, controversies, and what's ahead in national politics, newshour eekend special correspondent jeff greenfield joins us now from santa barbara, californi jeff, let's start with what turned out to be a very strange match-up, which was attorney general barr versus u.s.a. berman. we had trouble following this yesterday on all the different contours that they were taking, but what's the impact here? >ju> well to review the bidding, friday night, late, attorney general barr says "u.s. attorney berman is going to step down, i'm going to r alace him with a guy who very loyal ally of trump." two hours later, berman says, "igi didn't r" so the next day, barr says "okay, i talked to the president, he says you're fired." then the president tells the press, "i had nothing to do w h and by the end of this bizarre down to be replaced by hisng da eputy, who is not litical ally of trump, just a prosetor. and the impact is, a lot of what the u.s. attorney's office in new york wa pleasing to the president. either investigatinhis inaugural committee for the misuse of funds; deutsche bank, which was a big credito

taking note from the sidelines, veteran journalist, multi emmy award winning broadcaster jeff greenfield weighed in. he said, about senator cotton's op-ed of the "new york times," if you don't want an op-ed page that prints views you strongly disagree with you don't really want an op-ed page. you want a my-ed page. for sharing his thoughts, greenfield then became the brunt of enmity including from "new york times" opinion columnist who replied saying this. free and open discourse carries an implicit within the accepted bounds of democratic society. now the "new york times" has said it won't run senator cotton's essay in tomorrow's print edition as planned. by the way, i want to know what you think. go to my website this hour. smerconish.com. answer this week's survey question. should they be running it in sunday's print edition? now, here are my thoughts. if we choose to disengage we'll fall into a trap established by those parties more interested in division than unity. maybe we can learn a thing or two from a viral video. this is a former nfler who this week published a nine-minute vid

jeff greenfield at politico.com has this -- is the republican senate in jeopardy?is a question as obvious as it is critical. how will this affect the 2020 race for the white house? in washington, there are other implications that could matter as much as the direction of national policy, chief among them the u.s. senate. in many ways, this is a question equal in importance to the outcome of the presidential race. just picture trump without a gop rubberstamp his supreme court picks or a president biden forced to fight mitch mcconnell for every inch of ground? the awful news for the republican senate candidates is another historical trend. the increasing link between votes cast for a presidential contender and votes cast for senators, which makes it harder to create a distance from a unpopular incumbent. back to your phone calls, paul, good morning. will you vote to reelect the president? caller: yes, i would. i do not care if it is republicans or democrats, but the stop and think -- politicians that have been up there for 30, 40 years are saying how bad trump is, the