back with us, charlie sykes.li, tonight's headline coming out of the "wall street journal" editorial is trump divorces the gop congress. and the lesson is when trump divorces you, you're never going to get back with him. >> history does seem to show that. >> yeah. >> i mean, this -- you know, you go back to january, i remember all the optimism from republicans on capitol hill, even those who were skeptical about donald trump, took a long time embraces him, they thought this was going to be this brand new era of republican dominance, republican governance. they thought they were going to pass a lot of things and he was going to sign them and everything was going to be great. that's taken six months. that's deteriorated. they're criticizing the president publicly. the border wall, may sound like a quitsotic pursuit for the president to take, it matters to him, it matters to his base. he's the kind of person, hear it over and over again from people who spend time with him, work with him, you tell this guy, you can't

charlie sykes is back with us. why did i call you chris hayes who does the 8:00 show.ave you thought about switching with him. chris shays is with us. a two-decade member of congress from southwest connecticut. my apologies, congressman. what do you make of the categorization of the leaks that please the president. >> so leaks, national security bad, but now leaks from the white house are good. >> yes. they contain love. >> and they contain love. and i just ask myself, why would a president want his staff to fight for his love? i can say that question, but what makes -- scares the hell out of me is, why would he want them to fight for his love when they should be fighting for their country. they should be fighting for making the world a better place. and yet they are so concerned about his love. >> talk about your party. what's happened to your party? you were always kind of a moderate to liberal republican. accused of being a rhino -- >> can we talk about what's happened to this country? >> sure. >> the american people. liberals here and conservatives here and do a be

long-time radio talk show host charlie sykes with us from his hope state of wisconsin.ve two jobs in this segment to answer twos questions. a, the republicans were the heros of watergate. where are the republicans and b, what is steve bannon up to. so i'm going to start with jeremy and question b, what does it sound like to you, steve bannon is up to? >> well, steve bannon identifies on a very personal level with the cultural fights that trump is speaking out with the left right now. i mean, this whole notion that the leftist protesters are going around tearing down, spitting on kicking monuments is just delightful for somebody like bannon who rebels in the idea that they can portray the left as violent and thuggish and unhinged and anarcical. this plays right into trump's playbook. when you heard trump say the other day, brian, that you know the left is violent, the left was to blame in part for what happened in charlottesville, that's really what a lot of the right believe. they believe that there is a moral equivalence here. this is something we've seen from republic

a former republican congressman what spent more than two decades representing connecticut, and charlie sykes the author of a new book we are happy to broadcast. tell us what we need to know about how rare -- let's call it, red on red friendly fire -- how rare this friendly fire is, especially among republicans, and what do we need to know about mitch mcconnell and his control over his caucus in the senate? >> first the president is very destructive. mitch mcconnell only has 52 members. a slim majority when you need 50 votes and not a majority when you need 60, which is most of the time. mitch is incredibly hardworking. he is very partisans but he is hardworking. he is smart as can be, he is very strategic, and he is the only one who can get something done if they can get something done. >> charlie sykes, i have racked my brain. the speaker of the house, the majority leader. are the water carriers on the hill, and sometimes it's a hotter day than normal and the hill seems steeper than normal. they are supposed to be working hand in glove. i have racked my brain. i cannot think of another inst

may play out in some very interesting primary challenges in 2020. >> charlie sykes, stay tuned. congresswoman debbie dingell in michigan and garrick haake in ohio, thank you. >>> coming up, u.n. ambassador nikki haley speaking out on the increasingly volatile crisis in north korea. david coons joining me next here on "andrea mitchell reports" on msnbc. when you're close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment? if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, you can embrace the chance of completely clear skin with taltz. taltz is proven to give you a chance at completely clear skin. with taltz, up to 90% of patients had a significant improvement of their psoriasis plaques. in fact, 4 out of 10 even achieved completely clear skin. do not use if you are allergic to taltz. before starting you should be checked for tuberculosis. taltz may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you are being treated for an infection or have symptoms. or if you have received a vaccine or plan to. inflammatory bowel di

charlie sykes was speaking about your old boss on this point saying i long admired paul ryan but he'sa bargain but for tax cuts paul referring to the support for white supremacists saying i imagine ploes of the elected officials are privately horrified. >> they have peek and speaker ryan and chairman brady on the house side. they've been a part of this before. they've done some of these things before. for republicans they have also had much more work with the white house with mr. cohen and secretary mnuchin than they did on health care. they are further down the line than they were on that. i think that's the reason for optimism here. >> i don't want to give you a hard time but i want to point out for the benefit of our viewers, you're not requesting the question that charlie sykes puts there. >> go ahead. >> paul throughout the campaign on a number of different occasions, he said that's not the direction republican party. that's not what we believe. remember paul is really a disciple of jack kemp. jack, i worked for jack for four years that we were doing the tax reform in 1986. i was

tara dow dell, political consultant, charlie sykes, caton dawson, and david corn, washington bureau chief"mother jones." first to you charlie i have to read this quote. sometimes in this job we're called upon to read fun things. this might be the most fun of all. charlie sykes, this was steve bannon to "the weekly standard" immediately after his ouster. my producers left off one line. he said "i'm jacked. now i'm free. i've got my hands on my weapons is what he said. it's bannon the barbarrian. i'm going to crush the opposition. there's no doubt i built an f-ing machine at breitbart and i'm about to rev up that machine and rev it up we will." your thoughts charlie sykes. are you jealous i got to read that? >> yes, yes. remember how anthony scaramucci described certain acts steve bannon who perform that were anatomically incorrect, as ryan lizza points out that interview suggests he may have had a point. obviously steve bannon thinks he's going to be more influential outside the white house. there are two problems that he's going to face. he obviously has the mercer money. breitbart needs

joining me is former maryland congresswoman donna edwards and radio talk show host charlie sykes, nowc contributor. warm welcome to both of you. charlie, that thing the gentleman said that he is -- he wishes that donald trump were on the opposite side of the causes that he holds dear because it would be better for the causes he holds dear. let's unpack that a little bit. >> well, you get that little sense of embarrassment that he's not only not advancing those causes but he's actually toxifying them, he's actually hurting the cause. and i really got that sense you know, we've talked before about the cult of personality around donald trump, the fact his base doesn't move. but you get that sense of that creeping disillusionment, disenchantment. they're clearly paying attention and even though some of the numbers might not move as dramatically as you might expect, there's still some cracks underneath that because again, people are paying very, very close attention. i was also struck by their disillusionment wasn't so much about specific issues or accomplishments. they're not talking abou

joining us now is charlie sykes and msnbc political analyst. lie one of the most underreported important items last week the treasury said on friday you got to raise the debt ceiling by the 29th or the united states will go into default. >> this is a chaos presidency. we might see how chaotic, because you can make a long list of things that could go wrong here. and quite frankly, you know, donald trump's ability to influence congress i think is diminishing by the day. but in this particular case you do need the 60 votes to get that raised. i'm not sure they have a formula to do that. >> no. and you have so many republicans in both bodies who have been opposed to raising the debt ceiling in the past. it had to be done with democratic votes. what do the democrats do this time? do they say it's up to you. you guys do it on your own and force the republicans to either fail to raise the debt ceiling or break in re vows about everything they've ever said about it? >> yeah we're in the weird situation the republicans have few ogss and democrats have a

as the republican president of the united states and we're going to see that in september. >> charlie sykes thanks. and sarah westwood, welcome to the broadcast. a great pleasure to have you as it was a great pleasure to have you both tonight. coming up, another break for us. and then we will meet the newest residents of the white house when "the 11th hour" continues. ♪ let the eagles soar like she's never soared before ♪ >> musical stylings of former bush 43a g yuan ashcroft, which brings us to our last thing before we go tonight. and it's eagles, not the kind we giants fans root against and not the kind that gave us the late great elegant glenn frey but eagles preferably the bald variety our national symbol. we've been raised to never mistreat but the president really has a thing for eagles and their symbolism. there was that famous magazine shoot that featured donald trump looking perfectly comfortable with an eagle. there was some great freeze frames when the eagles flapped its wings just slightly smaller than those of a dc3. you may recall the president's eventful 17 days in med minist

. >> michael isikoff, thank you, and charlie sykes stick with us because we'll talk to you coming up. >>> we have an effort taking place in baltimore to go 72 hours without a homicide in charm city. we'll talk to one of the organizers to slow down the murder rate in that city from reaching record highs for 2017. but it didn't make it through the weekend without two murders. stick with us. a pilot like you shouldn't be flying buses. welcome to miami. you should be serving your country. [ whispering ] i'm working for the c.i.a. that sounds made up barry. this is going to be good for us. nice wheels. [ laughter ] ♪ that's for the damage. and your bike. you never saw me. [ bell rings ] american made. rated r. this timyou haveis turn. 4.3 minutes to yourself. this calls for a taste of cheesecake. new philadelphia cheesecake cups. rich, creamy cheesecake with real strawberries. find them with the refrigerated desserts. you're going to be hanging out in here. so if you need anything, text me. do you play? ♪ ♪ use the chase mobile app to send money in just a tap, to friends at more banks then

he joins me now, as does msnbc contributor charlie sykes.e, how are republicans on the hill feeling now that they have under attack by donald trump and donald trump is under attack by basically the entire world except for the white nationalists. >> i think there's no question they look at this situation and wonder how did we get here. how did we get into a situation with a republican president, republicans controlling both houses of congress nothing has gotten done and all we have left is a circling firing squad. i think there's deep disappointment. there's questions about the fall agenda, whether the senate republicans and the house republicans and the president can work together to do tax reform, infrastructure. and the reality is that a lot of the members are only sticking to the president to the extent that they think he can be helpful in advancing an agenda. in fact it's unclear that he can be helpful at all. >> when lonnie started talking i thought he was going to say they're incredibly depressed that the party is associated with neo-n

mike i ssikoff, charlie sykes, d former vermont attorney general chris cofen. not here anymore, it's not like he ditched us or anything but it was a mistake, that he was in there. mike, let's talk about bob mueller's investigation, where it stands right now, the strategy expected for going after people that worked with manafort in the past, specifically 2011, 2012, and dealing with ukraine. >> right. this goes back to disclosures from last year during the campaign, that a nonprofit in europe was set up and hired, through manafort and his deputy, rick gates, a pair of high powered lobbying firms in washington, mercury group and the podesta group. and the disclosures that that nonprofit was essentially being funded by a pro-russia ukrainian political party that manafort had been a consultant for. so it raises the question of whether this was a violation of the foreign agents registration act, because at the time manafort and gates arranged for these firms to lobby in washington, he did not register as a foreign agent. neither did the firms at the time, saying the

charlie sykes. former democratic congresswoman done 'edwards and peggy noonan. msnbc news analyst. welcome to our merry ship. thank you for being here. peggy, let me start with you. i have all your columns. i print them out and read them at night when i'm weeping about the state of our politics. my favorite from 2016. bob corker questioning openly donald trump's competence and stability. i went back and read this. you wrote on, look, he is a nut, donald trump. you know he's a nut. i go to battleground states and they all know donald trump is a nut. some of them vote for him anyway. nothing has changed. >> you know, i think that's kind of true. it was an interesting fact of the voting in november of 2016 that so many of those who voted for now president trump were people who also told pollsters when the pollsters would say, so you think he's really a totally great guy? and they'd go, oh, no. so you think he's really got the most stable thing going in his head? they'd go, well, no. so this has actually continued for a while. and in some ways it hasn't at all changed. i always wrote t

charlie sykes joins us from his home state of wisconsin.welcome to the broadcast, christina bellantoni from "the los angeles times." let's not forget the enormous population in california on the west coast. christina, how do we square all of this? i was thinking tonight perhaps with the exception of nixon during the height of it all, when he plainly was in duress and maybe not making sense, we learn years later there was heavy drinking and prayers in the hallway and talking to the paintings and kissinger, whichever came first. how do we square the notion of not being able to trust the word of the president, of the president's spokesperson? >> well, there's a lot of different layers to this. we know from watching president trump when he was a candidate that he had a loose relationship with the truth in many different ways. sometimes it was stretching the truth. sometimes it was little facts were wrong. sometimes things were outright falsehoods. and, you know, the very concept of lying is interesting because it implies intent. so there are ma

tensions to take on this topic, we welcome to the of broadcast sarah washington and our friend charlie sykes, long time radio talk anna author. sara, serious question. are we know longer hoping to get the funding from mexico? i ask because last night was really the first time he went past that, talked to needing money from congress, it would be the first time we've had a government shutdown intra party. i remember the one clinton versus begin grich battle. this would be the republicans controlling white house and white house. >> we've seen a gradual recognition that whatever funding mechanism came for the wall, it would obviously involve taxpayer money up front and then some kind of maneuvering down the line so president trump could check that box of having mexico pay for the wall. but there are plenty of aspects of president trump's agenda he lyfted from the existing gop play book. obamacare predated trump. tax reform isn't something he came up with. the border wall is not a policy that republicans were pursuing or talking about before president trump came on the scene. and so that that's s

joining us now nbc political analyst, charlie sykes.ne of those moments we have been talking about since the presidential campaign. what about when the president of the united states needs credibility with the world, with the country in an international crisis? here we are at that moment, at that brink with north korea and we have a president who this country does not believe and the world does not believe. >> well, we always knew this moment would come. that's run of the reasons you don't nominate and elect someone like donald trump. if you are going to rattle the saber like he is doing today, you would hope the people would take your word seriously, and we're at the point now where it's hard to know, you know, it's hard the know what exactly he means and whether or not he is credible. you know, these poll numbers are remarkable in a number of ways. number one, i don't think we have ever seen people so upbeat about the economy, but not giving the president credit for it. imagine if the economy was not as strong, and people did not thin

charlie sykes thanks for joining us.ally appreciate it. >> thank you. >>> tonight's last word is next. i came across this house with water dripping from the ceiling. you never know when something like this will happen. so let the geico insurance agency help you with homeowners insurance and protect yourself from things like fire, theft, or in this case, water damage. cannonball! now if i had to guess, i'd say somewhere upstairs there's a broken pipe. let the geico insurance agency help you with homeowners insurance. call today to see how much you could save. trust #1 doctor recommended dulcolax. use dulcolax tablets for gentle dependable relief. suppositories for relief in minutes. and dulcoease for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax. designed for dependable relief. whyou're not thinking clearly, so they called the fire department for us. i could hear crackling in the walls. my mind went totally blank. all i remember saying was, "my boyfriend's beating me" and she took it from there. and all of this occurred in

joining me now, former senator john danforth, bill crystal, charl charlie sykes.or, it's good tuesday yo s. was there something that sparked this article, has it been building for you? >> it's been building, it just popped out. >> why now? >> well, i mean, it could have been yesterday or last week, maybe it should have been. but it's, to me, is a very, very important thing to say. you know, i am a republican. i've always been a republican. i'm loyal to my party. but donald trump is not. he is not just different on a few issues, he's fundamentally opposite of what the republican party is, the way it was founded. it's the party of abe raham lincoln. he's a divider and uses every opportunity he gets to set one group against the rest of the country. to say to people they don't really belong. he's the opposite of what the republican party is. and he's the opposite of what a founding principle of the country has been, and that is to hold together all these diverse groups and interests in one country. >> you know, it's interesting that you mention abraham lincoln. i was

let's fact check that last claim with our friend charlie sykes, radio talk show host, about to be bestsellings with us from his home state of wisconsin. charlie, i have sesaw you on th reacting to this. i'll ask you for the first time and completely organically, your reaction to this tonight. >> well, first of all, what an insult this is to law enforcement. think about this, that you have a law and order president who is using his pardon power to pardon a man who defied the law and court orders in order to violate constitutional rights. this is obviously a political pardon. it is a dog whistle to the base that essentially you are reaching out at the moment when your whole wall, the promise of the wall that mexico is going to pay for is about to fall apart, that you have singled out this man whose career has been all about abusing illegal immigrants but also legal hispanic citizens. but i think the larger point here, and i really want to make this point, everything that nicolle wallace and your other guests have said is absolutely true. the juxtaposition of the hurricane and this particular de

all of this by msnbc host and business correspondent ali velshi, long-time radio talk show host charlie sykesns us from his home state of wisconsin and we welcome to the broadcast christina bell and tony assistant managing editor for politics at "the los angeles times" of all places. let's not forget the enormous population of the state of california on the west coast. and we'll begin with our representative from the "l.a. times." christina, how do we square all of this? i was thinking tonight perhaps with the exemptiception ofnismo during the height of it all when he was in duress and maybe not making sense. we learned there was heavy drinking and prayers in the hallway and talking to the paintings and kissinger and whichever came first. how do we square the notion of not being able to trust lock cinch take it to the bank to trust the word of the president and the president's spokesperson? >> there's a lot of different layers to this. we know from watching president trump when he was a candidate that he had a loose relationship with the truth in many different ways. sometimes it was stretchi

i'm joined now by author, commentator, msnbc contributor and friend of the show charlie sykes.ahead to september. that's when the president will be back in town. congress will be back in town. i want to talk challenges and victories here. because, frankly, this is a president when you look at challenges who is going away for the august break, traditional here in washington. and he doesn't have a ton to be able to point to say, hey, look at what i did. >> things will get more difficult for them in september. then when you get back in september, i think you'll see this dynamic where more republicans are willing to buck the president. i mean, the fact is, they're not going to be looking to him for policy leadership. his lack of knowledge and lack of personal discipline has really take an toll on his standing in congress. and you're starting to see a lot of these key senators, you know, be much more willing to speak out and break with the president. i mean, you look at what senator tillis is doing and lindsey graham. this is, you know, again, this is a tough situation. and it's goi

. >> so it goes to what charlie sykes calls the intellectual rot.hey don't mean anything. >> 100% correct. but the main reason this story is ostensibly interesting is a republican president is at war with the republican leader of the senate in the -- in the senate. but that's not true. donald trump's not a republican. and like a lot of what strikes you as interesting in these battles -- i'm not saying it's not interesting. it's a different reason. it exposes the degree to which donald trump is a man without a party. he's not a republican. he's not a democrat. and the crazy thing about this is that he's attacking the leader of the one party with whom he could at least make his -- his only hope for passing things is with the republican party. even though he's not a republican. he'll never pass a bill with democratic votes ever. >> why do republicans demand the indefensible? why do republicans then have his back when the "access hollywood" tape comes out? >> they're afraid. >> of what? >> of their own voters. they have been stoking this for years. mitt

. >> with us around the table, we have john meechum, cat ty cay, mark halperin, and charlie sykes. >>llip bump, and phillip rucker. good to have you both. >> charlie, actually, it's easier to find out -- there are blessings to this cursed time we're in. there are. it's a clarifying time. actually, there are a lot of people that have been snide and snippy through the years. whatever. but it's very clarifying. i finally know who the conservatives are and who the posers are, and who are the power hungry people that are just trying to grab ratings. it is clarifying. for instance -- >> the sheep are separated from the goats. >> they are. these are clarifying times. you also, don't you, you found out in the starkest of times -- i'm serious. you found out in the starkest of terms who puts their country first and who puts their party first on our side. >> yeah. and you always had wished there were more. we all figured maybe the number would be larger than it turned out to be. >> yeah. there are people that i -- you know, have not always seen as my natural political allies, people like mitch m