cnn national politics reporter eva mckend is live for us from washington. mcconnell s office cells cnn he inadvertently left out the word other, as in other americans. so what is mcconnell saying now? well, fred, he clearly is taking the criticism personally. when he was speaking with reporters this week in kentucky you could tell that this entire episode really got under his skin. the suggestion that he has any sort of racial bias. he says he just missed a word, but his initial comments really tapped into a raw spot for many, and this is why we saw this uproar. there has long been attempts to erase the totality of the black american experience. actually, right now attempts to erase the impact of anti-black racism in this country. so this did not happen in a vacuum, there is all of this context. he walked right into this one. here is what he had to say, though, in his defense.
positive reaction to what they heard. joining me now to discuss, cnn senior political analyst mark preston, cnn national politics reporter eva mckent. and cnn analyst laura barone lopez. all right, late night crew, let s talk about this. look, president biden went into this speech with horrible approval ratings by anyone s measure. but those are pretty good numbers for the reaction, the audience reaction to his speech. he is facing tough domestic headwinds at home, an international crisis, but do you think he came away from this speech a stronger president than going into it? one thing we should note about that poll and we always see this after these speeches is whatever party is in office, their supporters tend to watch more than the other party. so in this particular poll, i believe that the speech watchers were 11% more democrat. so you have to factor that in. but to your point, if you look
putin. cnn national politics reporter eva mckend is slive on capitol hill. eva, good to see you. talk to us what you need recording the tactic. well, many republicans, essentially, don t want to give vladimir putin an opening. there is a time for partisanship. right now in this international crisis many don t view that as the best path forward. they say, when it comes to this, they want to stick to point criticisms of president biden on policy and veer away from the personal attacks. we did, of course, see a distasteful tweet from house republicans earlier this week that showed the president s back turned, in trdescribing him as weak. but the adults in the room, the more establishment republicans who have been here a while, their position is that is that is not the strategy. they want president biden to know that if he does move
to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill. also, republicans led by mitch mcconnell follow through on a promise not to lift a finger in helping the united states pay its debt incurred in the past, including during under a republican president. this is how he justifies it. we will not provide republican votes for raising the debt limit. there is no chance republicans will help lift democrats credit limit so they can immediately steam roll through a socialist binge that will hurt families and help china. the debt ceiling is for past spending and promises. past spending, under republican and democratic presidents. first joining us now, kaitlan collins, cnn national politics reporter evan mccann and analyst casey hunt.
potential access to the president of the united states. i don t believe that michael cohen is registered as a lobbyist. i don t believe he s registered to represent any foreign agents or foreign interests. this is a big deal. he had to have been receiving this money for something. it s unclear as to what the excuse is, as to why he was receiving this money, and let us remember this, up until at least april of this year, michael cohen continued to serve as the personal attorney to the president of the united states. we saw the president the first week of april on air force one refer to michael cohen as his attorney. in the present sense. you have to speak to michael. he is my attorney. more now on this from cnn national politics reporter mj lee. she joins me. mj, what are you learning about the allegations avenatti is making about other payments made into this account held by cohen? there is a lot to digest here. according to avenatti, cohen received significant amounts of money fro