zplit wa >> i want to bring you in jeremy on what you saw from north korea today, as john heilman said, north korea's ambitions have vexed every single president in modern history. that said, the president's trip to asia didn't have the effect that the president said he had hoped it would have, which is to get china and other countries in the region to try to stop this activity from the north. >> the president's approach to north korea has manifestly failed, he's failed to deter north korea from launching these threatening missiles. and in some ways, my reaction to what we just witnessed in the white house was sort of the opposite of wag the dog, what wag the dog is where a fictional president faced an international crisis to face a domestic issue, here he is trying to stir up a domestic issue to distract congressional leaders from -- this missile went higher than any missile before, which means that if you flatten out the range of this icbm, it could potential hit denver, chicago, maybe even new york and washington. and so as mattis is trying to sound the alarm, that this is one of th

joining us now, john heilman, national affairs analyst for nbc news and david frum for the atlantic and stewart stevens for the daily beast. senior strategist for morn's 2012 presidential run. stewart, i will go to you as the senior republican strategist here. you're a republican strategist looking to 2018. you wake up this morning and you think what? >> well, listen. i think some interesting stuff happened last night and didn't get talked about enough. i'm conflicted here. i love ed gillespie like a brother and i just think the campaign didn't really give him a chance to show who he is and happens more often than not in campaigns. but remarkably, the lieutenant governor and the attorney general who didn't embrace this sort of cultural war on the republican side that top of the ticket did overperformed. he had a very unusual situation where the female lieutenant governor led the ticket. and got more votes than the top of the ticket. i think there's probably a message in that. they still lost. and it's still -- they did a lot better when there was a dropoff on the democratic side between

. >> is it that strategic, john heilman, or, hmm, more than a dozen women. let's put their pictures up. more than a dozen women have accused donald trump of sexual misconduct and if he starts to look as if he's casting judgment on a man accused of sexual misconduct by nine women, maybe one of those 13 women will tell their stories and maybe because the me too movement is sweeping across the nation, maybe someone will believe them this time. >> i that's too strategic, i have said this before on the show. i think donald trump is all about donald trump, all he cares about is himself. i don't think he's weighing moral consistency or ethic consistency. >> you don't think he's worried about tax reform? >> i think he's very worried about it. he wants to win, he wants to get that legislation passed, to get through a year and not have any major legislation accomplished would be devastating for him. he was afraid to go against roy moore because he thought he would lose again, now he's looking at the situation and thinking there's a chance that roy moore can win, and i

roy moore lose on twitter, are saying republicans risk being called the party of pedophiles as john heilmane tighter if the president of the united states jumps in, doesn't it? >> it does and it's another very important i think data point for women voters in the midterm elections. look at what happened in virginia. what drove democrats to sweep these state legislative sweeps that they hadn't across the state in areas that were previously sending republicans? a lot of that the exit poll data suggests it was women and you see that kind of as you start to talk to operatives behind the skeensz, what are they looking for and especially considering the broader national climate and the moment we are living in. women i think are more engaged in politics and feel there is more at stake for them with their votes with every passing day and this is something that republicans who are looking at the midterm map like mitch mcconnell and others, they know that. >> at the same time i very carefully say that the president -- what the president said was not inaccurate? >> which is what? >> he denies it. >> ri

john heilman, is it better for the party if roy moore loses?re. >> he's all two-word answers. >> for sure it's better for the party. the republican party suffered a lot when todd aiken was around and everybody in the party had to answer for his comments about rape and about consent. this is a situation where democrats will rightly hang roy moore around the republican party's neck if he ends up winning this race and ends up at the united states senate. he's someone who is going to torment the leaders of the party if he's a senator, so he's going to be difficult to work with, he's going to be -- he's going to do nothing constructive for the party if he wins and he's going to do a huge number of destructive things politically for the party if he's sitting there in the united states senate. i would think that everybody in the republican party right now, if they lose this race, and jones ends up as the democratic senator, you're going to run this race again in two years, whoever the republican who runs against jones in 2020 is going to be the favori

with us we have national affairs analyst and john heilman.on university, eddie flower junior, cofounder and ceo of jim vand high and nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of kasie d.c. on msnbc, kasie hunt is with us. good morning. joe, wow. something's up for us, a very, very good morning for democrats. >> a very good morning for democrats. they haven't had a good morning like this since barack obama got re-elected in 2012. this has been a long time omming for the democratic party and they actually -- you could sort of see the clouds of doom coming in again, a couple days ago. we went around the panel monday morning asked everybody who they felt was going to win and ed gillespie, ed gillespie. everybody was saying it. by yesterday afternoon, you started hearing sort of order restored. a lot of conservatives were saying, wait a second, you know, northam may end up winning. the same thing with democrats. it was big. this was big. you look at these races, they call these offyear races but in virginia they always matter. 1993, george alle