consequential president, because that s what he s doing to himself, that we end up with a more relevant, more consequential congress? it s not obvious yet. someone really needs to step forward. what we ve seen so far is the initial bits of courage coming from the business community, and that s really not a surprise. if you run a business, there s no you know, there s no electoral college for business. you have to sort of be con if you are a consumer-facing company, you have to take account of what people want. i think the question is who are we going to see in congress follow the business community s lead first? and i think that s not quite clear. gentlemen, thank you for being request being with us on this summer friday night. coming up, donald trump s lawyer says he thinks robert mueller s investigation into the president could be wrapped up by thanksgiving. that as there is new reporting that mueller is honing in on donald trump jr.
lot of these things and campaigning on them. bannon joined fairly late. i will say few look at the presidency so far, trump withdrew from paris, i don t think it was bannon, i think donald trump wanted to instinctively withdraw from the paris china accord. he is saying i want tariffs. this is in terms of the trade conflicts with china. so bannon was really somebody who donald trump instinctively believed a bunch of things, so did steve bannon. bannon would tell him. you are doing the right thing,ic him ompblt reenforce him. now he is been, one fewer voice is doing that. to your earlier point about what breitbart is going to do, my expectation, i know quite a few people and steve bannon pretty well. my expectation is they are not going to attack donald trump. they are going to present it as an administration in the white house captured by the
underestimated is that this is hard stuff, legislation and governing. these are big bills that the house and the senate were trying to pass, and you need an engaged and alert president to get them through in the best of times. not only was donald trump not there to help them, he was actively hurting them. it was to the point that if you talked to republicans on the hill, they wanted him out of the meetings because he would set back their agenda. so, look, the republican party legislatively is at sea. they ve passed virtually nothing at all, but that is the least of their problems right now because it s not a legislative failure for the republican party. it s a moral failure. it s an ethical failure, and it s going to get worse. and the republican party better realize that and stand up to donald trump on those grounds. john, to your point about a smaller executive, a bigger legislative branch, is it obvious to you who in these days that we re in right now is going to lead that effort
republican that thinks that it s okay not to repudiate donald trump personally for that moral equivalency before this rally in phoenix, i ll just say putting principle aside, just politically and mpragmatically, you ve got to be nuts. i want to remind in case someone is mistaken. on what you just heard from steve schmidt. he s a republican. this is what you re saying as a republican. that s not democratic criticism of what s going on. but will hylton, to receive s point, this takes attention away for a moment from what president trump has faced criticism for all week, including the departure of all those business leaders. in the end, with steve bannon gone, donald trump gets to prove to america whether the things that have come out of his mouth in the last few days are his or steve bannon s. yeah, and to the extent that offers some relief to president trump, it s going to last about 30 seconds because trump is going to continue saying the
council of business leaders is falling apart. at least two-thirds of donald trump s digital economy advisory board has resigned according to politico. two other trump advisory boards, as you know, dissolved this week. the business community is now abandoned donald trump, leaving him isolated and undermining his central campaign argument that his business relationships and success would make him an effective president. i m really rich. i know the best people. i know the best managers. i know the best deal makers. i m a world-class business guy. i have to get along with everybody. i get along with everybody. that s my job. i m a businessman. i know how to do this. if donald trump has lost business leaders, that raises the question who does he have left on his side? joining us now is john fastman, the washington correspondent for the economist who contributed to the economist s latest cover package. that is donald trump talking tiny a bullhorn shaped like a