. and now for my weekly memo to president trump, who on tuesday will deliver his state of the union address. sure, you saved some face, mr. trump, you get your moment to look the part of president. but before you stick your chest out too far, i want to issue you a challenge. see, for the past three years i ve listened to you in speech after speech cast the state of our union as one of utter darkness, dangerous caravan at the southern border, constant exploitation by our global peers, except for russia, of course, and a fake news media devoted to subverting democracy. you know, your job. so this year, i dare you to come with a hopeful, inclusive message for all americans. and yes, that includes the 65 million people who didn t vote for you in the last election.
doing something about it. do you think president trump will address that in his state of the union address tuesday night, since many of us feel he s exacerbated it. this is the state where he said there were good people on both sides in the charlottesville incident. certainly if i was his speech writer, i would certainly address it, al. this is not a republican issue, no, sir, not a democratic issue. i m roughly ralph northam s age. there was never a time when i did not know that appearing in blackface or in a ku klux klan outfit was not reprehensible and repugnant. you around the same age and you knew blackface and a robe i did. hallelujah. i went to a catholic school by entire life, al.
fact, president trump is there and runs for re-election? well, i think there s no question. in my lifetime this country has never been so divided. even during the vietnam war, i don t think we ever had leadership that was as divisive as what president trump has brought to this country. i think democrats and a lot of other people around the country, independents and moderate republicans, are going to stand up and say we want people or we want a leader, we want a president who can bring people together and who can demonstrate a persistent, a long string of achievements of progressive values that actually got done. yeah. i think that to replace right-wing incompetence and lack of management skills,
virginia as well, which you have moved closer to joe manchin s column. what s the rationale behind that shift for you? yes, i was just in west virginia taking a look at that race. listen, it s a lean democrat state, okay, lean to manchin, that is because manchin. yeah, just manchin. the reason is because right now in the polling averages, he s up between 7 and 8 percentage points. that sounds impressive. it is impressive for a democrat in west virginia. but he s well below 50%. and this is the state where donald trump can have arguably the greatest impact except perhaps for north dakota. recently trump came into west virginia, held a rally there, and the republican candidate, pat morrissy actually jumped
carried by donald trump by up to and over 40 percentage points. so i mean, that s tough. it really is. how would you and how do you in your ratings account for the candidate differentials? claire mccaskill in missouri, for example, brings a certain set of attributes to the table. is she somebody who in the event of a true blue wave could find herself saved by that because she s a good candidate or do you think that doesn t matter this time around? oh, i think it matters. you never know exactly how many percentage points. mccaskill is a great case study. she got elected in a democratic wave back in 2006. in 2012 it wasn t a bad year for democrats. president obama got reelected. wasn t that good in missouri, but she managed to have an opponent, she helped to get that opponent who was very, very damaged. so she s been lucky twice. maybe she ll get lucky a third time. she s hoping that the third time is also the charm. can i ask you about west