block of america once he was the support to anybody america so it took having already as i see joe watkins in philadelphia there's a central contradiction or a dichotomy here isn't that he says he's the first president to challenge china on trade and yet flip that around he also says the trade wall was already up and running before he became us president it can't be both well the president is known to make comments that later on are fact checked and and but nonetheless he is trying to underscore his his point i suppose at least by again reaffirming with his base that he's made good on his promise to start a trade war and that he isn't afraid to start one with china especially the try to close that trade deficit gap that currently exists and so he's made good on his promise he wants the base to know that again we're facing midterm elections where republicans stand a very good chance of losing control of the house of representatives and now they stand in equally. big challenge on the senate side where it wasn't earlier suspected that they might lose control of the u.s. senate but now republi

for the united states we have to leave it there many thanks to all our guests today on a tank and joe watkins and pulling in and thank you to you too for watching you can see the show again any time via the web site al jazeera dot com and for more discussion go to a facebook page that's facebook dot com forwards. a.j. inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter handle is at a.j. inside story or on twitter i'm at peace at they'll be one for me peace at all be on the team here in doha thanks for watching see you tomorrow. the environment doesn't know any boundaries what goes up into the environment goes around the world. best the sights are pushed on crowns that it's a very modern way to do. believe me poisons the measure of progress. the domestic population has become organized enough an active enough to be sneaky killers. in their ideas if you will kill people who are more vulnerable to suckle of poison on al-jazeera. one suffer because wealthiest country held together with an iron grip libya is now torn apart everybody wants to have his share of authority and they cannot be ru

beijing i know tangan political and economic affairs analyst in philadelphia we'll be talking to joe watkins republican strategist and former white house aide to president george w. bush and joining us on skype from hong kong pauline loom managing director of asia analytics welcome to you all i know coming to you first why is donald trump saying this well there's a lot of feeling that he's looking to divert attention both from his political problems domestically kavanaugh moeller all the lawsuits everything that's going on there when you're your attorney your. you know your people and your ministrations of turned on you and they're writing books which are very very very damaging to him yes he's looking for some way to do that this is classic drama and you figure out. another target you don't want to talk about russian involvement in the election is to start saying china is out and you know and the proof is in the putting i mean he was not able to turn to anything the ad in the. newspaper was underwritten by china daily there was no subterfuge they were just simply bringing forth their idea a

beijing i know tangan political and economic affairs analyst in philadelphia we'll be talking to joe watkins republican strategist and former white house aide to president george w. bush and joining us on skype from hong kong pauline loom managing director of asia analytics welcome to you all i know coming to you first why is donald trump saying this well there's a lot of feeling that he's looking to divert attention both from his political problems domestically kavanaugh moeller all the lawsuits everything that's going on there when you're your attorney your. you know your people in your ministrations of turned on you and they're writing books which are very very very damaging to him yes he's looking for some way to do that this is classic drama and you figure out. another target you don't want to talk about russian involvement in the election is to start saying china is out and you know and the proof is in the putting i mean he was not able to turn to anything the ad in the. newspaper was underwritten by china daily there was no subterfuge they were just simply bringing forth their idea ab

joining us is the president and ceo of the national urban league, former mayor of new orleans, joe watkinsrmer white house aide for george h.w. bush let me start with you, mark, the conventional wisdom holds that voters vote their pocketbooks. if that's the case, why is there so much democratic optimism about the midterms this year >> because we're not in normal nor are we in conventional times? the truth is the economy's been on this trajectory with about 200,000 jobs a month for an eight-month period the other truth is, yes, as larry kudlow says, wages are rising but it's not keeping pace with price increases the average american is not feeling the full effect and the full benefit and i think importantly, tariffs, chaos, confusion, turmoil, division coming from the white house is what people are going to vote on in the midterm elections these are not usual times. these are unusual times. and i think voters want to sent a message about the direction, the tone, the manner, the style, the rhetoric when it comes to leadership in this country >> joe, if that's the case, i'm doing all of this

feel people saying oh i know it isn't there for more on this we're joined by political analyst joe watkins on skype tremont randolph new jersey he's a former white house aide to president george h.w. bush thank you so much for your time joe we appreciate it so you could be with the speech friday brock obama called out donald trump by name which is extremely rare we've talked about that now going forward he's on the campaign trail but in some sort of perspective what it is for a former president to go on the campaign trail. well it's very unusual for a former president to go on the campaign trail. right after his presidency is now so rock obama's term ended in december of two thousand and sixteen where january twenty seventh fish really and here it is in twenty eighteen years on the campaign trail for democrats he's doing that in part because dollars jumpers really called out the obama administration and worked hard to overturn a lot of the obama policies and so i think barack obama feels a real need to respond to trump and especially given the fact that in the midterm elections democrats s

. >>> let's britain in cert leena maxwell, joe watkins, former, appeared rick tyler, also an msnbc politicalbout you about use you are former boss in the next seg metropolitan, rick, but first the department of justice officials telling msnbc news that it was just a joe. how seriously should this be taken? >> i don't know. it's questionable. i'm reluctant to doubt the veracity of the "new york times" story. however, rod rosenstein, why would he even be talking about the 25th amendment. that's something that has to do with an incapacitated president. because all the cabinet members and the vice president would have to agree. so it doesn't seem plausible, but i do think he does have a win here. i don't think he will fire rosenstein. >> and then trump can use this again him to fulfill his dialogue or his narrative that this is all a great witch-hunt. >> how seriously do you think this should be taken? do you buy the idea. we have to keep in mind when this allegedly happened. this was in may within the ten days of fires -- the doj was in shock. >> absolutely. i do think in the context of not onl