event, there's a lot of floodin' issues that dealing with. i know you anticipated catastrophic flooding, is it as anticipated? are there areas that are worse than expected? are there areas that are better than expected? >> the national hurricane center did a phenomenal job of letting people know nearly a week in advance of what was coming. and everything they have predicting, the storm surge, the ocean rising, the coastal flood inundation was rising, you saw the ocean rise anywhere from 9 to 11 feecaing a lot of damage along the coast, and in the back areas of the pamlico
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sound. we're seeing damage as predicted, unfortunately. >> what is your biggest need right now? what is the biggest there right now? >> right now we're focused on life safety search and rescue. our urban search and rescue teams, we prepositioned 1,300 peoplehe from national guard, to local swift water rescues, they have performeveral hundred evacuations and rescues in outlying areas. in light of what we're seeing, we're going do to service people in outlying areas that are surrounded by floodwaters and it's always a difficult lifu stainment mission. people are in shelters, we need to make sure that we're meting e demands and taking care of those people in the shelters. but right now, you've got a strongrn go in governor
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cooper, and we're meing their demands. it will be ugly, but we'll get througryit. recos always a very frustrating proposition when they have lost their wevelihood, bue going to be okay. >> obviously it takes a little bit longer to start recovery efforts when you start with a flooding situation, that was what happened in houston with harvey. how long do yous expect t flooding event to hamper the biggest part of this disaster recovery? have to wait for the hazardous elements of the storm to exit the area before we can send our people in. we never want to put our o people in harm's way. the frustrating thing about flooding in north carolina, you have toaitor the flood to recede in order to go inand start rescue. you know, we have to do things
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like figure out other logistical routes to get supplies in to impact others on the coast. now that the threat is diminishing and moving >> a reporter asked a simple question about what lessons were learned from puerto rico. >> sure. >> and the president went off and didn't accept the premise that there were lessons to be learned from puerto were there lessons to be learned from puer rico? >> i think the president is being taken out of context there. i have talk the president every day this week and department of homeland security. we a the thing about puerto rico, disaster response and recovery is a who community tea effort. you have to have anybody from neighbor helping neighbor, like the cajun navy all the way up to the federal government response. ani always say that emergency management is like a chair with
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four legs. one leg represents the fedel government, the other leg represents state and local government. another leg represents tiv e infrastructure. and the fourth leg is you the citizen. so any time there is one leg missin missing-- >> which leg was missing in puerto rico? >> let's face it, i'll be honest, fema was o thely responder for many weeks going into puerto rico. here's whate're doing to change that. we're working with the gdvernor he like me just came into his job and gets itth one of the most complex disasters. i work with the day to say how do we build a stronger emergency managemt capability in the commonwealth and e local and state level. i have got the best of what puerto rico's got to offer, i've
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got teachers, doctors, engineers, helping to provide a more viable economic futurear going fo >> the president has sent multiple tweets. the white house put out a five pageackgrounder citing other death toll numbers oer than the one that puerto rico has accepted. 2,970 people died from the impact of hurricane florence, according to to the puerto rican government. es fema accept that number? >> the numbers are all over the place. fema doesn't count this, and if you take what's ing on with florence, the deaths that are verified by the local county corners, are the ones that we take. what we do our are funeral benefits for thoseo are eligible. those are some of the numbers you can wat f that can be
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cross referenced with any other numbers that are out there. these guys work around the clock, one death is a death too many. >> why does it matter? why is the white house so concerned about 3,000 deaths and another report that might have had it at 1,800 deaths. you have said it doesn't matter, but the white house believes it matt matters. why? >> the one thing about president trump is the one president who has had more support for what goes on back here. he knows how hard these guys behind me workday in and day out in a very complex situation. thearvard study was done differently than the george washington study or this study mbd that study. and the s are all over the place. >> he said democrats imd it to make look bad. do you believe any of these studies were done to make the president look bad? >> i don't think the studies -- i don't why the studies were
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done. i think what we're trying to do. in my opinion we have got to figure out why people died from direct deaths, which is the wind, the water, the waves and buildings collapsing. and then there's indirect deaths. so the george washington study looks at what happened six months after the fact. what happens, even in this even you might see more deaths indirectly occur as time goes on because people have het attacks due to stress, they fall off their house trying to fix their roof. they die in car crashes because they went through an intersection because the oplight are out. spousal abuse increases after a disaster. the presidenhas been incredibly supportive of me and the staff. i think he's the on president who's held two cabinet level meetings to provide support. they come through this agency
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every day, he's very supportive. which is exactly hat fem needs, there's too much blame going around and we need to be focused, chuck, on what is puerto rico going to look like tomorrow. >> final question, "wall street journal" headline, a bit sconcerning for you, saying that the white house considered replacing you as before hurricane florence hit having to do with your use of travel back ho to north carolina. were you aware of this investigation? are you correspondeoperating? >> oh, yeah, absolutely. let me go ahead and clear all off of those. secretary neilson has never asked me to resign, we have a very fctional relationship, we talk every day, we are both focused on florence. so let's put some context on this, the fema position is incredibly complex, you do not want to change jobs with me. these vehicles were prepared to
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reflect -- i havet an import role to make sure that this government works on the worst day. thesecl ve are p s ars are desi provide security communications. the program was designed back in 2008. and it's my understanding that maybe some policies were not surrounded by these vehicles that question will get eaned up and pushed forward. >> you have no plans to resign? >> no, i'm hereto serve my country every day, that's all i do. when it's over, i'm ready to go back home and love my family. >> i know you have to get back towork, director long, thanks for coming on and answering my questions. if youhe want to help people who were hit by hurricane florence, here are four organizations we are endorsing,
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dcross.com. paul manafort agreeing toer cooperate with special county sell robert mueller. ♪ i was able to turn the aircraft around, and the mission around, and was able to save two men's lives that night. my first job helped me to grow up pretty quickly. that'll happen when you're asked to respond to a coup. in 2001, i signed up for the air force. two days later, 9/11 happened. ♪ the kenya tea development agency is an organization that is owned by tea farmers. every week we sell this tea,
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improving efficiency is what we do best. energy lives here. will b >> welcome back. paul manafort has countless connections that mueller can probe. for instance he can ask about the infamous trump tower with a russian lawyer who said she had dirt on hillnty c, why? because manafort was in the room when it happened. and then there's derapaska. there's constantine klimnik
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who's a time russian agent. and then there's the mysterious gutting of a platform. and of course there's manafort's first partner in politics, roger stones, whoars to have talked to wikileaks about leaked ema emails. congressman schiff, welcome back to "meet the press." manafort is cooperating, if you have a chance to ask him questions, what are the first series of qutions you want to assume and what mr. mueller nt >> you've got your president's son trying to get dirt in donald trump tower. you've got manafort trying to get money from this russian oligarch, trying to get made whole. you have the russians who want
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to have a relationship with the trump campaign, they want to help trump get elected. all those interests converge with paulaf mat. so basically we want to know what can manafort tell us about whether any of that was consummated. he's trying to gmo ey, they're trying to get dirt, the russians are trying to help donald trump, was there a meeting of the minds? so that goes to the heart of the collusion or conspiracy issue. >> is it possible that with all this circumstantial evidence, it really is just a bunch of in dences, that paul manafort, in a desperate move, donald trump was ted cruz at the convention, stealing theomination, he's told to hire the manafort guy and doesn't do a background check. what's the likelihood of that based och d on your investigati? >> manafort is the one to help us whether this is the most
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unprobable string of coincidences or whether this was an active conspiracy. what does manafort know,l wh tell mueller anything that he doesn't already ow? >> do you think mknow anything the deal that manafort cut? >> thisen a message to anybody that's -- the longer you wait to come clean, the al, you ore goin to face. this obviated the need for a trial, which gives mueller more time to focus on other things. it ves ay corroborating
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witness who has already seen what happens w yn mess with bob mueller. he tried to tamper with witnesses, he got caught, he went to jail, he better come clean. >> he's been convicted in one court of law, he has witness tampered as you just brought up. why should mueller believe paul manafort. paul manafor seems like he will say anything he can to get out of a m. how do we know that manafort is not somebody who will tell whoever is listening at that moment to get him out of a jam? >> manafo iscorrupt. manafort is basically the swamp. but also flynn and alses g and all of these people. and cohennif co cooperates, all of these folks have pled guil to lying and fraud, they're all tainted witnesses, and so as a yosecutor, you o rely on them to the extent you
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can corroborate them. but often u can, if paul manafort says i spoke to donald trump about the donald trump tower meeting, i a did it this particular time in this particular phone call and you go to the pne records and you find those phone records that corroborates those statements, g you're notng to rely on the word alone, but you're going to rely on w iten you can corroborate it. >> rudy giuliani, the president's lawyer has said that manafort is not disqualified from a pardon. liani also confirmed that manafort's legal team and the president's legal team had a sharing agreement of sts. what do you make of the pardon of rudy giuliani still dangling the idea of a pardon out there? >> clearlythe trump team is terrified about what manafort has to say. >> so you think this is fear of manafort? >> absolutely. they have to know that he may
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not have told them the full truth. and so they're terrified of what he has to say. i thought he would hold out for a pardon, but i think two things, o of the brilliant parts of the mueller team is, is getting all these people to admit to state and federal crimes. even if you get pardoned by donald trump. he gets prosecuted by numerous states, he goes away for a long anyway. but paul manafort had to see watching thee wh cohen saga, that loyalty to trump runson in one direction. you're loyal to him, he's not loyal to you. >> one thing mueller has done is surfaced a lot of, i think,
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dirty and weird stuff that happens on k-stree with the lobbying community. what is congress actually going to do to try to actually clean up the swamp? because they haven't done an hhing. you gue threatened this for decades. >> i think this is going to be a core part of the democratic agenda if we're able toov take the house, which seems increasingly likely. >> youth didn't get ag last time. what did we get? >> if we don't, we won't stay in the majority, and we need to stay in >> because you failed the last time. >> we need to do the oversight, we need to do theoversight that this congress has completely abdictated responsibility, we took the opportunity for to clean up, to crack youp. it's not john omplish eunaccomp.
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donald trump said he was going to drain the swamp and the only person who's draining the swamp is mueller. and we have to make sure there's no obstruction of justice. n> money and alligators always find a way a swamp. >> downing me now is professor emeritus, he's author of a new book, the case against impeaching trump." mr. dyou think that the deal tht paul manafort got is a good thing. >> i think botham fort and president trump acted too late, nafort, if he was going to make a deal, should have made it , he e he was convict would have gotten a better deal. and president trump, if he was
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going to pardon, he should have pardoned before manafort agreed to cooperate. so there's not going to be any pardon now, manafort has a deal. his sentence will reflect how muchooperation hegives. there is always the risk, you know, a man like manafort h to walk a tight rope. if he's caught lying, the deal is offer.er on the oand he knows he gets a better deal if he can help support the narrative of the prosecutor. so we may see, and there's always the risk of that, aju e ellis said that in the first manafort case, some people his they not only sing, they compose, that is they theyrate a little bi remember things a little better than they occurred. and that's the risk to justice that could occur here. >> rudy giuliani seems to think a couple things, number one, hea says let me plite for you from him on friday night, because he seems to think that this deal isn't as bad forhem as others believe. here it is. >> i mean the reality is, there
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was a quote put out by a source close to manafort th the plea agreement has and the cooperation agreement has nothing to do with the trump campaign, quote, there is no evidence of collusion. now i know that, because i have been privy to a lot of facts i can't repeat. but the reality is, novidence ofcollusion. >> even yesterday, rudy giuliani continued to say, according toto sources clos manafort's defense, that this cooperation agreement does t involvehe trump campaign. first of all, what isul rudy ni referring to? is this something he may have learned during the joint -- because they have a joint defense agreement of some sort? >> t joint defens agreement has to be over at this point if he's cooperating. and congressman schiff correctly pointed out, you can't control what you have. manafort is on one side, hesays one thing, on the other side he
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says something else. i didn't known how you y the deal is limited. he deal as i understand it is that manafort will cooperate with anything that the special counsel asks about. there are no limits. is wasn't a deal that we're only going to talk about so-and-so, but we're not going to talk about trump or the trump tower meeting, obviously one of the first questions they're going to ask him, is did donald trump's son know about the ngsubject of the mee before it occurred in order to put pressure on donald trump jr. in order to put pressure on president trump. so, look, i understand why rudy giuliani, who's a good lawyer wants to put positive light.st but this was a very bad day for the trump administration. it's bad because he doesn't know what manafort is saying and he can't count on manafort saying only things that the special owun counsel already and when you don't know what a corroborating witness will say
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it's a bad day for you because you're vulnerable and exposed. >> so yououldn't put any credence in the deal that rudy giuliani or's manafo defense team, you wouldn't put any stock into any of thean asss they might have felt from the manafort team before he cut that al? >> well, i would use that information, if he ever testified to cross-examinatitero testified in-examination. he would have told the trump team to under cut his iedibility, if he says something differen he's lying now, was he lying then, that kind of argument. >> are you concerned now that paul manafort could say that a promised pardon was hinted at. or the pardon was dangled during the joint defense agreement? >> i doubt that. i think theas president pretty
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care in what he said and how he said and what was saidn public. so i don't think that's a real concern. i think the concern is putting together information that the prosecutor knows about but can't connect. we have to remember again, that collusion is n a crime, conspiracy is a crime, but conspiracy requires knowledge. and it's also possible that manafort was alway acting on his own, to make more money. he was using the trump campaign, saying i'll make int hductions, i'p you, but that the trump campaign didn't really know about this. that's a likely explanation, yond the series of coincidences. >> do you think the president has the legal team me needs to take on mueller it seems like mueller has yet to lose. >> mueller hasnd a tres advantage, asda schiff alluded to that a special counsel will come after you
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prosecutors have concerned about flipped witnesses for many, many year prosecutors have too much power to flip witnees and use their testimony. prosecutors have all that much power, all defensettorneys realize that. >> but do you believe the president has the best defense team he needs right now? >> you know, i never want to comment on other people's defense teams, everybody would do it differently, rudy giuliani, i have known him for 30 yrs, i've been against him, i've been on the same side. he's an exthe recorraordinarilyd guy, jay sekulow is a brilliant lawyer. there are several on the team, i will not be among tthem, there will be other lawyers and teams tend to grow and shrink when you have a complicated case like this. but they're up against a very difficult problem, when you have aprosecutor who can give deals, make deals, it's very difficult.
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and editor of national review. all right, we're going to focus on manafort and that development. rudy giuliani put out a statement from the president. he actually out two statements. here's the first one i want to . sh once again an investigation has concluded with a plea having nothing to do with president trump or the trump campaign, the on the president did nothing wrong and paul manafort will tell the truth. and the paul manafort will tell the truth was not included. you don't think thawas an accident? >> i don't think this was an accident. remember, someone who was hired really to work with the press and be this person who's is spokesperson for the legal team. so you have the idea they're very worried about what paul manafort might say, and paul manafort has this deal that he will talk about anything that the government said, so if he tells the truth, that cannot just go to obstruction of justice orthe russia collusion,
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but it goes to the fina ials. the faat the president and paul manafort had some sort of financial dealings that get them in trouble is almost a bigger story sometimes than the russian collusion. because i get a sense in talking to rudy giuliani they're a lot worried about. how about you? >> i think it's makes sense on both sides, obviously paul manafort is not going to improvy his situation in a second trial. and mueller is not going to gain anything by making it bounce while manafort is in prison. the question is what does ma manafo know? what he can certainly help mueller wi is how these very nef farrov nefarious russian operates operation.
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>> paul manafort was replaced along before the election took place.e he was with th campaign for a very short period of time. what a y, for, like, couple of months? a little periodf time. manafort has nothing to do with our campaign. >> but a month ago, this is what he was saying about manafort. >> i think the whole manafort thing is very, very sad, he's a very good person. i have fmmense respe him for what he's gone through. >> you would have expected the worst. >> yeah, i supposehere is a greater fear now of what paul manafor manafort, who was there, who was present at the creation of the trump phenomenon, you know, he ran the campaign, he was a significt player for a while. what he knows is perhaps not fully known by the white house president would be nervous, i have wondered as i think we have all suggested, if collusion
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is not the most interesting question here, if maybe the nexxus of k street lobbying, law firms, pr strategy firms, they will do with the money of foreign nationals and foreign governments, manafort has talked about that since he helped invent that rule. he was present at the creation there. that could of not only be interesting but be maybe a public service and maybe give something of a platform on which congress can finally move, as he mentioned. it?what do you see in the president seems to be -- they seem to be nervous enoug don'tman afort that they want to throw him under the bus. >> loyalty is a one-way stree for him. so none of these people who are
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in trouble now canpe on him. and when you think about what matters when you're a leader of a team. you have to create a team that's loyal to the job and not to themselves. and when teddy roosevelt came in, he said you can't keephose people are, they won't beoy to you, lehe said they don't ha to be loyal to me, they need to be loyal to the job. the greatest leaders build a team. fo seems that this team, everybody's out themselves. s and nobody's out for the country. >> the president is think about his own survival. it seems like owat's always he's thinking. >> it's hard to know because you and i those statement think essentially for a lot of people that trump is acting out of cognizant of guilty.
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he's goith to saygs about the guy who's being nailed to the wall in this investigation whether he's guilty as s or not. >> trump has a history of >> he has a sense of being isolated and feelingery wronged about thise he feels lik his credibility has -- then you think about the people that have flipped. there's pan manafort, there's rick gaetzted gates flynn. >> those are also people that he thought had his back. there's reporting that dav pecker had his secrets in a safe -- at "the national enquirer." the president has to be thinking that if all of these people are talking and paul manafort
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just another name on the long list of people, what a story they can tell. >> the nature of our politics today, we're consttly talking about people flipping and going to jail,e should be talking about the country. >> i thhk perhaps w the president and all of these people who have been indicted or have come under questioning. is that he may not have any deep insight into their nature be'tuse he di really know them. so he alst can't judge where they're going next, the people campaitrump during the were an island of broken toys.du they were indi operatives, their driven by their own drama. donald trump couldn't get anybody else, he couldn't get the grown ups to join and he got what he got. >> for what it's worth,'s trum always built his worlds that way, it's not just in politics,
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comfort. what we deliver by delivering. welcome back. data download so why is all the talk about the midterms suddenly turned to senate actually being in play? you know, there was an assumption that the biggest challenge for democrats in 2018 would be the ten states president trump won where democrats are up for re-election, including some states that went from blue to red, including ohio, michigan and wisconsin. in fact we were talking about republicans were going to pick up in the senate. but right now republicans have failed to putll of those red state democratic incumbents in the danger that republicans wanted them to be in. some races don'tpp even aear to be that close right now. r instance, look at the real
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clear politics polling average, ats have strong leads in all four of these red and blue states. they're neck and neck in othics, you would have thought republicans without have put away right now, indiana and onnorth dakota. he other side, republicans are confident, they didn't have to defend as many i statethe senate and assumed the states they did have to defend werin to be pretty safe. but look at how things have changed, the race ask in thef margin error in arizona, tennessee and isxas. none of eans that the wave is going to somehow wash over both the house and the senate in the same way and the same strength. but one thing is clear, something has shifted in these last 60 days, so momentum is not just on the house side of gs thbut also on the senate. all right, when we come back, leadership in a moment of crisis. ♪
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back now with "e game." all right, we haveis d kearns goodwin, we have a new boo buy you and we have a sitting presidennt and w to relive puerto rico, and this seemed as a good way to kick off this conversation. two things i want to pullut d see if you'll apply them to today. one is stories versus facts. you write lyndon johnson and abram lincoln and franklin roosevelt know that people were more easily influeed by stories than in other way. >> i think what happened here in the whole hurricane situation,
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is that what you want as a president is to gain control of the bynarrative. an losing his temper, because he got angry at new signs of maria that were on the television again, and the criticisms of how well he did, he lashes out at the figures of how many people have died, so that becomes the storynsad of florence, in preparing for osflorence. suhe had gone on the air and saide i mstakes during maria. like when president kennedy acknowledged the bay of pigs and said we made a mistake. and as a result he lost the most important thing for a leader in a time of crisi is to exhibit empathy toward the people who are being hurt andk to t to those people at this time who are still being hurt in puerto rico about howany people died versus how many people lost people, their families, thaey
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lost their wherewithal. it doesn't make any sense,hat ambition was to relitigate the story, he thinks if you tweet about it many times,co it will true. >> you quote lincoln in the book. and i know people are saying, doris quotes lincoln? you quote lincoln and he says withublic sentiment nothing can fail, without it nothing can >> that's what we have to think about today to be honest. en we just argue about president trump and what's going on, we have to look at ourselves and say what was our voting system like. we as citizens havere onsibility for what happens trump. if we can change public sentiment, we ca anything we want. >> there's are problemdent trump created for republicans
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running in the state of florida, rick scott said i disagree with poe tus and with the way he said thousands of lives were lost, this is the political prob nm he created. >> and rick scott has been to puerto rico multiple timings he's outperforming what democrats are done in florida. the president would benefit from the hinsight not everything is about him. a category 4 storm devastate an island, it wiped out the grids, it wiped outthe roads, it wiped out any telecommunications, and i think fema response has been massive and enduring and ongoing, it's just hard to have everytng snap back immediately. in fact it's impossible to do that. >> it i think both of you have said something, it's theword empathy. it's this idea that the
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president is expected to feel bad for people and expected to exhibit that and expected to be this consoler in chief. and it'sthing that president trump has not been able to carry forward. he's sayingr dead people't dead and he's trafficking in this conspiracy theory that he's done throughout his life and it's starting to spread throughout the government becausroyou have b long saying the numbers are all over the place, the numbers aren't all over the place, more than 3,000 people died. and it's hard to say that people who died in katrina in the superdome after katrina, that they didn't die during the hurricane if they were waiting for medical help. if you died because you didn't haveower and your grandmother didn't have power to breathe, she died because of the hurricane. it's heart breaking when you hear the personal stories that you' heard from katrina and maria. >> unseemly,oñ when we are debating body counts.
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don't be politicizing the number who died. t be doing that, don't be arguing and tweeting about it. it's unseemly for a president. just go try to help puerto rico a little bit more, just go try to help north carolina a little bit more. i have rarely seen the pesident try toabove it. >> but how could a person who's president not have that as natural reaction, if you were either born with empat, or you develop it through experience and you learn about other people's lives and you care about him. >> he has many reactions tt are not t normal presidential reaction. >> i think will be the tifinal word and a riddle we have yet t. so tickets are now available for our second annualpr "meet t s" film festival. it takes place on october 8 right here in washington. tickets available right now, nbc news.com/mtpfilm. we'll be back next week because sunday, it's "meet the press."
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this morning, more senators are calling a for delay in the vote to confirm supreme court nominee brett kavanaugh. amid new specific details of allegations of sexual assault when he was a teenager. and florence continues to inundate more of the carolinas following a punishing and deadly weekend of evacuations, rescues, and emergencies. a border patrol agent is jailed on $2.5 million bond after being accused of killing at least four women and injuring a fifth. three new blockbuster studie on whether you should take that baby aspirin for your heart. or not. plus, the biggest games from the n week 2. "early today" starts rightnow. great to be back with you. i'm frances
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