as the companies. we want she basically said we want scalps. this would be an interesting case. obviously, it s a german company, i m not quite sure how you indict someone in germany for something like this, but maybe it s someone here in the u.s. clearly, they were selling these in the u.s. there s got to be some jurisdiction for the justice department. jon: it was bad enough when we thought there were nearly half a million vehicles here in the united states that were affected, but now the big news is vocessing wagon is admitting volkswagen is admitting 11 million vehicles overseas are also so affected, apparently mostly in europe. yeah. that s what the problem becomes. there s two issues here. companies generally don t withstand indictments, although the justice d. is loathe to put jon: it s the world s largest automaker. i know. and that s where this thing gets really interesting, you know? forget about even the impact on what a criminal charge might be either here or ther
damage. brain damage? what did you say? brand damage. you ve got to be clear here. i want to make sure all of our listeners know you said brand damage. republicans have to know this is a strong headwind. nobody s signing up to be a republican. very few people are signing up to be republicans right now. the tried and true people like me but we even know if you re smart enough to know you can t just run on being a republican. you ve got to be for ideas and appeal way more broadly. that s why there s a fundamental problem with three first-term senators running right now. they re directly associated with this congress which is not popular. most young americans are identified as independent yet the whole primary process about playing to the base very narrow constituency. i must say i am meeting more and more margaret hoovers, literally. people by the exact same name. that s creepy. i m meeting republicans who are saying to me they are so open to ideas from their own. they
john boehner, i don t think he s conservative enough, that forces john boehner to have to go back to democrats to pass legislation, that ends up undercutting the republican position. not only that and i have to get to this and i know hogan, i halfway promised myself i wouldn t do it but i have to. the guy that s going to be the whip, the guy that has to corral the votes, whip the vote for john boehner is still a guy named steve scalise who at once called himself david duke without the baggage. in the end, even though he s going to get the position doesn t this hurt the republican party brand every time he has to go forward and whip votes? he has to be a public persona. i think he can handle the brand damage over time. i think what will make republicans sit up and pay attention, and this does the same for democrats s money. if they can t raise money with this guy out in front, and every time we go and try to to bolster our ranks with dollars and try to get people on our side, an
answering the question and he ends up putting a statement out. look. this is on the arizona state legislature, a very conservative, out of the republican mainstream in arizona. remember, the arizona republican party just about a month ago censureed john mccain. they did more brand damage to the republicans nationally. i think that is fair. donny? it s a lightning rod. it s contained in arizona but if you are a democrat running particularly as chuck pointed out, you got a lot of these house republicans running for these senate seats, you re able to just kind of paint that swath across the entire party. chuck todd, thank you so much. we will see you coming up on oip the daily rundown. and, andrea, everyone will be watching you at noon eastern time. thank you so much. robert gibbs, mark mckinnon, thank you both as well.
robert gibbs, that s the line. if he told the truth, this will go away. and it s there s also the what you also have to rely on there is, if there s nothing if there s no trail that you get to follow that gets you any closer to chris christie in the bridget kelly e-mails and all that stuff, then this goes away. it s a very big if. well, i think and i go back to what steve said a second ago, it s going to get worse before it gets better. state and federal investigations don t go away overnight. and the question is, how much brand damage is inflicted upon you during this time period. and i think that certainly remains to be seen. if he s not healthy at home, if he s under investigation, he can t launch a presidential campaign. so look, in the end, we may find ourselves many, many months from here with this solved. the amount of damage that might be done between now and then