let's bring in ron brownstein, 12:00 pacific time. good to see you. thanks for joining us. >> good morning, good evening, something. >> whatever it is. it is an extraordinary day in our nation's politics once again, ron. what's your reaction to classic teleprompter trump is gone, airing of the grievances is back. what's your headline? >> where to start? i agree with you. i think this is a speech unlike we have heard from any other american president in office. but it was quite like what we heard on the campaign trail from president trump. it was this unique combination of a bottomless well of grievance. unending grievance at anyone he believes has crossed him or wronged him combined with half truths and misleading statements but also tied in with a very targeted set of populous us against them messages aimed entirely at his base. one thing that is above all about this president is he is somehowing a lack of interest in speaking or acting in any way that reaches out beyond those who have supported him to begin with and shrinking in polls. and one last t

let's bring back john avlon, ron brownstein and abby phillip.it also brings into question who is around the president in the west wing. he consulted a lot of people before giving the remarks on saturday where he didn't blame these groups saying many sides, many sides. he also has steve bannon around him who called breitbart which he founded a platform for the alt right and sebastian gorka who said this earlier this month. >> it's constant, oh, it's the white man, it's the white supremacist, that's the problem. no, it isn't maggie habber man, go to sin jab, go to the middle east, go to ". >> so what you've got here i think is a question of who was in the room when donald trump's remarks were being made, who encouraged him not to call out these groups by name. >> they say he spoke with a number of advisers. this wasn't out of haste. >> exactly. that's what's troubling, right? when you have an ethno nationalist wing driving a president's agenda, this is the kind of thing you get. breitbart has a complicated relationship -- i don't know why i'm putt

. >> joining us now, angela ryan, kevin and cnn analyst ron brownstein. ron, i'm going to go to you first. the president spoke the words he spoke, condemning white supremacists and neo-nazis. since then, on social media, he retweeted a man trapped in dangerous conspiracy theories and pardoning sheriff joe arpaio who is in the birther conspiracy as the president did for a long, long time. what message has the president sent? >> until yesterday, he followed the same template he did back in march, 2016. now he added a twist of further undercutting his words. the sunday before the primaries, he sent a clear message by what he didn't say, he didn't denounce david duke. after a broad, bipartisan backlash across mainstream in both parties, did he denounce duke? he did exactly the same thing here. there's no question they are sending a message by what they didn't say initially and inevitably, he mouthed the words they were demanding he did. he undercut it with a series of tweets, including ones attacking the fake news, showing a train running over cnn, talking abo

let's start with ron brownstein joining me now. ron, oh, my dear friend, ron, tell me -- let's start with the statues and the tweet for the president. why is the president -- why does the president want to make this about statues, confederate statues? >> he's trying to blur two lines here. first, he is suggesting that the violence in charlottesville is fundamentally about the statues as if they came from the deep southern culture. it was a pretext for a rally that was about expressing white nationalist views. jews will not replace us. it's not a slogan of the confederacy. second, he is also, you know, he is trying to do a second line saying there is no difference between robert e. lee and george washington and thomas jefferson because they owned slaves. robert e. lee and stonewall jackson led a rebellion against the united states. they took up arms against the government. they were treasonous. george washington and thomas jefferson built the nation. why is he doing it? you heard from steve bannon that they believe if the debate is p

ron brownstein. director david chalian and julie pace. ron brownstein, on top of what miller said, kind ever dismissing what america means to the entire world, what do we see in these poll numbers of specific concern? >> look. the if you're talking about the poll numbers, quinnipiac poll probably the lowest but the general trajectory is clear. the striking thing in this survey is the erosion, not only among the groups that were skeptical of him from the beginning, miserable numbers among millennials, minorities college educate the whites but seeing significant erosion even among the groups that were the cornerstone. in 2016 he won a higher share of working class white of either party since 1984. the he's now net negative in approval. and strong dits approval among them has moved up to 43%. similarly adults 50 to 64. the look at that. his strong disapproval has doubled since he took office among voters in that age group. and i think it's worth noting that both those blue collar whites and older working adult the were by all analysises the

. >> let's bring in cnn political analyst ron brownstein, political writer for "the plik" molly ball david drucker. molly, i was looking at you while that was playing. we were talking before this is the president considers maybe as vp, secretary of state. this is not a lipid say graham or john mccain. what do you make of it? how big is that that he questioned the president's competency and stability? >> it's a big deal because, as you say, bob corker has really tried to be on trump's team. on the other hand, those of us who cover the congress know bob corker is a truth teller, he's not someone who is going to tow the party line if he doesn't believe it. that's part of the reason he was able to -- part of the reason, frankly, that he rejected the vp slot when he was considered for it. he just didn't think that he could continue to be on trump's team if it was going to require him to often bury his relationship with the truth. so the word in that statement that i still wonder about is yet, because so many republicans are still saying he's not yet there. i think that word yet is going t

joining me now, cnn senior political analyst and senior editor from "the atlantic" ron brownstein. back with us, military analyst colonel cedric leighton. thank you both for being here. ron, given the stakes, given the k bellicose rhetoric from the president, they just had this huge diplomatic achievement at the united nations, getting russia on board, getting china china on board. do you believe the president boxed himself in, ifn a sense, with the choice of words he used yesterday? >> i think the president underscored the terrain we are on, not only with the nature of this crisis with north korea but the crisis of his leadership. i don't know we've had an international crisis of this magnitude at a time we have a president facing such doubts among the american public and for that matter the leaders of most of our allies about both his judgment and his veracity. if you look at polls, again, cnn poll out, 60% say they do not believe he is honest and trustworthy. 60% or more in other polls saying they don't consider him level-headed. i think it is a challenge for the president to re

we've got cnn senior political analyst, ron brownstein. and cnn political analyst, david drucker and abby phillip. good to have you all here. david drucker, "washington examiner," looking at what the president has decided to do, a lot of his favorite pet projects, on day 200, this is what he has decided. attack "the new york times," say russia is fake, the media is terrible, and then i heard someone criticize me, so i'm going to take them out this morning, as best i can. those are his decisions on day 200. what do they reflect? >> i think they reflect the fact that one weekend into the john kelly era, some things are not going to change. and i think that's what a lot of us have been watching for. because the party -- because the white house has been in a state of chaos. it has had a lot of republicans worried about this president's performance and ability to achieve things going forward, like tax reform after the health care reform debacle. and so i think a lot of people are watching to see if the president's performance and his governing

joining me now to discuss, cnn political analyst ron brownstein and tara palmieri. >> the back and forth for many in the u.s. and our allies around the world. there's no question, this is a genuine serious situation, a crisis that president trump inherited. other presidents have failed to find a formula, other world leaders have failed to kind of formula to kind of defuse this growing threat. but i think the president has failed to recognize, and even in the comments about venezuela, reinforcing this yesterday, he has failed to recognize that he's operating i think in a very different position than other presidents. he goes into this with 70% of the public in the quinnipiac poll saying he's not level-headed. 60% in the cnn poll saying they can't trust him. he may be wantle to rattle north korea, but the problem is the way he has approached this is also rattling many in america and our allies across world. so there is a need for a recalibration. as people have talked about. you don't want to elevate the dictator of a fourth-rate power into kind of an equivalent of the u.s. president. but

washington examiner reporter, senior editor for the atlantic and ron brownstein.in, they might be even worse because these are key states with co-constituencies, as you know, including noncollege educated white voters. that group in the 40s. late lamented blue wall that basically tipped the result in 2016 and in all of them, you know, he very little margin for error. now he is in the mid 30s overall. what's important, as you note, john, we've seen a significant decline in all three states, a significant decline among college educated whites, voters skeptical of him in the beginning. approval rating among those blue collar base is 20 points below his vote and roughly 20% of trump voters, say they are embarrass embarrassed by the president. a lot of good anectdotal reporting and people concluded there's not really erosion in his base. you cannot be where he is in these states as critical as this and see approval rating 20% below his vote without somebody getting off the train. >> and to that question, are you proud or embarrassed among noncollege whites again majori

. >>> let's talk more about this with senior political analyst ron brownstein, also the senior editor at "the atlantic" and lynn sweet from the "chicago sun-times." ron, your reaction? not just pushback, but pushback quickly as a result of this "new york times" report. >> i feel that the gentleman protests too much. does anybody doubt if donald trump does not run for president in 2020 for one reason or another that mike pence will? and that if donald trump runs for president, mike pence isn't going to challenge him. a binary reality. i mean is all of this pushback -- >> ruffling feathers. >> is this supposed to mean if he doesn't run -- i won't run in 2020? no. we all have a pretty good sense where the vice president is. if the president, who is, has been a mercurial figure in his political life for whatever reason, whatever obstacles come in his way decides not to run in 2020, it would be shocking if the vice president doesn't run and inconceivable that he will challenge him. a narrow boundary. more interesting is the possibility that someone else might challenge donald trump if he c

. >>> here to discuss, ron brownstein, cnn senior political analyst and senior editor for "the atlanticnd betsy woodruff, politics reporter from the daily beast. good morning. ron, let's start with this. listen to what mcmaster said about the president's meeting with president xi of china and how they can work together to influen influence. >> three things that came out of that are first of all, that north korea, kim jung unarmed with nuclear weapons is a threat not only to the united states, not only to our great allies, japan and south korea, but also to china. that's a big acknowledgment. the second thing was that the goal of working together with them cannot be the so-called freeze for freeze, where we freeze our training and they freeze their program, because they are at threshold capability now. freeze for freeze doesn't work anymore. it's intolerable. the goal is denuclearization of the peninsula. that's the second big thing. the third big thing that came out of it is china acknowledged they have tremendous coercive economic influence here. they may not have a great political rel

let's bring in cnn political analyst john avlon and karoun demirjian, and cnn's ron brownstein. we learned the president will speak about charlottesville later today. if he does choose to call out the racists, even like his own vice president has and his daughter has, white supremacists, kkk, neo nazis, is it too late? do you judge someone by what they say first? >> i'd say it's better late than never. >> you just heard the mayor say he had his moment and he whiffed. >> and he did. to not call out neo nazis and the kkk and instead to try to broaden the criticism with a moral equivalence that even neo nazi sites took as validation of their perspective. there's a larger problem here that i think the president needs to take ownership of the he wants to be leader of the nation rather than leader of a political faction, normally the way we've seen these works, we saw it the militia movement gets energy from democrats when they feel in opposition. what's stunning about what's hang now is these numbers are rising now with a republican president who some of them feel have empowered them

. >> cnn's senior political analyst and senior editor at the atlantic, ron brownstein and senior politicalorrespondent for the hill, amy, thanks for being with us. lot of people are speaking out about the pardon of joe arpaio, including john mccain, senator jeff flake, both from arizona, and former acting a.g. sally yates who wrote potus reveals his own contempt for our constitution, our courts and our founding principles of equality and justice. ron, what do you make, a, of this pardon and b, of the timing of it? rarely do we see a pardon for somebody seven or eight months into a presidency. >> yeah. first of all, i'm obviously thinking about everybody down in texas, including all of my friends and family there. yes. this is an extraordinary moment. for many hispanics and others, i think joe arpaio is the equivalent today of what bull connor was in the civil rights era. the embodiment of the use of state power to enforce racial discrimination and the original order against him, the original injunction he defied that led to this conviction was issued by a judge appointed by george w. bush.

ron brownstein and washington correspondent devkevin diaz. >> it is also a fres straiting situation forhe united states and the u.n. you did pass the sanctions. they just launched another missile. it wasn't at guam, which i guess theoretically would have been crossing a red line for the president of the united states, but what options does trump have? >> well, look, for over 20 years we have been in this box where the diplomatic options are limited. the economic pressure is limited, and applied mostly through china, which has its own restraint on how far it's willing to go and the military options h involve not only enormous damage in north korea but i think more to the point, the potential of catastrophic casualties and property damage in seoul. so, has always been extremely limited. but, on the other happened, what you saw her today, what you saw in kind of making this point in china -- excuse me, in japan, as opposed to guam was there is the capacity to draw that does seem to be the capacity to draw red lines that has at least some constraining influence on the north korean behavior.

let's bring in ron brownstein and chris cillizza. gentlemen, nice to have you hear. let's take a moment to listen to senator corker because this is someone who has taken pains to not call out the president. he was considered for vp, secretary of state. he didn't hold back yesterday. listen. >> the president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful. he also recently has not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation. >> chris cillizza, this was the point in your newsletter last night. that's a big deal, those words. >> i think they are. i think poppy, the source matters. this is not lindsey graham, john mccain, both serious senators, but people who have never been close to trump fans. this is bob corker, someone who has worked hard to keep a line of communication open with this white house. when you hear anything critical of trump or him, i think you pay attention. i think the critique is even more important. this is not, well, the president has said some thi

we want to bring in cnn senior political analyst ron brownstein, cnn political director david chalian and politico.com senior washington correspondent anna palmer. great to see all of you. ron, let's dive into the numbers and get into the nitty-gritty of these numbers. i know that's your specialty. what jumps out at you? his approval rating is at its lowest, gone down from 40% in june to now 33%. but there's all sorts of other interesting nuggets in here. what do you see? >> the quinnipiac poll is at the low end of what we've seen, but all moving in the same direction and all in the same ball park. what's striking, alisyn, here, not only the overall deterioration, but the deterioration among the groups that have been central to his victory in 2016 and electoral commission. in the quinnipiac poll he is net negative among non-college whites, the group that gave him a higher share of their vote that they gave to any i understand cat since ronald reagan in 1994, also net negative to older americans, when you look at both of those groups what you see is a significant increase in the strong

joining us is amber phillips from the fix, ron brownstein and salina, a cnn contributor.iting to hear from the houston mayor. we may have to cut out and go to that the minute he starts speaking. salina, any president knows it is in a fish bowl, watched carefully to how it responds to natural disasters. we have seen it before, we are seeing it now. how would you assess what the president and his team are doing? >> to date, so far, i think they have done a very good job in terms of communication, reminding people to stay safe, offering support and, you know, to the people that are at risk in this situation, he's freed up the money in texas. immediately, as soon as it hit the ground, but he freed up money in louisiana. very important. he's staying ahead of the game. i think that the president has the benefit of learning from the mistakes that were made in katrina and also the mistakes made with the bp oil spill in terms of not only how you handle it visually, but in freeing up the money. the most important thing is giving the local resources all the money available so they c

ron brownstein, from a political perspective, i'm going to ask you to look at this straight as a political analyst. how does the american public respond to that, more troops -- these are ifs at this point. more troops going to america's longest war, it will inevitably lead to more deaths, more swrirs, more losses? more financial costs? how does the american public view that today. >> i think there are two separate questions. the first one is, by now, i think the american public believes there is no answer to afghanistan. there is no stabilizing of afghanistan, the only question. because of that, their instinct is less rather than more american involvement. if the president can make the case this is becoming a safe haven for isis to launch attacks against europe and the u.s., there will be time limited support for that, there is the second issue we were talking about a minute ago, the level of support for the president himself. i wrote on cnn.com a couple weeks ago, you compare his approval rating to other presidents, then i was thinking about north korea, going all the way back to the cuba

. >> ron brownstein, put on the screen a photo of the president with top aides back at the end of januaryok at this picture right now. you see the president. he's sitting at his desk in the oval office on the phone, by the way, with russian president putin. you see the vice president sitting there. look behind him. white house chief of staff. you see reince priebus, july 28th, gone. steve bannon today, august 18th, gone. reince priebus, you see sean spicer. the press secretary, july 21st gone and you see general michael flynn. the former national security advisers, only lasting until february 13th. gone. when you see that kind of departure, so quickly, in a new administration what does that say to you? >> look, it's reflects everybody of the president's management style. not only did not run a large institution, public company, but also that he basically believes, and i think it's very clear from his career, he believes chaos benefits him nap he is strengthened when there is unease around him. and when lines are uncertain and positions are uncertain. somethingals larger. steve bannon and

. >> ron brownstein, how do you see it? >> the president on this case and other issues, he's failing to comprehend the situation he is in. he is in a different and difficult position both with the country and with the worldcom paired to other presidents at moments of international crisis. if you go back for starters and look at the last 50 years since the cuban missile crisis, only jimmy carter at the outset of the iranian hostage crisis was anywhere near as low as the president in his job approval in the u.s. and he is laboring as well as we saw in the cnn poll, 60% said he can't be trusted. 70% said he can't be -- when you expand the lens internationally, we saw in the pew poll, less than a quarter people in japan, less than a 5th of the people of south korea say they have confidence in him to make the right decision in international affairs. whatever message he thinks he's sending to north korea, he's failing to apprehend how much he needs to send a message to his own people and to his allies around the world, as leon pa

manjoo: ron brownstein is editorial director for strategic partnerships at atlantic media, where he contributes to the atlantic and the national journal including a weekly column on both sites. he's a longtime political analyst for cnn and he was previously a columnist and political correspondent for the la times and he's the author six books most recently the second civil war how extreme partisanship has paralyzed washington and polarized america. and also julia angwin is a senior reporter at pro publica where in 2016 she led a team investigating algorithms that was a finalist for appeal and surprise in explanatory reporting. and from 2000 to 2013 she reported at the wall street journal where her team of reporters won the 2003 explanatory reporting covering corporate corruption. and she's the author of among other things dragnet nation a quest for privacy security and freedom in a world of relentless surveillance. so i wanted to talk about this question of one way to think of what happened in 2016 is to in the 2016 election is to think that it was an attack on the media, like the media informa

ron brownstein is editorial director for strategic partnerships at atlantic media, where he contributes to the atlantic and the national journal including a weekly column on both sites. he's a longtime political analyst for cnn and he was previously a columnist and political correspondent for the la times and he's the author six books most recently the second civil war how extreme partisanship has paralyzed washington and polarized america. and also julia angwin is a senior reporter at pro publica where in 2016 she led a team investigating algorithms that was a finalist for appeal and surprise in explanatory reporting. and from 2000 to 2013, she reported at the "wall street journal" where her team of reporters won the 2003 explanatory reporting covering corporate corruption. and she's the author of among other things dragnet nation a quest for privacy security and freedom in a world of relentless surveillance. so i wanted to talk about this question of one way to think of what happened in 2016 is to in the 2016 election is to think that it was an attack on the media, like the media info