tonight, once again denying all of these charges from all of these women. and he s seen the path blazed by the president, because even though the president acknowledged his language back in the summer, he never acknowledged the acts themselves. and as david said, he threatened to sue these women. he never did sue the women who made the allegations. so, you know, in the midst of this really big moment in our culture about how men treat women, you know, the president is very much thrust back in the middle of it here. and he s trying to he s trying to set the terms of the debate. david axelrod and david ge gergen, thank you both. next, how an event to honor native american war heros touched off an uproar about native americans and beyond. it was something the president said, as you ll see when we come back. and later, hear what david axel rod was just talking about, u.s. alabama senate case roy moore, what he has to say after days of silence, allegations of
house insiders, former top obama adviser, ax files host, david axelrod, and cnn senior political analyst, david gergen. david gergen, let me start off with you. now there s three people who have told the new york times that the president has raised questions about the authenticity. it s interesting that maggie haberman said that to one senator, he talked about maybe hiring people to figure out the authenticity of this. that brings me back to the obama bitt birth certificate, where then citizen trump claimed that he had hired private investigators to go to hawaii. we actually had our gary tuchman among other reporters was on the ground in hawaii, talking to pretty much anybody you would possibly talk to. and none of those people he had talked to had heard any had been questioned by any private investigators and there s no evidence that the president ever did hire private investigators like he said he did. well, anderson, we ve been here before.
his what s real and what s not, you know, that has that has sere implications for the safety and and security of the country. i think it s possible he s not sure what s real and what s not? well, i think i go ahead, david, i think we agree on this point. go ahead, david, i agreed with what you were saying earlier. david gergen, you think he may you re answering the affirmative on that? i m answering the affirmative. i think we may persuade himself of things, as david axelrod said, that aren t true. but he persuades himself and states it categorically in various ways, that it does come across as being authentic, even though it s sort of like an alternative set of facts that other people don t share. but we should, anderson he s also blazed a trail for others. we see roy moore down in alabama, even as late as
really wants to sort of fix this after this firing, he s going to have to look in the mirror as well and maybe think about setting some leadership by example here. changing some of his own habits i guess you re saying. let s listen together to something that david axel rod had to say about this a few hours ago. there are two reasons why people are forced out. one is scandal and the other is failure. they ve had a lot of both in the first eight months and not a whole lot of success. now, i think john kelly has gotten the white house under a degree of control that didn t exist before, but the problem always persists as to the man on top and the ability to control him. okay. so he s talking there a lot about what you just said, but he also mentioned john kelly. is john kelly getting control of the white house? do we know how much influence he truly has in terms of what s going on there? well, in some areas he has
we ll see what happens. it s going to be interesting. so what changed? joining me now to discuss all this former white house director. former press secretary of hillary clinton, and jason miller and former ted cruz communications director. also by virginia attorney general. alice, first to you. what are you hearing? well, their focus more than anything on this letter from rod rosenstein and that is the impetus. people say why did it take so long to happen. and he decided case after case of others in his position that say this is the waco pl the way comey has acted and they need to get back to traditions. that is what they continue to point on is rod rosenstein. also the department of justice they re also saying it was rod s decision to make, he was comey s