next director of national intelligence. do you believe he is qualified? absolutely not. i was horrified by the distortions in his presentation with mueller last week. and it is terrible to think because he made a splash on national television he s now qualified to be dni. dan coats was a remarkable leader. a republican but a long-time senator and intelligence committee who was ambassador to germany for three or four years. he had the insight on intelligence for decades before he was appointed to that position. as jim sciutto pointed out for the other leaders in our community, so to take somebody like john ratcliff, i don t think he s a bad guy but he was a prosecutor and a member of congress. there is no way he has the background to lead dni. when congressman ratcliff questioned robert mueller the other day he said he agreed that russia interfered in 2016 but then he said this and let me read it. i want to find out if russia interfered with our election by providing false informati
president believe this rhetoric will help solidify his base and is that a good assessment on his part. he certainly believes that and we ll find out if it is going to work or not. this is a pattern that we ve seen again and again. our colleague victor blackwell counted over the weekend the number of times the president has used the word infested. so he believes this is language that comes naturally to donald j. trump but now he s president donald trump and that is why it carries so much more magnitude and we ll see if it works or not. certainly among his base he knows this is a way to fire them up and the question is the exhaustion factor among voters of all stripes. what does that do? do people tune out of politics overall and that could be a win for the president as well. so buckle up. this is largely what is going to be happening over the next 16 months or so. we ll see if it works. we don t know if it will or not. david axelrod, you wrote if the president loses next year in
that you determined didn t exist. does it sound, congressman, like ratcliff accepts the conclusion from mueller and the intelligence community that the russians interfered to help donald trump? does ratcliff need to be asked about that? he does need to be asked about that. and if he thinks that russia interfered, i wish he would talk to senator mitch mcconnell and let the senate proceed with all of these good bills to help prevent russian interference in 2020 and 2022. on fox news this sunday, ratcliff said the mueller report was effectively written by, quote, hillary clinton s defact or legal team. do you think he could be confirmed if he doesn t believe the findings of the mueller report are legitimate? well i don t think he should be confirmed period. but, yes, i think that is a reasonable thing. i m also so glad that bob mueller fought back right away and pointed out that that is a ridiculous statement. there are one or two or three people on the whole defense team
color. it s he s the president for baltimore and for maryland too. he should be bringing us together rather than attacking us and driving us apart. you know, it is really pretty significant because presumably a lot of political pundits suggest the president believes these kind of attacks on congressman elijah cummings will help him politically. do you think they will? i certainly hope not. he s racist but i really don t want to believe that america is racist. it certainly is a terrible long-term strategy. even if it would help somebody in one election, it divides our nation on the worst possible on the nation the matter of color alone. again, we need healers to lead us, not people who bring out the worst in each of us. let me get your thoughts on the republican colleague john ratcliff, the president s expected nominee to become the
latino voters and african-american voters, they are not there. next, republicans not exactly embracing the president s pick for the next director of national intelligence. how significant is that? donald trump is not above the law. he s not. he damn sure shouldn t be below the law which is where volume two of this report puts him. and that won the president over. is congressman john ratcliff ready to be the head of american spies. go after a black guy and that helps with the black base. 2020 candidate on his debate strategy outfront. here s your buick sir. actually, that s my buick. how are we gonna fit in your mom s buick? easy. i like that new buick. me too. i was actually talking about that buick. i knew that.