back with us, david frum. d worth noting the gal up tracking poll today mass the president today at his highest disapproval level in the tracking poll yet 61% and at his low heest approval level yet in the tracking poll of 34%. so august has left him at the bottom of the poll. >> here is a way to take a longer term view on what's happening to this number. since the first of june the president has had one day where he was north of 40% in the gal up poll. zero days in august, zero days in july. back in the spring he would have a number of days, sometimes as many a third of the month where he was above 40. it is as you say it's a line. it bobs up and down but the trend is sinister for him. august seems to have been really an epic where a big part of the country turned off the set and i don't think it's going back on. >> and when you see the today's daily tracking poll is an all-time low for him. this comes after his performance -- i guess that's the right word -- his performance in the aftermath of the hurricane.

. —— david frum. here are some lyrics, give mea david frum.me lyrics, give me a moment... and i think it's gonna be a long long time ‘till touch down brings me round again to find i‘m not the man they think i am at home 0h find i‘m not the man they think i am at home oh no no no i‘m a rocket man? he is a sympathetic character. i think it is about a distant father, i think. moving i think it is about a distant father, ithink. moving onto i think it is about a distant father, i think. moving onto boris johnson, backing down from the brink. after a lot of toing and froing, will he, won't he, it seems he has climbed back down from the edge of a walk—out, and a truce, interesting detail in the telegraph, theresa may has tweeted her keynote speech, sounds like a concession that numberten are speech, sounds like a concession that number ten are willing to make, some kind of compromise with boris johnson. 0n the other hand, the key substance of what he was arguing for, is believed to be a red line for, is believed to be a red line for him, the lengthy

up, david frum, and rob reiner will be here. nonpartisan committee to investigate russia.ery: this is "bloomberg markets: balance of power." i'm shery ahn. vonnie: on vonnie quinn. intonue the ongoing probe the russian interference in the 2016 election as president trump's personal lawyer michael cohen's testimony is postponed. for more, let's bring in david frum and former special assistant to the president of george w. bush and rob reiner. new a member of the nonpartisan and nonprofit committee to investigate russia. helping americans understand the investigation into the election meddling. rob, what do you make of the idea of this testimony is not postponed and will be public ashes with is now postponed -- is now postponed and will be public? mr. reiner: i'm sure will be must-see tv. we are trying to cover all of the various investigations, house and senate and also give updates on the molar investigation. what we are trying to do -- the molar -- meuller investigation. compendium kind of a . it's not just looking at the day-to-day news on investigations, but also a hist

anyway, good luck with david frum and max boot.ice to see you. >> good to see you. >> tucker: has covered the subject pretty thoroughly. i don't want to be cynical, but i find it striking that the united states has been the subject of repeated cyber attacks by china and i didn't hear anybody on the left say anything about it, and all of a sudden, they have phd's in cyber warfare and are calling for war with russia which, if anything, is less an offender. is it all political, do you think? >> yeah, it seems like so now, tucker. you're exactly right that there is, to say the least, some ideological inconsistency in the establishment and on the left when it comes to our foreign interventions, and when it comes to how we see china and how we see the rest of the world. >> tucker: it does seem that way. let's get back to the core claim here, and that is that russia hacked our election or hacked our democracy. we have talked about it for ten months now. i'm still not sure that i understand how exactly russia hacked our democracy. are we c

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david frum and maria teresa kumar are back with us for this part of the discussion. ccain goes on to say, we should go back to what he called regular order. that's something he said a couple of times in his first speech back after he was diagnosed with brain cancer. on the senate floor, he was saying you need to go through regular order, which is the process that forces compromise between the parties. >> regular order, i think here, is also a metaphor for a larger sense of regularity. remember, last week the president went to john mccain's own state, threw down a gauntlet of power. the president is attempting to interfere in an internal republican primary in john mccain's own state. john mccain is the senior republican there. he would expect some consultation and respect, and he was shown none. this is a quarrel that goes back a long time, all the way back to president trump's preference of people who are not p.o.w.s. he likes the guys who don't get captured. i think you see here the beginning of john mccain emerging as a much more powerful voice than he has been unti

. >> joining us now, david frum, senior editor for the "atlantic." ident of the united states in a confrontati confrontation, crisis, whatever we want to call this with north korea, to stay we have no choice. >> yeah. >> is just the most inconceivable choice of presidential language prior to now, of course. >> i was involved with president bush's axis of evil speech a long time ago now. one of the things, people say a lot of things about the speech. one of the things, i i vit people to go back and read it, no threats. the idea of provocatively reaching out and making a threat to somebody, a vague threat, a nonspecific threat, a threat not connected with anything the other party can do to mitigate the threat, a threat, by the way, that is empty, we're not going do anything to honor it, that is a dangerous thing. >> i'm so glad you mentioned the axis of evil speech, david, because that would be if we were looking at our presidential history the previous kind of strongest comment by the president directly about north korea then of course this president g

. >> and david frum, days later we have a dramatic account from inside the oval office, something steve bannon would have been able to provide to "the new york times" and now that steve bannon is a fired former trump white house player. david. >> sorry. sorry. go ahead. >> i want your reaction to the coincidence of steve bannon being fired out of the white house and now stories like this start to come out. >> well, when steve bannon say that is the firing of james comey was such a terrible mistake, the question is, we're back in the claim of the cover-up is worse than the crime but donald trump may well have feared that he had no other choice, that the consequences of leaving comey in place were even worse. that when you are, you know, when you're in the cross fires like this, you have a diminishing menu of choices. and there is not this suggestion of steve bannon of an innocent way out and everybody would have been fine. that suggests there isn't a big secret behind the door when i think it smells stronger and stronger there is a big secret behind the door. >> listen to hillary clinton

one of the and david frum probably the he probably is the. reigning prince of never getting everything anything right don't forget the russian foreign policy experts who directed it. you may know him for also directing when harry met sally rob reiner because. i will date myself everyone will know when i call him meathead all in the family and i think that was probably the last good thing he ever did but anyway what was your reaction to the great actor from what will he remain the is a losing his comical tale and because you say as he should you know i think address and tell him right in the eye and then he says something usually i would say stop telling me that i want to stop telling me that i want almost a but you know picture that would make a very we're going to see me looking at this and he's he's a great actor ok i don't i don't even really think he understands what he's saying . this is an act of desperation this is what this is is to keep this narrative this hoax narrative this conspiracy narrative alive they have to get you know an ic

joining us now david frum and ron klaine., reports might indicate that this is a republican mission to get this in terms of the committee to get this information from the justice department, from the fbi, and this is not something that the democrats are pushing. >> that's right. because it's a republican effort to undermine and to interfere with the ongoing investigation of donald trump's ties to russia. the heart of what tray gowdy who made the request is saying is they want to prove somehow the fbi created this investigation, the fbi created the russia issue. that ignores the pile of russian conduct from breaking into both parties' databases, to hacking 20 state electoral systems to sending people to trump tower to meet with the president's son and son-in-law and campaign chair. all the acts that, the incredible acts in the campaign by hostile power to enteer fear in this election is why the fbi is investigating donald trump and russia. not because of the allegations tray gowdy is trying to deflect to. >> and david, why the

. >> david frum gets the last word. thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> "the 11th hour" starts now. >>> tonight, what robert mueller has his hands on. the special counsel now has the draft letter explaining why the president originally wanted to fire james comey. a letter written by revised before it went public. tonight the legal and political implications for donald trump and in white house. plus john mccain calls trump poorly informed and impulse oef and tells his colleagues we are not his subordinates. we don't answer to him. the 11th hour on a friday nine begins now. >>> good evening. once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. i'm ali velshi for brian williams. day 225 of the trump dprgs and bringing new insight into how the president decided to fire former fbi director james comey. "the new york times" was first to report special counsel robert mueller has an early draft of a trump letter detailing his reasons for firing comey. the report says, quote, the letter drafted in may was met with opp

isn't david frum right? this is an opportunity for republicans to take all the money and use it for politics? >> i'm from south carolina that's had hurricane hugo, that tore up our state, floods. let me explain to you the money that's going to throw to houston and texas will be astronomical. the appropriation process and what happened at sandy and the ted cruz episode not voting to are that appropriations that's a whole nother conversation, but you got to watch it when you have federal dollars that are going to be appropriated, watch the bad actors that are going to show up and try to attach amendments to it and get anything where even the wind blew close to their state to get appropriated money. that's the process we're watching in the next couple of months but right now i think it's all hands on deck, with mike pence, former governor rick perry who handled three of those type events, nikki haley is in the administration, so the president's got a lot of fresh advice on how to handle this politically, and th