state, florida, where there is a key primary today, this is not on the front pages. this is not above the fold coverage out in the actual, you know, universe, where voters live. nafta and trade is, josh. that s why i m not convinced that president trump didn t want this controversy, at least to a degree. this interesting moment started over the weekend, when senator mccain died, that lasted until really monday, where the whole country was focused on him. it was the first time that you could remember in a long time that president trump wasn t the top headline. president trump, one way or another, found a way to bring it back to that. he wanted to allow a day or so or not making a statement, of allowing it to become more about him, before he did what eventually he was going to have to do and say something nice about john mccain. i am going to have you two stand by. alexi and josh, i want to bring in no josh brennan, the former cia director under barack obama, who serves as msnbc s se
good morning, alley. let me get your thoughts on the way the white house and, specifically, the president has responded to the death of this long-serving senator, john mccain. well, i m glad they finally came out and acknowledged the tremendous contributions that senator mccain has made to this country. we should all honor the mccain family request, to keep this focus on the senator and celebrate his life. celebrate his patriotism and his counsel courage. that s what we should do. i m glad to see, finally, the white house came around and acknowledged the tremendous, tremendous work of john mccain. were you surprised by senator graham this morning? you saw the sound bite that garrett hoaake played, where he said the president does what he wants to do. seemed unbothered by this. lindsey graham is probably the closest person in the u.s. congress to senator mccain. the two of them had great mutual respect and even love for one another. they didn t always agree. didn t see eye-to-
that, specifically to have a negative impact on her campaign. we pressed her yesterday on what she thinks is the state of the republican party today. take a listen to that. do you think this is mccain s republican party or president trump s? i think it is the people s republican party. people out there striving and working to get that america first agenda enacted. that s why donald trump went to the white house. reporter: of course, the person we do need to focus on here, martha mcsally, she s the establishment favorite. republicans in washington feeling better about her prospects of pulling this race out and making this keeping this a competitive race, with the likely democratic nominee, who democrats consider to be a pretty strong recruit. the reality here is even mcsally raced toward president trump. she didn t endorse him in 2016. it is not clear she voted for him. she said she was appalled by the access hollywood tape.
senator mccain wanted to bring that conflict to a halt. also wanted to make sure the united states was able to demonstrate its great influence and might, and do what we could to try to bring that conflict to an end. you reference that senator mccain did sometimes pay a political price for being a straight talker. does that sound familiar to you, as somebody who sometimes paid a political price for being a straight talker? with mccain gone, who replaces him, someone who can serve as a check on the president, or a voice as a check on the president? great question. we see that senators flake and corker have spoken out, but they re leaving the senate. i d like to think there are going to be senators now who will be thinking about senator mccain s legacy and what he stood for, and adopt some of the same principled positions and speak truth to power. it is not just the intelligence community. it needs to be members of the congress who will speak truth to power, especially in this white h
it is intriguing that graham seems to be providing some cover or at least floating the possibility that we might want to prepare ourselves for a change in personnel after the midterms. is it because senator graham, perhaps, envisions one day, when he d be attorney general, graham? secretary of defense or thinking about his next primary, when he s up for reelection in 2020. lindsey graham has been disappointing the last year and a half. during the campaign, he talked about donald trump being a kook, dangerous to the country. in the early days of the administration, he was standing up to him in the way his hero, john mccain did. now, he s flipped and enabled him. graham s argument is, he is the president, and i was to work with him. if i can be the bridge builder, i can. enable him to do terrible things like shut down the mueller investigation are different things. pleasure to have you both, especially at the same time. rare treat. thank you. coming up next, it is primary d