couple of months until yesterday down in texas they have elected congressman dan crenshaw. he is that navy seal who lost his eye. he was on face the nation yesterday. he was asked about how the president is undermining democracy with his attacks on the press. he had heard enough of it. and he said this, dan bongino. i always ask a question like, what? like what is the undermining exactly? what democratic freedoms have been undermined? we just had an election where we switched power in the house. democracy is at work. people are voting in record numbers. i always ask for examples and we can hit those examples one by one. if it s worth criticizing it s worth criticizing. just this broad brush criticism that the president is somehow undermining our democracy, i always wonder like what exactly we are talking about. steve: he went on to say somebody said well the president is attacking the press. he goes wait a minute, i have actually been attacked, be careful about the words you use.
military. my generals. and posted on twitter that under his leadership the american armed forces will be the finest our country has ever thad. but top defense officials say mr. trump has not fully grasped the role of the troops he commands. nor the responsibility he has to lead them and protect them from politics. they continue, short lie after becoming commander in chief, president trump asked so few questions in a briefing at macdill air force base in tampa that top military commanders cut the number of prepared power point slides to three. they had initially planned for 18. said two officials with knowledge of the visit. the commanders slotted two hours for the meeting. but it lasted less than one. it s important to remember the nature of the criticism. mcraven levels that trump found so troubling. and that is mcraven went after trump specifically for his attacks on the press. mcraven is not the only public facing, visible former member of the military who has raised this specific c
direction. and so after the election you would think that this president would understand, unless my intent is to destroy my political future and the republican party s political future, i need to get out of the game of substractitraction but he s been doing? we talk about a lot of things. attacks on the press, we talked about what happened in france. he s attacking black reporters, specifically black women reporters. it is so obvious. we talked about him calling her a racist, insulting april ryan. disgusting. again, he s acting as if it he s running a campaign in laser targeting on white nationalists. it s just not the way to expand your base. and as john said, he can t afford to lose a single vote. from 2016. he already lost by almost three million votes. this is going in a very, very bad direction for the republicans as it has been for a very long time.
that s the biggest gain since 2009. so, out front kwp stephen moo. and robert reissh. robert, a strong report today, do you give the president credit? well, i give the credit to the president for not getting in the way of the momentum created by president obama. look, kate, this is the 97th consecutive month of growth in terms of the economy and also of unemployment growth of employment growth. this is a very, very strong economy and not withstanding the trade wars and the hate speech or the hateful speech, i should say and all of the uncertainty the attack on democratic institutions, all of the attacks on the press, not withstanding all of that, the market has kept on humming for 97 consecutive months. and i give some credit also to
despite dubbing some news outlets the enemy of the people. this is a president who believes in freedom of the press. the president has complained, and it s often mischaracterized. not by you. but the president says fake news is the problem. not news. reporter: the question is whether any of this will have an impact on the mid terms as democrats are hopeful voters have grown weary of the president s rhetoric. i am sick and tired of this administration. i m sick and tired. i m sick and tired of being sick and tired. and i hope you are too. reporter: getting back to the president s attacks on the press, they also appear to be right out of the president s midterm playbook. a source close to the white house tells cnn inside and outside advisers are urging the president to keep on slamming the media right to the midterm elections, despite the pipe bombs that cnn received last week. wolf? three packages came to cnn offices. jim acosta, thank you very much.