so white nationalism at the very least will be secure in the white house, but -- i know ben fergusons going to make an excuse. >> using the white nationalist over and over again. >> you're not, ben ferguson. >> i deal with facts. i don't think that steve bannon is a white nationalist. i think that's a cheap talking point that somebody at the dnc said to say 25 times on tv, and i hope they send you balloons and cookies after this -- >> one at a time. ben, finish your point. >> i think it's clear you got your talking points down. so congratulations. you're a good soldier on tv but it's not based in reality. steve bannon is a guy that understands the pulse of what got donald trump elected. you know, you can attack him all you want to. and you can say the president was jealous of him. look, i don't think the president was jealous. i think the fact is the president wants to succeed and when things aren't going well he's willing to make changes. that's the reason we have seen a lot of changes recently because he understands deep down things have not been amazing lately when it comes to the

. >>> let's talk more about this with cnn political commentator ben ferguson, also host of the ben ferguson show and rick wilson. he is a republican strategist. great to see you both. >> good to be here. >> thank you. >> so, ben, the big question tonight, there are a lot of big questions, one of them being, does he, should he go after senators mccain and flake on their home turf tonight? how worried should they be? >> i don't think they're worried at all, because everybody knows in arizona how they feel about donald trump. and they've gone after donald trump in arizona. they've gone after donald trump in washington, d.c. and they've gone after donald trump everywhere in between. so this -- there's no secret in arizona that the two senators are -- they are very much at odds with donald trump. i would expect donald trump to get in a couple jabs here and there. that's the sport of politics. i also think, though, the president's going to be really trying to refocus on the bigger picture, the bigger issue, which got him elected in arizona, and that's the issue of border security, immigration ref

matt lewis joins us with ben ferguson. pull the plug on president trump, what does that mean?lking overturning the voters. the voters spoke and he won. what i am calling on is for us to give up hope. those of us who hope he would maybe, possibly pivot, mature in office, it's not happened. john kelly, his chief of staff, a highly respected general can't get him to do it. donald trump is 71 years old. he continues, whether it's russia or the tweets or attacking republicans, including his own attorney general for failing to show moral clarity and specifically condemn, you know, white sue prem schism. he just doesn't have it. it's bad for the country, horrible for conservatism. i'm calling on republicans to do a few things. one, if you are an elected republican, quit trying to, you know, appease donald trump. quit worrying about his agenda and his legacy. go about your business. if you want to pass tax reform, by all means do it, but do it independently. go rogue. don't worry about the president of the united states. i would also urge republican voters and conservatives to primary

. >> joining me now, cnn political analyst and also amanda carpenter and ben ferguson.pril, i want to start with you. you've been through this before with past presidents. what do you think the trump administration, based on what we've seen the last few days, has learned from past presidents and their skafrt response? >> i don't know if this president has learned from past presidents, because there's quite a difference in what we've seen with this president in these last couple of days with what past presidents would have done. john, i talked to -- before we went on the air -- a former white house press secretary who said to me this president does not still understand the majesty of his office and the use of the bully pulpit. you can't use the bully pulpit in 140 characters. but looking back, there's something to be said for institutional knowledge. you know, i remember when katrina happened. you know, we saw the problems, the slow response at the beginning for katrina. but we also saw a president who continued to roll his sleeves up and to try to correct. he made state

we have ben ferguson and scott jennings.s is a former special assistant to president george w. bush. ben ferguson has a heck of a radio show. let's start with north korea. why does this matter? well, checks every box of concern. scott jennings, presidents in the past, obama, he wouldn't even talk about it. i will talk. somebody needs to. how is it working? >> well, i like the president's tough stance on north korea and it's true, actually. other u.s. presidents have made not dissimilar statements to donald trump. at one point barack obama actually said no u.s. president will ever accept a north korean regime with nuclear missiles. that's a pretty clear statement coming from a different administration. i think there's a lot of liberal hammering today about the president's tough talk, but it's not all together dissimilar than what we've heard from other presidents and frankly i think the american people want someone s to stand up to north carry. they've taken our restraint and built a nuclear missile. that's a bad thing. >> th

ben ferguson, hard to telegraph or guess what's in his mind here but could be a significant one.anglements and very possible he may be sending more troops there or deciding something different. how sequential a decision is this for the trump presidency? >> i think anytime any president is dealing with something on this type of stage, obviously, feeling as if they need to address the people in primetime, it's very important. and i think the president here is obviously, he's met with his team here this weekend. these are issues that as an american i think we all want the president to succeed in. i always say when a candidate, president obama, i never wanted him to fail when it came to foreign policy, especially for the men and women in uniform. i hope we all look at this through the eyes of maybe not politics and say, this is significant. whatever it is he's choosing to say, whatever his decision is here. i think general kelly also probably has been influential in this decision to address the country and have clarity. so i hope and i pray for the men and women in uniform, that they

ben ferguson a trump supporter and van jones not so much.t on the president's comments and the events unfolding in charlottesville, virginia, today, the breaking news we have been following here on cnn for hours now. we have seen the president make those remarks we just played. he also said earlier the sound we have been playing over and over again, that we condemn in the strongest possible terms, this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, that we see on all sides. all sides. what do you think about this president's response? is it strong enough, if not, which we have heard from many of the critics what would you like to hear? >> well, i wanted to say first of all that, you know, somebody lost their life today. somebody got up this morning and they said, i want to go out and i want to bear witness, because there's people out here who are flying nazi flags in america. our great grandparents went and shed blood to stop the nazis and there are people saying they're in the klan. dr. king is martyred and the cause is trying to stop that thing. ou

joining us cnn political commentators ana navarro and ben ferguson. sident comes out and says the fire and the fury, the adaptation of the faulkner novel, a lot of odd parallels, you can google that for yourself. then we hear from tillerson and others, you're fine, you can sleep at night. do you think it's tiered? >> i think it's tiered. you have to look at where we've been for the last 8 1/2 years. we said we'll let the international community lead on this, let other nations put pressure on them instead of us directly putting pressure on them. it hasn't worked. he's got missiles and weapons that work. did the rhetoric need to change? every time we did a sanction, every time we went to the international community, nay ear adding nuclear weapons. i didn't have as much of a problem with what the president said because i do think you have to make it clear what you're doing and how you're doing it is no longer acceptable. we're not going to let you get from 60 to 120 and think there's no repercussions. sanctions clearly are not enough to get him to stop hi

the president in new jersey, a cnn political commentator and professor at temple university and ben fergusonng to both of you. >> good morning. >> ben, let me start with you. listen. you and i have talked off camera. you have no problem denouncing white nationalists and denouncing white supremacists and call them out by name. i've heard and seen you do it. are you satisfied the president has not done it? >> i think he has called out david duke. i think they are certainly moving forward. there are people who want him to call out and specifically say names that you just described. i don't have a problem with the president doing that. i think he probably should at this point, only because there are so many people that are somehow trying to imply that yesterday was a dog whistle or not enough or refusing to call them out. i look at the president in his words in a statement, it was very clear he was calling out racists and bigots, those that became violent. he used all of those word at the very beginning and i think that was -- there is many times people want there to be outrage when, in fact, th

i want to bring in ben ferguson. ben, you have been a supporter of this president, have often come on this show and defended what the president has said or done or policies that he's trying to implement. what's your reaction and takeaway from the speech he just made? >> i think he made it very clear that this is unacceptable behavior, this type of violence and hate. he was very strong in his words. i also don't think -- >> but are there many sides, ben, to this? are there many sides? because what you just heard from cornell is he did not call out white nationalists, the kkk. he said i condemn hate from all sides. >> well, and i think there is a lot of -- i think there is a lot of hate from different groups. and his point was very clear that he was condemning those that did these attacks today. and i think his point was very clear that there's a lot of people out there that have a lot of hate and that it is unacceptable and they will be prosecuted and people will be arrested and the police will come after you and we ne

ben ferguson and mark lamont hill and john fredrics and senior political commentator charles blow. be an interesting panel. we learned today the fbi raided one-time trump campaign chairman paul manafort 's virginia home in late july. what's your reaction to that? >> he's a bad guy. that's the bottom line. you look at some of paul manafort's history and his background. you got to really question this. donald trump made two disastrous hires since he started to run for president and has been president. the worst was paul manafort. the second was anthony scaramucci. good thing he saw this and fired the two of them within a short period of time. this guy came into the campaign. >> seven days -- >> he made a bad decision with scaramucci and he fired him. that decision was not made without the president's approval. he made a bad decision on paul manafort. he was a disaster in that campaign and he fired him when -- >> but did he fire him or was it ivanka who wanted him to go? >> at the end of the day the president made the decision to bring him in, he hade the decision to let him go. >> he

. >> let's talk about this with ben ferguson and alice hanigan. what do you i'm not surprised., there's no hiding the fact that scar mewchy and bannon never got along. if you look at the words he said about steve bannon, this to me is flatout inside baseball. the point he made overall about the president making it even more clear and the white house seems to be saying now all the words that people wanted them to say with nazis and white supremacists, that's a point i'm fine with. i think overall, this is inside baseball with him. he's angry that he lost his job. he's angry that steve bannon's still in the white house and obviously, this is his way of getting even. i think this is nothing more than just bitter politics by two people that at this point with everything going on, i don't care what he has to say. >> ellis, what do you think? >> i'm chuckling just a little at the notion of the mooch being the voice of moderation in this crowd. listen, it is important. what we have here is a government of grievances and factions. and this is just another way of playing out these bitte

let's bring in cnn political commentators ben ferguson and nina turner.both there. nina, is everybody getting it wrong in terms of what the president said about mistakes and wrongdoing on both sides? >> the president, chris, has gotten it wrong. he's trying to get the american people not to believe their lying eyes or their lying ears. he had a great opportunity to try to bring people together in this country using the moral authority and the political authority of the office of the presidency, and he absolutely failed. none of us should be surprised. when i think back during the campaign, i believe he was asked the question about whether or not he's ever had to ask for forgiveness for something, or he made a statement that he's never done anything in his life, and i'm paraphrasing, that required him to ask god for forgiveness. that's a heavy statement. this moment that we're feeling right now with a president that refuses to call out hate -- there is no both sides on this. you can't compare people fighting for freedom and justice with nazis. you can't co

ben ferguson and symone sanders, they are both here. we got a lot to talk about.o don't try to hog everything. symone. >> she's talking to you. >> symone, you were at this rally in support of colin kaepernick. so what did you want to accomplish? >> so i was one of the co hosts of the rally tonight. i along with mark thompson, we served as the cohosts, the mc's of the rally and today the rally was really about holding -- it was about a couple things. so one asking the nfl saying it's time for them to act. we believe the nfl has been complicit in the ostization of collin kaepernick. by staying silent in this moment, they are in fact complicit. we have said we the united, we stand, coalition, which is a coalition of various individual groups, people like tamika malory, mark thompson, a very large widespread coalition of people, including the naacp are literally asking the nfl to step in here, hold themselves accountable. we believe colin kaepernick should be on a team but there are remedies they need to take. >> so you have been an outspoken critic of athletes kneeli

we've got ana navarro and ben ferguson. good to see you. he believes what he said with those crowds, antifa, kkk, they're both bad. you don't want to say it but that's what he believes. every once in a while somebody says, look, you're putting us in a hole. say this, and he will literally be tied to the prompter. he doesn't even really move from screen to screen, that's how tied he is to somebody else's words. it's clearly not where his head is on this issue. isn't that just a fear of reckoning? >> i disagree with you a little bit. i think there's different settings where you have different things you can say. when you're talking to your base, you'll have much more blunt conversation. if he's in his rally which is a place that he loves and literally that's probably one of his happiest places to be, he's going to be him. he's going to be donald trump. if he's going the next day and talking to a different group of people, whether it's the military or more formal setting the day after that you saw yesterday with the teleprompter, i don't think

cnn political commentator, ben ferguson is here, and democratic strategist, adrian elrod, long-time hillaryon campaign aide. nice to have you both here. so ben -- >> thanks, poppy. >> good to have you. north korea responds to all of this. the president's rhetoric. and here's what they say. they call it a load of nonsense. and they say that sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason and only absolute force can work on him. do you think that the president's tactic and his -- i mean, he rolled the dice here with this language. >> yeah, i don't -- >> is it back firing? >> i don't think so, and i don't think it was rolling the dice. >> we know it was improvised, ad libbed. >> yeah, but i think the tone and the point of his tone was the point that over the last eight and a half years, we've had this patient diplomacy. and where it got us was 60-plus nuclear weapons, miniaturized nuclear weapons, interballistic missiles and now half the united states of maamerica can be reac. letting the world rely heavily on china to rein them in has been a complete failure. we know there are

outfront with me now former special adviser so president obama van jones and ben ferguson.ke of what you heard right there? >> i think people are struggling to try to make sense of a very confusing situation. i do agree that people do have the right to protest and they also -- we have the right to try to make judgments and discernments about what kinds of protests actually push us closer towards democracy and towards inclusion and toward the dream of our founders and dr. king and what protests pull us away from that. and i think that obviously nazis, the idea we have to debate whether nazis and white supremacists and clan members are protesting for things that we are in favor of in america is kind of shocking. >> let me ask you about this, also, van, because it is just coming in. this interview that steve bannon gave and the quote is, he says the longer day talk about identity politics, democrats, i got them. i want them to talk about racism every day. if the left is focussed on racism and we go with economic nationalism, we crush the democrats. is he right? >> listen, i th

rick wilson and ben ferguson, it's been a pleasure. a thanks so much. >>> let's continue on, shall we. breaking news here. the u.s. secretary of defense has just issued what is perhaps the fiercest warning yet against north korea's nuclear threats. we were talking about all this messaging out of the white house. you now have the secretary of defense, general james mattis, saying this, that north korea should cease any consideration of actions that will lead to the end of the regime and destruction of its people. the u.s. and north korea trading barbs after the revelation that north korea has likely produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can be strapped to its missiles. president trump vowing to bring fire and fury if north korea continues to threaten the u.s. the state department is also responding to new north korean threats to attack this small u.s. territory of guam. and it insists that administration officials and president trump are on the same page despite secretary of state rex tillerson playing down the fears of a war wit

with us abc news political commentator dana rohrabacher, tara stet meyer and also ben ferguson is back with us. on tuesday, the president is accused of defending the white supremacists. is his reaction to the protests and the protesters today in boston most of whom were peaceful and marching against hate according to sarah sydner the right reaction? >> no. you know, i don't understand this. there were 40,000 or so protesters, counterprotesters out there today. and i believe 27 were arrested. that's about 0.7%. so why given the decisive week that we have, given the disaster of a response that the president had to charlottesville focusing on -- having a false moral equivalence as far as i'm concerned with the counterprotesters in charlottesville. why would he choose when he could have today chosen to give a supportive, unifying message there, to focus on the 0.1% of bad actors? it goes to show you how obstinate and intransigent this president is when it comes to catering to a certain aspect of his base that he seems not to be able to get passed no matter what the circumstances are. even

when you say -- >> cornell, let me get brian salter in and ben ferguson, i think it's important that we hear your side as you have been defending what the president has said. now that you have heard from a number of other people in terms of their reaction to the president's remarks i'm wondering if that changes your assessment of what the president said. >> what i know is that the president of the united states of america said something that was in reality. there was violence today on both sides. and it needs to stop. and he condemned the racists, the bigots, and those that did the violence today. i think it's sad that we're sitting here and with due respect to mr. brooks he's doing nothing but using political talking points to divide this country. that's not what we need right now. >> the white nationalists are dividing the country. >> let me finish. you have done nothing but attack the president personally. and for political reasons because you don't like the president. instead of bringing us together. and we should try to come together -- let me finish. i listened to what you had

i have with me cnn political commentator ben ferguson and republican strategist rick wilson. emen, welcome. and ben, just turning to you, the point being the president speaks -- he uses hyperbolic language. there have been all the discussions. do you take the president literally, do you take the president seriously. what he said 24 hours ago is a threat, it's very serious. should the world and more importantly should kim jong un take that literally? >> i think what his point was is not necessarily litter lerally , you know, we're going to come after you. it was a defense. he was saying, america is not going to be screwed with. for the last eight years, we've had a policy of let's go ahead and go to the world. let's go to china and let them take the lead. let's go to the united nations. it has gotten us to the point where they have at least 60 nuclear weapons, miniaturized weapons and including a miss system that can reach probably half the united states of america. so i think the president's point is, this whole idea of being pc is kumbaya and let's be always calm and collecte

now the host of the ben ferguson radio show and dan pfeiffer. this is affecting your family.of course we know the tragedy we just heard. people have died. people are missing. there are more than 10,000 people in shelters tonight and the waters are still going up. you heard the president talking about how expensive this was. he's been getting a lot of compliments on how he's handled it. but yet the empathy seemed to be missing. did she show enough empathy today? >> the people care about the government's response and they feel it right now the president is getting it right. the way he was ahead of time working with the governors, making it clear that the national guard was available, declaring it early before everything had gotten out of control that this was a disaster area, making sure all of the fixed aircrafts they could get down there were available, making sure there was water coming in by the millions of liters. you talk to the people affected by this, they're rooting for the president to do this and do it well because their life depends on it. the local elected official

those are the ones i have been reading ben on the future, the hillbilly elegy will be the next one we pick up. >> thank you for your time, congressman ferguson. it seems like you are focusing on a lot of narratives on policy. what attracts you to those narratives that are outside of the classic bill or memo you made. >> well, part of it is driven by a desire to work for this nation. that's what i'm passionate about doing. i think they give a different is that otherwise wouldn't have. it is morning and it's a lot of fun. being able to translate that knowledge into policy is also very exciting. we do that because it's relevant to what we are working on. >> it on both tv we want to introduce you to kevin young, author of his new book, "bunk: the rise of hoaxes, humbug, plagiarists, post-facts, and fake news". comes out this fall.