Exploring issues that affect leaders in the U. S. And around the globe. Finish line. And one of the president s first congressional supporters now faces criminal charges. Congressman collins cheated our markets and our justice system. Is a wider Culture Of Corruption Story Unraveling around the white house . This is mtp daily an it starts right now. Good evening, im chuck todd here on a very busy washington, d. C. Welcome to mtp daily. Is it really august . Once again welcome to a wild day of legal and Political Developments surrounding, who else, but the president. One of his top loyalists in the house was just arrested on Insider Trading charges on a plot that was so brazen, it includes the white house south lawn, by the way. As it was described by federal prosecutors today that you have got to see it to believe it. Weve have much more on this story and this Culture Of Corruption Stench thats starting to grow around the president coming up. But were also going to talk about the political fallout from the story as well, because the bigger story is that it arguably couldnt come at a worse time for House Republicans, which is where we begin tonight. Folks, the antitrump midterm wave is on full display right now and the president seems intent on diving head first right into it. Democrats surged again in a reliably red district that the president carried easily, again. The republican candidate, Troy Balderson, is barely eking out a load after last nights vote. The result which we deem as still too close to call because there are more votes to be counted than the margin between the two candidates. But this close result should be a giant flashing warning sign for the gop. They significantly outspent democrats in this district and the president swooped in at the 11th hour on saturday to fire up the base. Today the rnc said that event is
what carried balderson across the finish line. Do you think the visit on saturday even kept this thing close . The visit on saturday is why we won. Well, the president also took credit for the apparent victory today as you might expect he would, but that suggests that the situation is even worse than some republicans feared, because that kind of Rescue Mission will be impossible to replicate in 435 races this november. If you had a Base Turnout Problem in this district, then you have a major problem. So thats why im not sure i buy that. But for his part the president insisted as long as i campaign and or support senate and house candidates within reason they will win. And if i find the time, which i must, we will have a giant red wave. A few hours later, this tweet. Red wave but the results from last night suggest that a suburban rebellion is whats actually brewing right now and its brewing against this president. The democratic candidate surge
im going to get this tweet exactly correct. If anything, tonights ohio 12 result reinforces our view that dems are substantial favorites to retake the house in november. So let me ask you to go another step. If you look at sort of what the night in general showed, right, with suburban turnouts in spokane and in st. Louis and in columbus, what does substantial now look like in your mind . What is shows, chuck, is that the seatbyseat forecast is catching up with our Macro Estimate which has long been that democrats are substantial favorites to win back the house. Now, we see the trump zones, particularly in places like rural ohio last night, they did not turn out. In fact Troy Balderson owes his margin right now not to the trump zones but rather to Governor John Kasich who cut a lastminute ad. Its the democratic suburbs like Franklin County that turned out at really high levels, and it was those Delaware County suburbs last night that kept
Troy Balderson ahead. Thats kasich country. Yeah, thats what was amazing. I saw that our friends at the New York Times crunched some numbers. The raw vote turnout in those Rural Counties was, mediocre at best, 28 to 32 , compared to what we saw in oconnors strong holds. If the president s visit helped, then how bad could it have been . It could have been worse. Were potentially looking at a historic wave election. I think the tendency on the part of a lot of pundits is to be cautious, but this truly could turn into a big set of gains for democrats that goes beyond the 23 seats they need. All right. Theres a man here who was in charge of the last major wave in the first term of a president. Its my man, michael steel, of the rnc. Yeah. I remember democrats would eke out special election victories in 2010. Republicans are eking out a bunch of them. I think wasserman noted its actually the best record
technically on paper. Democrats did really well in special elections in 2010. What do you see . What i see here is exactly as has been laid out. This is setting itself up very much like it did in 2010 in that the energy is on the ground. The energy is in spots around the country that quite honestly, the National Parties dont necessarily really understand how impactful they can be. I mean just as the point you just made, chuck, about looking at those suburbs and the fact that the turnout based on the plus r ratio, you think, okay, the president is coming in, everybody will be fired up and going to go. Youve got to cut beneath that. Youve got to get below that surface. There is a lack of energy on the republican side that we are not acknowledging, that were not accounting for when were looking at the numbers, when were looking at the ground game and looking at the november
to win tough races when our candidate is being outraced and every republican is getting vastly outraised by an opponent needs to raise more money. This is a bit of a guys, wake up. In other words, theyre saying theyre not going to be able to shell out 3 million for every house race that should be safely republican that they shouldnt be competing in. Thats a big warning Flare Cory Bliss is sending out there. Its perfectly fair. The divide to me that was so staggering in the Ohio Special Election Bwas the urban metropolitan versus the rural. This is the story of the trump era. These two places are right next to each other, in the same district. And the balance of it is going to come down to the suburbs. White voters affluent, College Educated, moving away from the republicans. If they turn away from republicans, thats where the blue wave will come up. I brought up missouri too, im always such a geek, i like
to look at every result because you never know something thats buried that people missed. I feel like theres sort of now are we looking at two different types of Swing Districts for this cycle, meaning normal Swing Districts so your Collar Counties around philadelphia, the suburbs of minneapolis, that makes sense. But do we now have a new one, that next ring of districts that straddle the suburbs and exurbs like ohio 12, Like Washington 5, like really like virginia 7, the dave bratt seat. Missouri 2 actually sort of qualifies in that category too perhaps. Yeah, youre absolutely right, chuck. We call these districts urban rural divides. The danger for republicans is that you could have scenarios like the one we saw in ohio 12 where turnout in Franklin County was 60 of 2016 and in the most republican county in the district, it was only 46 of 2016. It was reminiscent of pennsylvania 18 or the Alabama Senate election. And if you have that kind of
dynamic, we better be watching the 68 republicanheld districts that are less republican than ohio 12. And when the battlefield becomes that large, the problem for republican outside groups like the clf is that it becomes financially unmanageable. They cant throw enough money at these races to effectively define the democratic opponents. Ive got to ask about Chris Collins today. First, david, lay out the district for us, okay. On paper you have it as solid republican. Explain. Well, we just moved this to likely republican in light of the indictment because when it rains, it pours for republicans. But look, this is the most republican seat in new york state. It was a district that voted for President Trump by 24 points in 2016. And yet democrats have a potentially credible candidate in nate mcmurray. He doesnt live in the district. Chris collins will certainly point out that he used his town email, hes a Town Supervisor in grand island, new york, to
pursue some political aims and try to tie him to hillary clinton, that way to neutralize his own legal problems. But look, we have to Pay Attention to races like these where republicans are under indictment in safe seats. Hes the only one so far but Duncan Hunter in california, were watching that too. You know, its so funny, daniellea and michael and sahil, if you look at the 06 wave, if you look at the 94 wave and ill throw in the 10 but certainly 06 and 94, with the indictment, hed never lose that district, thats chicago. Actually he lost it. So you never know but corruption is that it can be the Exclamation Point of the wave. What i finding interesting on the corruption front is that back in those races, corruption was something that was pointed out by the opposing party, so
they were going after and used it as a weapon. In this situation, you had an administration coming in talking about were going to clean up the corruption and in fact have embraced it, have promoted it in some instances and now have to go on the defense this november against a very simple narrative by the democrats, like really . This is what youre going to put up . Look, it is sometimes that special added sauce. I look at 06, you had the mark foley situation, the Jack Abramoff situation had blown up. It was in addition to the iraq war. Theres a lot happening here. Theres corruption, theres everything surrounding trump from his corruption just to the person that he is to the fact that republicans really havent done anything since they have been in power. They havent passed any meaningful legislation. The tax cut is totally unpopular with people. They dont feel the effects and if they do, its negative. I have an idea. This is a good time to have a fight over funding for the border wall. Maybe a Good Government shutdown is what House Republicans need in september. No . David, is that good strategy, the white house is contemplating it . I tending not to think it is, chuck. Id call it inadvisabilivisi one of the fascinating things about ohio 18 is National Republicans came in saying, hey, look at this tax cut, isnt that great . It didnt work. People didnt respond to it, so it shifted to a cultural message talking about the liberal resistance, going after illegal immigration. This is what galvanizes the base. Through these ads, the party is telling us what they think galvanizes and motivates their voters in the trump era. David, im going to let you have the final word here. When you look do you now look at this whole what happened last night and do you reevaluate every race almost looking at it
weve got a candidate in Northern Indiana whos disavowed her who might have a shot. There are democrats all over the map in similar districts who know that this is what they have to do to show separation and show that theyre the candidates of change. All right. David wasserman, pretty much the only person you need to follow on an Election Night on twitter. David, thank you very much, sir. I dispute that, chuck, but thank you very much. I know you do. This is why were throwing accolades at you so thank you. Up ahead, what does this too close to call race in ohio mean for the fight inside the gop . Whos gop is it, john kasichs or donald trumps. Well ask the republican governor of ohio, next. Welcome back. We dont know for sure if President Trumps visit made things better or worse for republican Troy Balderson in ohio. But woe do know turnout gap between the suburbs and Rural Counties should be making a lot of moderate republicans or shall we call them more Chamber Of CommercePro Business Republicans nervous. Joining me now is a politician you might say is representative of that wing of the party, maybe the trump skeptic wing of the party. Its ohio Governor John Kasich. He, by the way, represented ohios 12th District In Congress for nine terms. Governor kasich, good to see you, sir. Yeah, i also as governor had a win in those areas too. Yes, you did that. Im not some Chamber Of Commerce type look, im a positive pauopulist. I know you are. Come on, dont be defining me that way. Let me ask you this. Theres obviously a slice of the Republican Party you speak to better than donald trump does. And its this slice of the Republican Party that seems to be wavering on him. Is that a fair statement . Chuck, theres no question that people sent a message to the party, to republicans, knock it off. The chaos, the divisions, i mean kids being separated from their parents at the border. These crazy tariffs. Hey, were going to take your health care. Were going to kill obamacare, which means youre not going to have any health care. Or if you have a preexisting condition, well, you might be out of luck. This is kind of what gets communicated. And whats happened here, i cannot describe to you how amazing it was that the race was close because this Delaware County, for example explain that. Well, the republican in Delaware County would normally get about 70 of the vote. This was like 5050. And so if you look at how donald
trump did in the general in Delaware County, he probably got around, i dont know, 65 or 70. But then this candidate gets 50 . And its because a lot of republican women, they dont like this noise. They dont like this division. It was interesting what one of your panelists said about the democratic candidate who is not that forceful. He was just not neither of them really emerged great. I think it was basically a vote on what people thought about trump. Thats interesting you say that. Ive been telling people that you could characterize this race, this is no personal knock against either candidate, but that many voters saw it as generic democrat versus generic republican. Is that a Fair Assessment in your view . Well, i dont know what that means, chuck, but heres what i do know. I know that in areas, suburbs particularly where republicans would win, the republican lost. I know that there were these republican women that ive heard
talking whenever im out and about, they just were either not going to vote or they were going to vote for the democrat. We may be in the beginning of entering in some ways a post partisan environment where people are going to stop listening so much to the party and start taking the measure of what theyre seeing. I mean its a really interesting time. But if youre not positive, if you dont have a vision, if you dont unite people, if You Dont Lift People and youre not an idea candidate, youre going to struggle and maybe lose. You on another sunday show, a fine broadcast, you made mention, you said you had a conversation with Troy Balderson going why did you ask President Trump to come in . And then you said he didnt. Where do you fall . Do you think President Trumps appearance on saturday helped oconnor, helped balderson, or was it already baked in . You know what i think, chuck, is i think the attention of the National Media got more people
to vote. I think that happened. I think that the fact that there was a focus. Left or right, do you know which way . Do you know which way . No, i think it just got people. But you see, again, there were people who voted for trump who now are either not voting or voting for the democrat or, you know, you have you have some of these democrats who kind of supported trump who kind of go back to their party, i think, here. But this was so close and so stunningly close in a district look, the congressman that was there before it in the last election won by 17 points. This is a more and more republican district than when i had it, much more republican. You know, even in a special election, there were more votes in this special election than people had anticipated. But again, when you heres the challenge for the republicans. If you are losing College Educated women, if you are losing millenials, if you are losing minorities because youre not getting much of that vote at
all, youve got a problem. The democrat problem, the question is they need to be more center left. Theyre way out on the left. Now, this guy wasnt. This guy who ran here wasnt and its going to be how for other democrats should be more moderate. Let me ask you this. It seems like some republicans simply because of the makeup of their districts, and i think that this district proved extra challenging to mr. Balderson, which is to appeal to the trump base to get them fired up, you actually turn off the Delaware County suburban voter, and to convince them to come to you, you might turn off the trump base. Is that what the president has created here, where a candidate has to make this basically impossible choice . Okay, chuck, chuck, if youre going to be a candidate, why dont you figure out what youre for. Tuouche. Lets not do all these calculations like youre in a laboratory and youve got these test tubes. Figure out what youre for. If that doesnt work, why would you want to win . Why would you run if you dont have a passion for what you want to accomplish . And so my advice to candidates, i had a democrat come in to see me. What do you think i should do. I said you have to be mindful of your base but make sure republicans and independents have respect for you and that they like you and that means that you conduct yourself in a different way than if youre just reporting to the party apparatus. Forget it, ive never done that. In my reelection, chuck, i never attacked barack obama. I talked about health care, i talked about job growth. I won 86 out of 88 counties in this state. So thats the message for politicians in these. Be yourself, have a vision, say what it is and try to be in touch with people. Is there any youre not afraid of saying when you
disagree with the president and youre pretty tough on him. Youre tough on the environment thats been created right now because of some of his policy choices. Yeah. Thats why i didnt endorse him because of the negativity. Many republicans are afraid of making that contrast. Do you think that is making it that is why the swing suburban voter is hesitant to trust a republican candidate for congress, that theyre not afraid to say about the president s policies what you are doing . Yeah, but i think they should stay away from personality. This is not about attacking the president for his personality, this is about issues. What i dont understand is if youre a republican, why Arent You Standing up and saying if you have a preexisting condition on health care, were going to make sure youre able to get health care. If the president says no, why are you putting up with that . When you see Family Separation at the border, why dont you say its wrong . And these tariffs, or when were overseas and were into this Wrecking Ball foreign policy, just say you dont agree with
it. If people dont like it, first of all, i dont believe youve got to cater to anybody to win. Right. I think youve got to be who you are and say what you believe. Chuck, if you dont win, guess what, youll have a better life than if you do. Thats the Dirty Little Secret in politics. Before i let you go, your beloved Ohio State University is in a tough position right now. Theres a sexual abuse investigation involving the wrestling program, the urban meyer situation where it is did he do enough looking out for somebody whos a victim of spousal abuse. Do you think theres a cultural problem in the ohio state Athletic Program . Well, first of all, lets find out what we know about coach meyer. They now have Mary Jo White is my understanding. Do you have confidence that this investigation will be fair . Oh, in terms of urban meyer, the answer is yes. Now, the Wrestling Problem and the diving problem, chuck, it
was at least a year, maybe two years ago when i asked my people to make sure that in the university that students have a place to go that is confidential when they can report either an assault on them because they may want to think about prosecuting a little bit further down the road or a place they can go where they can blow the whistle and have confidentiality. And we have asked the universities to be able to set this up. Many of them are moving in that direction, not all of them are where we want them to be. But this has been an issue across this country for a significant period of time. And the universities have to make this a priority. Ive got two daughters getting ready to go to college here. One we take on sunday and one three weeks later. I want them to know where they can go and they can report and they can be safe and they will not be compromised. This is happening all over the country. Would you feel comfortable if your daughters were starting in a Sporting Program at the ohio state Athletic Program that they wouldnt be mistreated . Sure i would. I am confident in that. But Everybody Needs to up it. Everybody needs to look at it and you need to examine it and thats what were trying to get them to do more aggressively across the state. Ought to be done across the country. Governor kasich, i appreciate you making time for me today post election. I have a feeling well be talking again, sir. Up ahead, the stunning Insider Trading allegations against Chris Collins. How prosecutors say the new york congressman basically in broad daylight tried to cheat the system. Sfx [cell phone dialing]
no. No, no, no, no, no. Cancel. Cancel. Please. Aaagh being in the know is a good thing. Thats why discover will alert you if your Social Security number is found on any one of thousands of risky sites. Can i get can i get a connection . Can i get a connection . Can i get can i get a connection . Where were changing withs . Contemporary makeovers. Then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. Who has the upper hand now . Start winning today. Book now at lq. Com. Welcome back. Tonight im obsessed with the company the president keeps. The best people, despite the president s vow to drain the swamp, does seem to be getting a bit swampier by the day. Three men, a lawyer, a doctor and an Entertainment Executive are actively running the Veterans Affairs administration. They spoke with va officials daily, reviewing all manner of policy and personnel decisions. Their blockbuster story, by the way, based on Freedom Of Information Act requests. Not one of these three gentlemen has any military or government experience, but they do have one thing in common. Each of them is a member of the manag maralago club. Theyre known as the maralago crowd. They have no direct influence over the va and have not broken any laws. They are not denying theyre calling the policy shots. This is a seemingly unending drum beat of headlines of trumpconnected sometimes just weird access, outright corruption, grift, graft, and its starting to make you wonder whats going on with some of the people in the president s inner circle. Forbes reported wilbur ross siphoned millions, called grifting. His first supporter in congress, Chris Collins, was just charged with Insider Trading. Not to mention the campaign chief, paul manafort, is on trial. Paul gal rick gates is testifying about crimes he admitted too. The prosecution said manafort tried to leverage his trump connections to get one of his lenders a job in the white house or get on the short list. By the way, all of these examples are just from this week, and its only wednesday. This is your wakeup call. If you have moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, month after month, the clock is ticking on irreversible joint damage. Ongoing pain and stiffness are signs of joint erosion. Humira can help stop the clock. Prescribed for 15 years, humira targets and blocks a source of inflammation that contributes to joint pain and irreversible damage. Humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. Before treatment, get tested for tb. Tell your doctor if youve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if youve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flulike symptoms or sores. Dont start humira if you have an infection. Help stop the clock on further irreversible joint damage. Talk to your rheumatologist. Right here. Right now. Humira. The first survivor of alzis out there. Ase and the Alzheimers Association is going to make it happen. But we wont get there without you. Join the fight with the Alzheimers Association. Hey Allergy Muddlers are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool . Try zyrtec® zyrtec® starts working hard at hour one and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Stick with zyrtec®. Muddle no more®. And try childrens zyrtec®
for consistently powerful relief of your kids allergies. Welcome back. New york republican Chris Collins was the first congressman to endorse then Candidate Trump in 2016. Frequent guest actually on this show. And today the fbi arrested him on Insider Trading charges. In less than an hour from now collins is expected to hold a Press Conference in buffalo. The indictment doesnt just lay out how collins used Nonpublic Information To Trade on the stock of an australian pharmaceutical company, it also is how brazenly collins went about it. Joining me now is our nbc news investigations reporter tom winter. Tom, look, it was an impressive madefortv display this morning by the u. S. Attorney. I noticed he even wore a mic to make sure he could walk through and show everybody the various posters he put up to show this collins indictment. But the brazenness, walk us through this crime. In Insider Trading cases, notoriously its been difficult for prosecutors to prove the intent and content of conversations for them to be without a wiretap for them to be able to accurately say this is what this person told another person and then they acted on it. One of the easiest things is trade data. So i want to be able to show a graph right now to help explain just how out in the open this was. This is a graph of inate immune therapeutics limited. If we look at 6 19 through 6 22 we see the shares traded every day. Then on the 23rd, the first day after the Trading Information was shared. Its laughable. So youve got collins son, collins sons fiance and the other person charged trading 400,000 shares that day alone just themselves. Thats four times the average
volume. So if youre the s. E. C. And you have tons of Computing Power and you have the ability to look at all of these all of the shares that are traded, you know, i looked today, facebook, apple, they traded about 20 million shares each today. But if youre looking at a stock that only has 100,000 shares traded and you move 400,000 shares, its like robbing a bank at 3 00 a. M. Trying to drill into the safe and you set off fireworks. It just could not be any more obvious that something is going on with this stock or something has occurred here. For regulators and investigators to look into it and say, okay, who was moving all these shares . And what nexus do these people have in common with people that may work for the company . Well, its the son of a Board Of Directors whos moving a lot of these shares. From there you can pretty quickly develop a case. All right. Well, the brazenness doesnt end there, now, does it, tom. This is what was amazing. At the time that he okays the trade, i want to walk through another timeline here. Collins knew he was being watched and did it in iway. March of 2017, the Office Of Congressional EthicsNotifies Collins that it was conducting a preliminary review because of this overheard stock tip business that was going on. April of 2017, the Ethics Committee tells collins, it was conducting a secondary review. June 5th of 2017, hes interviewed by the Ethics Committee and then of course to pick up your timeline on the stock time line happened, june 22 nnd is when it takes place. I got the Impression Prosecutors were almost taken aback by almost how brazen or stupid this was. I think when you see an indictment like this, a 30page indictment and see the level of detail they put in there, thats just to let everybody know. And the Southern District normally has a lot of detail in their indictments but its really to let everybody know, hey, weve got this. Theres not a lot of ambiguity here. They clearly have his email communications because he cant
even claim he didnt get the information. Not only does he get the information from the ceo, which is not illegal. But then he tells them, he responds to them and says i cant believe that this occurred. So theres ireally leaves them no option but to push forward with the prosecution, chuck. Tom winter, we never know how you are day is going to ending, do we, especially in the world of investigations. Or when its going to start. Tom winter, nice work. Thank you very much. By the way, a quick note to you viewers, it is legal for a sitting member of the House Of Representatives to serve on a corporate board. It is not legal for a sitting member of the United States senate to do that. One gets a feeling the house will be changing its rules come 2019. Weve got more on the Culture Of Corruption Surrounding the president up ahead. But then we also got this update. The other tuesday night cliff hanger thats still too close to call and why this recount may get bonkers. Fidelity is redefining value for investors. And zero minimums to open an account. We have Fidelity Mutual funds with zero minimum investment. And now fidelity has two index funds with a zero expense ratio. Because when you invest with fidelity, all those zeros really add up. So maybe ill win saved by zero welcome back. In tonights meet the midterms the kansas republican gubernatorial primary. We still dont know whos going to win this one. Right now 191 votes separate kansas Secretary Of State kris kobach and income bent governor, the sitting governor, jeff colyer. There are still ballots to be counted but heres where things
get interesting. Guess who oversees the recount, everybody . Why, its the office of kansas Secretary Of State, none other than kris kobach. So in this situation youd expect kobach to recuse himself from that accourecount, right . Oh, no. He said his office just coordinates the recount and doesnt count the votes. Oh, but wait, it gets better. If jeff colyer wants a hand recount in a race this close you might say hed ask for one, hed have to cover the cost of it if he loses. By kansas law, guess who gets to decide how much the Hand Recount Costs . The Secretary Of State, none other than mr. Kobach. A name your own recount price tool. Where have we heard this before . One woman, one powerful savings tool, one chance to huntihunt down the right insurance at the right price. The name your price tool, only from progressive. T time to buy. You ready for this, junior . Yeah, i think i can handle it. No pressure. Thats just my favorite boat. Boom. laughs make summer go right with ford, americas bestselling brand. And get our best deal of the summer zero percent financing for sixty months on f150. Right now, get this special offer on f150 zero percent financing for 60 months during the Ford Summer Sales event. With our largest variety of crab all year like new crabfest combo. Your one chance to have new Jumbo Snow Crab with tender dungeness crab. Or try crab lovers dream. But hurry in. Cause Crabfest will be gone in a snap. The new united Explorer Card hooks me up. Getting more for getting away. Traveling lighter. Getting settled. Rewarded learn more at theexplorercard. Com you might or joints. Hing for your heart. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in Clinical Trials to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Time now for the lid. Panel is back. Sahil, daniellea and michael. So there is something about this week, and i made a point of it earlier with the obsessed. We have this Chris Collins thing. Im sorry, the entire manafort gates back and forth. If youre the jury there, youre like, oh, these are just two crooked individuals. But they all these store aie have one thing in common. Theyre friends of donald trump. Does it matter . Yes, theres a strong smell of swampiness emanating with the manafort trial and the Chris Collins allegations. Theres no evidence donald trump did anything wrong but theres a pattern here. His own officials, people like tom price and scott pruitt have been caught up in this. Yes, this is the argument democrats will try to make. Nancy pelosi wants to reprise her 2006 culture of corruption case. Well see if that works. Voters do not like this. This cuts across ideological
lines. Michael steele, the base of the Republican Party is convinced that politics is now has been practiced this way for a long time. I cant tell you how many emails i get. So what . The clintons did it for years. So what, the bushes did it for years. Now theyre making blanket statements. Thats the rationale, so what. So these guys are doing it, guess what, they all did it. At least these guys are honest about their crookedness. The rationale emanates from an internal strategy that promoted that narrative without the facts or the real baseline to prove this is in fact how it came about. We were talking about off air how in the old day how some elections were whats the number. We know thats not the reality 50 years later, 20 years later or whatever. But the narrative is what sticks. And so you now have this generation of activists activism within the party that really has taken that narrative, taken ownership of it and
applies it to everything. Everything. Daniellea, i am convinced that some of these folks, and i dont want to call inside the heads of the scott pruitt or ryan zinke, thinking im just getting mine. Theres this weird rationale trust me, someone is doing something worse, this isnt harming anybody. Yeah, its really disgusting. Somebody should do a swampometer so we can track how gross things are in d. C. I think youre right, there is this feeling of, yes, other people have done it before so its okay that it happens now. Theres something particular with the Republican Base that they overlook everything. All you have to do is say two words, hillary clinton. No, shes more corrupt than all of them so what does it matter. With no facts behind it. 42 are okay if donald trump shuts down the whats happening . But the clinton foundation. Thats the culture of corruption. What are you guys talking about. There will be that and the one thing republicans can legitimately point to is
democrats did overlook senator bob menendez and basically stood by him all through the way. The Ethics Committee gave him a strong reprimand for accepting gifts and that whole thing did not reflect well on them. Every single democratic senator is endorsing bob menendez for reelection, arent they . Therein lies how a trump voter says, see. I mean i know where youre going to go, but right . But thats legitimate but that is a legitimate space to occupy when you stop and think about the totality of it. And the understanding why the underlying narrative is the way it is. Its trump has sort of credit t crystallized that for these voters in a very personal way. He is now the champion on a daytoday basis that pushes back and exposes the lies, and thats what matters. Look, Neither Party has their hands completely clean when it comes to this. But what seems to always be left out of these conversations is
like proportionality. You have what happened with bob menendez and everything thats happening now. You dont have a democratic president of the United States doing an saying the things donald trump does and surrounding themselves with these people i go back to what happened to two wrongs dont make a right and what happened to that mindset on the right . They dont believe in it. President trump has managed to create his own reality in a way that previous president s have not. He has an echo chamber that will support almost anything he says. I think this is what he uses to paint a narrative and to make people believe that he is innocent of these things and that people are coming after him and trying to persecute him unfairly. This is its going to look if this were happening in another country, wed say, god, that looks like a kleptocracy. Wilbur ross, ew. Maybe thats the space at this moment in our American History were comfortable with. I think thats one of the truths of many. Whos we . We the people, because We The People no matter how you look, i understand, i understand. But this is where democrats again still get it screwed up in their heads. Youve got to depersonalize this. The 2016 election was not a personal attack on democrats, it was a failure of democrats to understand exactly what the American People were saying. Now, you can walk that around, but keep remembering 52 of white educated women voted for donald trump after everything they knew about him. Fair enough. Yes, i know. And you need to understand that. Daniela just says matter of factually. I have to go or ill get in trouble with melissa and then youll be in trouble. Thank you. Coming up, a hollywood plot twist. A quick programming note, a Meet The Press exclusive this sunday. Omarosa newman has written a
book about her time with the president and her first interview will be this sunday. Well see you then. And packages. And its also a story about people. People who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams theyre handing us more than mail theyre handing us their business and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you
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