News, analysis and interviews with politicians and observers. Hill for the president and his party. A republican loss might tell us more. If the gop cant hold this district, which last elected a democrat back in 1980, then its a pretty safe bet democrats will recapture the house in november. That would not only stall any trump legislative agenda but also put investigations, possibly impeachment, on the table. There are longer term questions too. If republicans keep losing in the suburbs s th, is that just are acti reaction to the Trump Presidency or a longterm shift . The president tweeted this morning, casting the democrat as, quote, controlled by nancy pelosi, among other things. That democrat is Danny Oconnor, who hopes to benefit from antitrump sentiment in the suburbs but smartly prefers not to talk about the president. Were crisscrossing this district talking to voters about Kitchen Table issues like paying your mortgage, like having access to a safe and secure retirement, like m
get a campaign insider talking, what flows is damaging. the opening pages of a much more complicated tale, meaning can you connect this to the 2016 campaign, or are these just two guys who are apparently now admitted lawbreakers and trump made the mistake of hiring them? a lot of attorneys watching this are asking that very question. if it gets to the point where manafort sees a conviction coming, or if it s clear this is happening, then if mueller can flip manafort, and a lot of people are speculating behind the scenes that s what a lot of the motivation here is to try to get manafort talking. as you mentioned, the story is about or this trial is about tax evasion, also bank fraud. it tells us a lot about trump world. it tells us a lot about washington. just a fascinating personal story here of a political
president, that they re not actually after getting manafort on money laundering and those charges. how much does this muddy the waters? depends where judge ellis ends up, obviously. there s obvious validity to it, they were trying to flip manafort. did not start out as something looking into manafort s finances, whether he committed bank fraud, if me violated foreign lobbying laws. that being said, mueller does have, if you look at his the special counsel s dictum, whatever you want to call it, he has a fair amount of purview and can do these things. ellis apparently has a reputation for being a tough questioner, ultimately, siding with federal prosecutors, the suspicion is that will be the case. but just to backtrack a second, this morning rudy giuliani was on tv saying, you know, collusion is it s off the table, no one s talking about collusion anymore. if they are looking into roger stone and rick gates and wikileaks, that is that is the heart of the collusion case. right.
american election. this is significant because gates is not being used to flip manafort. there is a matter of the gru who is working with manafort and gates and they re in constant contact. that s a big deal. then about how the u.s. is dealing with russia. president trump expelled the 60 russian diplomats. russia said it would retaliate. it has now and done the same, expelled its diplomats. it is interesting. we have been talking all week about why did president trump do that when he used kid gloves with russia and has over and over said he wants a better relationship with putin. now we know from a washington post article how the people around him in national security got him to do this. and here s what they say. the official described the internal debate using boxing
sometimes that information comes as it did in the manafort and gates case from e-mails, they got search warrants from manafort and gates e-mails, sometimes it comes from other witnesses, and sometimes it comes from the insiders themselves. i wouldn t necessarily say they re trying to flip manafort. they ve decided based on the evidence they ve seen that manafort is guilty and they can prove it without a reasonable doubt. but they keep adding indictments, and i m sorry to interrupt, but yesterday we had chuck rosenberg on, who s a man who doesn t have a tendency to overstate things, as you know, and he said, at the end of the day, either sooner or later, depending on if he ends up pleading guilty or if they end up convicting him after a lengthy trial, paul manafort will be a convicted felon. that s going to happen. by the way, sarah sanders is talking right now. we ll go to her when she starts taking questions. don t leave this channel. so paul manafort is someone who will be a convi