to be gained. they tested the limits of how far they can go. now they ll go further. that s how you do this thing. when you re breaking down norms and pushing the limits of acceptable law, you push it one step further. it seems highly calculated to me. it s going to be successful. that s the maddening part of it. it gets to your last point which is there are we make this point on this show. why are the democrats not more urgently confronting this? people yell at us on twitter. they say why are you blaming the democrats? it s the republicans fault. i know it s the republicans fault. there s only one counter force here. they are going to be successful unless they re met with a more determined, more creative counter force. is that right? should it have to be that way?
which spelled out and uniting student groups. they are saying universal background checks and assault weapons ban. that is a non starter in congress. when i asked students what do you twoowant to achieve? most are pragmatic. they want to be a counter force to the nra. we want to sign people up to vote. they are not go all-in on changing legislation. they know the limb limits of t political will. the students outside peacefully protesting. the nra tweets all control my own guns, thank you. #2a, #nra. that infuriated students. especially when you talk about honoring 17 kids killed by that very weapon. i think companies already know this is happening. kids and companies are the next leader. i think when you look at the
middle east, europe, all around the world. they look to us, read the paper about us, they hope we ll be a counter force against some of the bad guys in the world. now we re saying, you re on your own? this is going to be the challenge. when you eliminate your soft power or the diplomacy, you end up having to rely on your milita mite. this is a national security budget that focuses on the hard power, which is war. not a budget that allows the united states to focus on peace making and peace building, people around the world admire the u.s. want to come here, that often helps us in these situations, when we disagree on policy. if we no longer have this level of engagement and providing humanitarian aid, no longer providing any support for freedom of the press, democracy and the governments, other people will fill that vacuum, people like putin, countries like china, who frankly do not have who do not share the ideals of the united states. well, i mean, put on top of
and as a guest of yours was saying earlier, we haven t had a real crisis yet, no one s really been tested, including the president, i do feel republican establishment, what s left of it in washington has to be the pressure point, that is it s republicans who brought down richard nixon at the height of watergate. and in the end, it s republicans that are going to have to be fearful of what s going to happen to their own necks in their own elections that are going to be the counter force against them, they have the power. right now, very few are showing any opposition. john mccain is obviously, lindsey graham, the same names, if something goes wrong with who knows what, with a natural disaster, with a terrorist attack, social security checks going out or medicare checks going out, constituents are going to get angry. and i think the republican leadership, controlling all the branches of government haven t