Another seems to open. Enter, the New York TimesFront Page Story of a secret plan by Trump Associates said to be backed by kremlin about the Armed Conflict with Russian Allied forces within its own borders. In other words, while the fbis investigating an alleged back channel during the election between russia and the Trump Campaign, there may be another previously undisclosed back channel between russia and known Trump Associates. But before we dive into the times report, a little context. Throughout the entire russia controversy, the president has repeatedly denied having any russian Business Ties. I own nothing in russia. I have no loans in russia. I dont have any deals in russia. Russia is fake news. Russia is fake news. But thats a relatively recent claim. In 2008, for instance, donald trump jr. Told an interviewer, russians make up a pretty
disproportionate crosssection of a lot of our assets, say in dubai and certainly with our project in soho. We see a lot of money pouring in from russia. Trump was involved in a lawsuit dealing with russia and kazakhstan. Before the russia controversy, donald trump claimed to have close Business Ties to russia and a personal relationship with vladimir putin. Have you had any dealings with the russians . Well, ive done a lot of business with the russians. They are comys, you know that . They are smart and tough and they are not looking so dumb right now, are they . I do have a relationship and i can tell you hes very interested in what were doing here today. Hes probably interested in what you and i are saying today. Insuransince he never releas tax returns, its hard to know what ties, if any, he has with the russians. And associates of the president were working on a back channel
author of trump nation the art of being the donald. I read this article five times. Wait, what . Sater was a figure i was familiar with primarily from your reporting. Who is this guy . Felix sater came to the United States from russia with his family, settled down in new york and proceeded to get in a lot of trouble. He did prison time for assaulting someone with the stem of a margarita glass. In 1990s, he was involved in Stock Schemes with Organized Crime Members in the new york area and then he falls in with a Real Estate Group who has offices one floor below Donald Trumps offices. And theres no question as to whether he was involved in the
soho trump deal . No. He was a primary player in it along with another, tedric irif. Trump put no money into it, which is typical from many of those deals during that period. He was a little tight for cash. He essentially lent his name to the project, they gave him a piece of the action. I think he got 16 of the trump soho. He put his name on it but he was the minority partner and these guys funded it and built it. Sater also has russian connections. Hes of russian birth but grew up here but apparently is someone who maintains Business Relationships there. Took the Trump Kids Over To Moscow at one point . He joined ivanka and don jr. In moscow in february 2006. The primary partner of his at bay mark was a former soviet official. So theres multiple russian connections here. I think whats important to remember here, trump for all
everything he did in russia, never got anything built there. The most he got done was a beauty pageant. Its unlikely that youre going to see humongous Financial Relationships between trump and russia but i dont think thats the troubling element of it. The troubling element is hes opened the door to russia using him or playing him as a pawn around very serious issues. Hes invited the Russias To HackHillary Clintons campaign. We now know that a number of federal agencies are looking at the Trump Campaign around Improper Communications with the russians including Michael Cohen, the broker of this new go ahead. Well, to me, part of it is, lets just throw out everything having to do with the ongoing Smoke Billowing out of the Sort Of Trump russia story and just focus on the idea of felix sater and Michael Cohen, a business
associate with mafia ties through some back channels unspecified. And the third member of the trio has claimed that hes got Corruption Evidence against poroshenko, the ukrainian leader, and has openly said that hes got putins backing or high aides of putin have supported his position. Why the three of them are suddenly put together a plan like this it makes you think what the heck else are people talking about and meeting about if these three guys are getting together for a ukraine peace deal. And why do they have this kind of proximity to donald trump. Michael cohen was the trump lawyer. He left in january. He now appears to have this almost like Clark Clifford role, an adviser to the president on sensitive issues. If hes a gatekeeper, people like felix sater from getting into the president s orbit. I think thats probably a good piece of advice from tim obrien if youre watching, mr. President. Thank you. Joining me now is a reporter for the washington post. How did according to your reporting, roselyn and the white house is basically saying theres no paper on this, that they have a record of the National Security council, its fake news, et cetera. What does your reporting suggest about how the heck this even started to come together . Its a little bit of a mystery. Felix sater says hes an akwat tans of this u krar general lawmaker and he brought the plan to Michael Cohen. I spoke with Michael Cohen just today who described a phone call from his old friend felix who had he known from the Trump Organization and said complete me for coffee and there was this
ukrainian parliamentarian and his peace plan. Right. And so this peace plan, which the ukrainian parliamentary says has the tasset or explicit to stop russianbacked forces within ukraines bders using Military Force and a low level of separatist agitation, right . Right. It would call for an end to russian hostilities and also have a referendum on the future of crimea, which is the portion that russia seized in 2014. Apparently the referendum would offer two choices. One would lease crimea to russia for 50 years and the other would lease crimea to russia for 100 years. In either instance, they would get crimea, which is a top priority of the russians. Wait a second. Wait a second. The peace deal, one of the
pieces of the peace deal is a referendum to the people of crimea about whether they want to be leased to russia for 50 or 100 years . Thats correct. And it should be noted that the kremlin feels so strongly about crimea that when asked about this today they also dismissed this because they said how could we lease something that is ours . How could we lease something that is ours . So their belief is that crimea is part of russia. Heres the other question. My other understanding about the contours of this is theres different rounds of sanctionses that have been posed on russia but the strongest and the most buyin for are the ones in response to the seizure of crimea. Those would be lifted under this plan, right . Well, its a little unclear if the plan itself called for the lifting of sanctions. Of course, if there were peace in ukraine, an organic ukrainian accepted peace deal, there would no longer be a need for sanctions. And so the idea is that a peace
plan would lead to the end of hostilities and the lifting of sanctions. Rosalind, thank you for your time tonight. Thank you. Im joined by robby mook, Hillary Clintons campaign manager. You talked about the russians and invited criticism for it because whatever your feelings are, theres a sense in which it felt off topic given what was at stake. Im sort of curious how you think about that in retrospect given the news that we have now. Its frustrating, chris. A lot of the topics we brought up, including felix sater and the fact that there are Financial Connections between the Trump Campaign and that there were conversations going on between the Trump Campaign and russia, its frustrating that that didnt get covered. I think what matters now is the future and i think whats hard to grasp in general about this
entire situation is that it just feels like fiction. Its so strange. You know, these shady characters, the idea that theres Financial Connections, secret meetings going on and i think its very easy, because its so strange, because its so bizarre to cast it aside. What were asking for now is for everybody to take this very seriously. Were looking at a situation where a foreign government, a, broke into the dnc and tried to influence the election and now, b, that potentially with money, they are trying to influence the affairs of our government and Foreign Policy and the idea that now a plan was able to get directly to the president bypassing our entire diplomatic and National Security apparatus is really alarming. Thats why we need an independent Bipartisan Commission to look into this and im just calling on every american. Lets put aside republican or democrat. Every american needs to demand that we see Donald Trumps taxes
and that we get to the bottom of what happened here. But you and i both know i had understand your calling for every american. Obviously the prism for all of this is deeply partisan. Its deeply shot through with the sort of tribal affiliations of American Politics and Peoples Trust and belief. Is there any reason to suppose that, say, the Republican Party has any interest in actually getting to the bottom of this . They do. I really believe that they do. And i think lindsey graham, john mccain and others have surfaced this issue. It was the democrats that putin went after today. It could be the republicans tomorrow. And i think republicans should be particularly afraid as we approach these midterm elections. The russians can do to them what they did to hillary. And so to see this as partisan in any way is looking at this in such a shortterm mindset thats really scary. And what im particularly afraid of is that the network that the russians have built, be it the
financial ties to donald trump or this network of fake twitter accounts and Media Outlets that theyve set up, that they will permeate our political and process and dialogue so deeply let me just stop you right there. Because that seems to be part of the problem about this sort of the category were creating here. So at one end of the spectrum you have what appears to be criminal intrusion into an email server. Right . And the other is, theres fake twitter accounts. So theres a big spectrum in terms of how objectionable and influential those things are and it seems like they get rolled up into the same category. But i think, chris, we need to see this as a singular effort on the part of putin to influence america, to influence our dialogue and decision making. Look at the radical change weve seen since donald trump took office. Were now discussing whether to take away sanctions from russia. Weve now got Back Channelling for proputin peace deals in the ukraine. I mean, this is a totally different situation than we had just a month ago. You know, the head of the National Security council, the National Security adviser was someone who bid on the payroll of rt, a russian propaganda arm. I mean, its incredible when you step back and think about it. And i think at the crux of this is the fact that i actually want to take a little issue with what was said earlier. I dont think its the donald trump is invested in russia. I think its russia is invested in donald trump. Thats why he doesnt want to show the taxes and thats why hes so afraid to upset the russians. I dont think donald trump has somehow become a russian disciple. I think he has deep Financial Issues at stake. That is obviously an accusation or an allegation that of course we cannot in any way verify and theres one way
essentially we could definitively rule it out. Robby mook, thanks for your time. Appreciate it. Thank you, chris. Coming up, reassuring iraqis know we are not reinvading the country to take their oil. Thats next. Plus, Congress Members on recess meet the resistance. Ahead, the latest explosion of town hall protests this weekend and one republican member who isnt backing down from his constituents. I dont want to here a canned answer. Yes or no, can you say yes or no if you with every click. Call. Punch. And paycheck. Youve earned your medicare. It was a deal that was made long ago, and aarp believes it should be honored. Thankfully, President Trump does too. I am going to protect and save your social security
and your medicare. You made a deal a long time ago. Now, its congress turn. Tell them to protect medicare. This is the story of Green Mountain coffee and fair trade, told in the time it takes to brew your cup. Lets take a trip to la plata, colombia. This is boris calvo. Thats pepe. Boris doesnt just grow good coffee, boris grows mindblowing coffee. And because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm to grow even Better Coffee and invest in his community, which makes his neighbor, gustavo, happy. Thats blanca. Yup, pepe and blanca got together. Things happen. All this for a smoother tasting cup of coffee. Green mountain coffee. Packed with goodness. As you know doubt know by now, there was no incident in sweden as the president claimed during that saturday rally. The governor of sweden had to point that out. The embassy asking the u. S. State department to explain. President trump later clarified saying his comments were in reference to a fox news segment he had been watching which was inflammatory meanwhile, including the United States commitment to the European Union and in abu dhabi, the secretary of defense was forced to clean out the president s prior musings about going back in and taking iraqs oil. So we should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe youll have another chance. But the fact is, should have kept the oil. All of us in america have paid for our gas and oil all
along and im sure that we will continue to do so in the future. Were not in iraq to seize anybodys oil. Joining me now, elliott cohen, former counselor at the state department under condoleezza rice. Perhaps you can tell by that, a republican, a conservative, also a never trumper. Mr. Cohen, essential is it to have Foreign Policy pretend that the president s pronouncements dont exist or to have various members of his cabinet explicitly rebutting them all the time . Well, its not tenable. There are a number of problems. If people get used to the idea that you cant believe a word that he says, there are real consequences to that. The other problem that youve got, an awful lot of the effort
now of his National Security team, secretary mattis, Secretary Tillerson and so on, is devoted to cleaning up messes. And when youre cleaning up messes, youre not able to take the initiative of taking a wide range of issues that were facing in the years ahead. You said this, which i keep thinking about this quote. Ive been in this town for 26 years. Ive never seen anything like this, referring to the president. I dont think this is a mentally healthy president. What did you mean by that . If you look at dsmiv and dsmv, if you look at narcissistic personality disorder, the psychologists and psychiatrists dont like to do remote diagnoses, you cant go through it and not say check, check, check. I think the president is a narcissist. That doesnt mean that hes unable to function but it is very, very troubling. It means he has trouble with empathy. It means he interprets everything absolutely personally, it means hes
susceptible to flattery. Its in many ways disabling from the conduct of effective certainly Foreign Policy, probably domestic policy as well. Now, what i will say, hes appointed some capable people and the question is whether they be able to contain him. But even if they do that, you know, we still need more. It is a dangerous world out there. Yeah, the containment, i thought of h. R. Mcmaster, the individual who has just been named active officer, Active Duty Officer who has been named to replace michael flynn. From people ive talked to respect him a tremendous amount. He wrote a fascinating book about the war and why they werent able to tell the president the truth, which seems germain in this context. But how much can you expect if everyone is trying to figure out what the latest tweet is . I agree with that. H. R. Mcmaster is a wonderful officer. Hes a terrific commander. Hes a sober scholar. Above all, hes a man of complete integrity. I wish him an enormous amount of luck because hes going to need it. He has a threefold problem. He has to deal with his boss who is a deeply erratic guy. Secondly and i think people need to focus on this theres sort of a parallel National SecurityCouncil Staff under steve bannon and that really is not tolerable. And then the third thing is actually the substantive problems of the world. We can be so absorbed with our own internal fighting that were not going to tackle the problems out there for us. Yeah. The north korean regime, al nusra, probably dont care about the tweets of the president but they have bigger fish to fry but ultimately those are going to be crises that could land on americas doorstep. Absolutely. And you know, the tweets do
matter. People do Pay Attention to what a president says and they will act. Eliot cohen, thank you for your time. Appreciate it. People take to the streets to protest the trump agenda but some republican lawmakers dont want to hear it, literally. They are avoiding their constituents. More on that after this quick break. Ing. What do you mean . I just got this baby to get around the plant floor. Right, but now Ge Technology monitors every machine. Yeah, it brings massive amounts of information right to you. So you dont need that. Well, it makes me look young and uh. With it. Time to move on. Oh ill move on. Right into the future. Backwards. Youre going backwards. The futures all around us not just on your little tablet, my friend. Scalpel. I have no idea what im doing. Im just a tv doctor. I never went to college. scream i dont do blood. But now, thanks to cigna, i can do more than just look the part. Is that a foot . We are the tv doctors of america. And were partnering with cigna to help save lives. By getting you to a real doctor for an annual checkup. So go, know, and take control of your health. Doctor poses. Cigntogether, all the way. Across the country on this president s day, thousands of people in at least 25 cities participated in not my president s day rallies. It was the latest example of the sort of constant Street Protests that have become visceral
resistance during his first month in office. Many thought to take their thoughts to congress at town Hall Meetings but theres a catch. Many republicans are simply refusing to face their constituents. In the first two months of the last congress, republicans held 222 inperson town hall events. Current congress, 88 events which we should note 35 are by a single brave number of congress. Republicans who have held town halls have gotten an earful. Jason chaffetz faced chants of do your job. Not long after mike kaufman was caught sneaking out the back door of an event early while more than 100 people waited to talk to him. Today, representative jim jordan planned to hold two public events, neither of which were billed as a town hall. Constituents brought the town hall to him, forcing jordan to take questions at what was supposed to be a sleepy president s day event at the
onetime home of president warren oren. Town hall now town hall now attendees have been organized by the town hall project which keep track of where and when town halls are being held. On saturday, hundreds showed up to town hall hosted by new york republican tom reed whose events normally just bring out a handful of people. Id like to know why you want to get rid of the epa. Madison, let me look you in the eye. I do not support removing and repealing the epa. Progress. This was a scene in South Carolina where representative mark sanford spoke to constituents for more than three hours, one of the few willing to face his constituents head on. Well ask him why after this break. Its a supercomputer. With this grade of protection. Its a fortress. And with this standard of luxury. Its an oasis. The 2017 eclass. Its everything you need it to be. And more. Lease the e300 for 549 a month at your local mercedesbenz dealer. Mercedesbenz. The best or nothing. Coaching means making tough choices. Jim youre in but when you have high Blood Pressure and need Cold Medicine that works fast, the choice is simple. Coricidin hbp is the only brand that gives powerful Cold Symptom Relief without raising your Blood Pressure. Coricidin hbp. And find your new one all on cars. Com you know us for shopping, and now were there for every turn. Cars. Com im not a customer, but im calling about that credit scorecard. Give it. Sure its free for everyone. Oh well thats nice and checking your score wont hurt your credit. Oh im so proud of you. Well thank you. Free at at discover. Com creditscorecard, even if youre not a customer. You learn a lot. It was a smfull smorgosborg. It was an exhaustive list. Probably the health care, if i could pick one single issue, that got talked about more than any other issue, it would be health care. Its interesting in that clip there and i think a lot of the focus at these town halls has been health care. Things like getting rid of lifetime caps, getting rid of the ban on preexisting conditions, right, and you saw that guy asking about it. And the worry is, what are you, the republicans in congress, going to do that is going to get rid of obamacare but keep the stuff thats popular and is that even feasible . What is your answer to that . I couldnt hear all the clip that played, but i think i was
saying youve already won, which i would stand by. I think if you looked at the reality of the political heat thats been generated, theres been overwhelming support. I mean, for instance, the plan that senator paul and i have introduced keeps young people on their plan until the age of 26 and it covers preexisting conditions. We had four meeting in the republican conference this last week on the issue of health care and i think there is a broad consensus that in some form or fashion preexisting conditions is going to be covered. So i think to your point, a number of the popular elements are going to be kept in. The problem will be to pay for it. The problem is from an actualary perspective. Those folks are very expensive. A small percentage of the very sick make up the vast majority of costs in any kind of system. Sure. How do you preserve these sort of popular reforms and get
rid of the other stuff, you know, while adhering to some of your kind of principles and preceps . What i would say, for instance, on the plan that weve introduced, we tackle preexisting conditions but we do it in a different way as the affordable air a Affordable Care act. You can go to the doctor this evening and be diagnosed with cancer and then you can go tomorrow morning to sign up for insurance. That undermines every single Matt Particulmat math mat particular mathematic the whole idea of the mandate is to prevent that from happening as much as it would
without it. The idea is to get everyone in the pool for precisely the reason youre specifying. Correct. But the reality, if we bow know, that hasnt happened. So the question is what do we do to make sure that it does. We take a market approach, which might be different than your approach or some of the viewers. What we say is, one, it was during the wage and price of world war ii, employment and health care became linked. And that really need not be the case. One insurance going where they do. So what we do is take a couple bites at the apple and say, wait, if your insurance goes with you, might we not approach the issue of preexisting conditions a bit differently and give you a twoyear phasein. After that, you have to have continuous coverage. We do some things to make it more affordable. We do some things to make sure your insurance goes with you. And the problem right now that i think the Affordable Care act has been contending with, young
people have not enrolled as they expected and we still have an Affordability Issue with regard to employment linkage. The big question with republicans, i remember covering the first Affordable Care act. Right. And a huge problem for democrats was the sort of status quo bias. Folks are scared about something new and uncertain when it comes to health care. You guys are on the opposite side of that status quo bias. Can you look constituents in the eye and across the bell curve of the different kinds of ways people might be affected by the system, look them in the eye and say youre going to be better off, youre going to have coverage if you have it now . I hate the issue of political guarantees because they are ripped apart so quickly. The answer to that is no right . The answer is we dont know with precision what we believe is mathematical. In South Carolina, our premiums
increased from 29 . Weve gone from three providers down to one. So its something you can either sit on the sidelines and say let it fail of its owe volition, leave it alone which politically would be the easier thing to do or say, here are some other remedies. And i think whats going to happen, the two ideas are going to get melded and youll have a bit of obamacare and youre going to have a bit more in the way of free market. What i thought was interesting is where that line is being pushed, particularly when you talk about the victories that folks have won. Its indicative of the direction of the way things are moving. Representative sanford, thank you for your time tonight. Come back any time. My pleasure. Thanks. Coming up, as the opposition against President Trump does it come at the expense of finding middle ground between the polarized portions of our electorate . Plus, tonights thing 1 and thing 2 right after this break. Yeah, so moms got this cold. It provides relief of symptoms that can be triggered by over 200 different allergens. Live claritin clear. My insurance rates are but dad, youve got. Allstate. With Accident Forgiveness they guarantee your rates wont go up just because of an accident. Smart kid. Indeed. Its good to be in, good hands. When youre 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 disease can happen with taltz. Including worsening of symptoms. Serious allergic reactions can occur. Nows your chance at completely clear skin. Just ask your doctor about taltz. Thing 1 tonight, a story out of texas of hunters who called 911 saying they were attacked by, quote, illegals, during which one man was shot in the arm and another in an abdomen. A gofund me page stated they were involved in a shootout with some illegals when the illegals tried to steal an rv with walker still inside. Aided by a Facebook Page by this guy, Texas Agricultural Commissioner sid miller speaking at a rally a man who trump considered for a Cabinet Position and posted a photo of one of the hunters saying the aliens were ambushing the rv that walker and his wife. He was shot while trying to protect his borders. Pretty dramatic stuff. An important update to this story youre going to want to stick around for. Ill give you a hint. Two guys shot each other and made up the whole story. Thats thing it in 60 seconds. Two hunters claimed immigrants shot their rv. One thing didnt check out. The whole idea that they were ambushed by Illegal Immigrants crossing the border. By the looks of it right now, we think we believe that during the shooting when all of the commotion and confusion going on, we believe Michael Shot Walker and walker had shot edwin. Heres how investigators believe the shooting happened. Walker claims he thought illegals were inside the rv but edwin and his wife were in intenting to kidnapping them. Thats when edwin fired a round inside the rv missing walker. Walker immediately ran inside his cabin to grab his gun and to get backup from michael. Okay. So just to distill that down to its essence, basically, two
hunters just shot at each other, following a monthlong investigation, they have been indicted by the grand jury for one charge each of using deadly conduct by discharging firearms, a third degree felony. As for commissioner sid miller, who posted the story on facebook as justification for trumps border wall, it seems a group of hunters shooting each other in texas doesnt prove his point. Millers post has disappeared. Anything meant to stand needs a stable foundation. A body without proper foot support can mean pain. The dr. Scholls kiosk maps your feet and recommends
our custom fit orthotic to stabilize your foundation and relieve foot, knee or lower back pain from being on your feet. Dr. Scholls. With not food, become food . Thankfully at panera, 100 of our food is 100 clean. No artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors, or colors. Panera. Food as it should be. He was back in florida on saturday inside an Airport Hangar speaking to supporters that had all of the makings of a Campaign Rally. The white house even called it a Campaign Rally for america. After telling the Washington Force Last week that Air Force One will not be used as a prop at a political rally, there was Air Force One as a prop at a political rally. In terms of public opinion, the basic underlying structure of the campaign has never ended. Since taking office, the president s job approval in the average of polls has been remarkably stable, hovered around 44 , which again makes sense since the president only received about 46 of the vote. And though the Polling Average of his approval is remarkably consistent, the president also has the worst job Approval Rating at this point, meaning midfebruary, than any other president since Dwight Eisenhower which is when gallup started measuring these things. But here is the thing. Among republicans, trumps
Approval Rating of 88 is higher Thanes Historical Average that president s have received from their own party at this point in their administrations. So the question becomes, for those opposed to trump, how much should they mobilize and organize the people who already Dont Like Trump and how much should they convert on those who support them . Well talk about that, next. When you have allergies,
and im here to support the lgbt community. I am here for every american who feels scared for this administration. Lets just put it this way. Thats one of the thoughtses thousands of people who opposed the president today. Sabrina writes, if Political Action is meant to persuade people that mr. Trump is bad for the country, then this would be a place to start. Yet many seemingly persuadable conservatives say that liberals. Joining me is the reporter who wrote that piece. Sabrina, this piece was all over the place this weekend. It got a lot of people very angry. I guess my question to you is, the folks that you interviewed, how persuadable are they . I sort of have the sinking suspicion that no matter what
liberals did, they wouldnt be happy about it. So, the fellow in california and the fellow in South Carolina, they were both you know, the california guy said, look, you know, if theres something that, say, for example, if trump ditches the Health Care Law and suddenly there are 18 Million People without health insurance, id be really mad at trump and i wouldnt support him after that. That would make me really change my mind about this guy and his presidency. We are in a really, really, really polarized time and everybody is kind of, you know, in their sort of team colors camp, if you will. But i do think that these people were not flagwaving supporters at all. In fact, they kept saying, you keep saying to me im a trump supporter. I voted for the guy. That doesnt mean that i support him. That doesnt mean that im going to kind of Check My Brain at the door and not care about any of the policies that hes doing. Ive seen versions erin, ive seen, youre doing it wrong, youre going to make them more angry, youre not sufficiently solicitis of these folks. A lot of the reaction is to the headline, but what i really think is an interesting question and the followup is, are Trump Supporters supporting trump . They are complete lie myopic. I. C. E. Raids are breaking up families. They are worried whether they can put Bumper Stickers on their car when rivers are to be poisoned. I dont think people on the left have sympathy for a guy whose
feelings are being hurt because he cant wear a hat on a tinder date. Sabrina, theres a deeper question about the degree to which persuasion is the point here, right . Which gets to the Strtural Question here. Is it actually the job of folks who are mobilizing right now . Should they be thinking about persuading that sort of persuadable group of voters or is the nature of polarization such that the lesson that weve all learned in some sense is from the tea party, from cpac and from donald trump himself, mobilize those that support you. You know, the only thing i was trying to lay out in that piece was there is an equal and opposite reaction on the other side. Right. Im not saying no one should be protesting. Im not saying im not making any Value Judgment on what the strategy is. Im just saying im seeing this really strongly among these people who really arent, you know, inclined to embrace zsh
can i jump in for a quick second . Sure. Hillary clinton won the popular vote by 3 million votes. Those who spoke in the piece are from california, South Carolina and new york. Theres something to be said about persuading people who are persuadable. As chris said, this is about activation and getting those who didnt show up to vote to actually get up to protest, which is what they were doing. What i thought was interesting is so much of the political thing that is happening is my enemy is my enemy kind of thing. I dont like him but i hate the people that hate him more than i hate him, which is kind of the way we end up doing our political reasoning and in some ways you watch that web spin out in all kinds of directions in this current political environment, which is like the
feeling that conservatives have about trump. They hate liberals more than they are ever going to hate donald trump. I feel like they have this again, this is, you know, among moderates, they feel that theres this kind of contempt that is kind of flowing in their general direction and that that is through social media and through everything that is happening everywhere, online and, you know, to a certain extent with the protests and sort of Political Action not online but i think that theres a lot of polarization, liberals say conservatives, conservatives hate liberals. All i was saying was, you know, these folks who arent necessarily they are not flag wavers for trump and, you know, we do need a middle ground. We need a middle space. We need moderates. This is like i dont know. Its for the political operatives to decide whether