reference to president trump, which certainly tests the institution of the senate. mm-hmm. but it s not like they come here with their hands clean either as the departing senators noted. exactly. i mean we have a new a whole lot of fresh faces that are going to be coming in to both the house and the senate, some of them young, some of them coming from a wide range of diverse backgrounds. i mean do you envision a scenario where some of these problems begin to get solved, or could the acrimony get worse? both, because a lot of things happen in congress all at the same time. i m kind of on this bent right now to preach this. let s not look at our civic life in washington as we do one thing at a time serial. multiple things happen at the same time. i will point to one person in the senate who i think will make a difference, the only one right now, and that is freshman in the senate but seasoned otherwise, mitt romney. he has the stature, authority, inner security, and the
he also learned a bit about their strategy. part one, blame nancy pelosi. they have been saying she s not going to be able to deal with them because she s trying to line up votes to make sure she s the speaker when the new house convenes january 3rd. all evidence is she likely has those votes and will be speaker. the other thing is that they are keeping president trump here in washington. he was scheduled to go to mar-a-lago for christmas. he cancelled those plans. he was scheduled to be here for new year s eve and new year s day. they normally have a big, fancy party there. hard to align that. optics is one thing but starting to talk, negotiate and getting the government open is a different deal. thank you so much.
what in the world has happened to civility and to humility in our nation s public discourse? tribalism is our problem. and if not corrected, it s going to take our country down. with us now, washington bureau chief for the chicago sun times, lynn sweet. lynn, i m struck by one thing when i hear all these senators speak. it s almost as if they, you know, didn t have jobs a month ago that would have played a role in this washington that they are so unhappy with. couldn t there be an argument that if these gentlemen were so upset with washington, that they should have done more to fix this problem that they re complaining about? well, i agree with you that retirement in defeat brings remarkable hindsight. now, does that that means that s translated into foresight? i doubt it because there s no
it seems like you hear his name just about every day, but you almost never hear his voice. cnn s tom foreman has a fascinating look at the mysterious robert mueller. reporter: robert mueller may be the most famous invisible man in washington. president trump can t stop talking about the russia probe. i call it the rigged witch hunt. reporter: but the man in charge of it holds no press conferences, gives no interviews, and is caught on camera so rarely, this photo at an airport with donald trump jr. passing caused a sensation. most of mueller s comments on camera are old, like his thoughts on having survived being wounded while serving in vietnam. in some sense, you feel that you have been given a second lease on life, and you want to
and so far, it s saying plenty. tom foreman, cnn, washington. tom, thank you. joining me now, former federal prosecutor and cnn legal analyst shan wu. thank you for being here on a saturday. it is somewhat remarkable how little everyone has seen or even heard from robert mueller. when this investigation eventually ends, when he s ready to issue a report, how will he do that? do you see him coming out and holding some sort of a press conference, making some sort of a formal presentation, or will he do it quietly? will we may never hear from him? my money is on him doing if quietly. that definitely seems to be mueller s style. i worked with him as well. certainly in this investigation, i think he s been very conscious of the weight of it and the need for being very quiet and not sounding politicized. the actual format is a mystery because unlike the old independent counsel statutes which gave very specific requirements about what kind of report you d have to do, this is really just v