clarity that i think people were hoping for from this hearing. and i m struck, brian, that this is really the third time democrats have fallen into this trap of regarding mueller as sort of a messiah figure who was going to provide some sort of unifying, overarching indictment of, you know, numerous people across the trump campaign and the trump white house for their actions in the 2016 campaign. that didn t happen. then the report came out and it didn t really have the coup de grace against the president that would inexorably lead to impeachment. a lot of damaging information but no direct accusations of a crime. and then this hearing was sort of ginned up by the house members, the democratic house members, who thought, well, this will be it. we ll be able to get mueller on the record here and that will really cause many people in the american public to get the message and, again, a bit of a letdown today.
they re trying to gently prod him from walking back from this precipice, focus on the socialism, focus on these other themes, these policy themes, bring up how some of these women have made anti-semitic statements and hammer them for that but don t go there in terms of a chant that could be seen or that was clearly seen as so racist, so xenophobic and so just completely ugly, and a couple of them called it un-hearun hea american. mark walker tweeted after the rally and said he struggled with that moment. he said we can t let send her back become the new lock her up and he told the vice president that. and he told the vice president that this morning. i think that will be a big fact going through. abby phillip at the white house, abby, you ve been watching this, the president clearly misrepresenting what happened. what are you hearing from your
congressional correspondent for the new york times, she joins us now. it seems like send her back is the new lock her up, only this is not just inappropriate, this is racist. right. it s clearly playing off what the president himself tweeted over the weekend, the idea of go back to their country. ilhan omar is the only one of the four who was not born in the united states but all four of them are citizens. the president s supporters seemed to take it and run with it last night. it s something that a lot of republicans on capitol hill are saying today that they are very uncomfortable with. they re really trying to distance themselves from that chant. but interestingly, they re still not criticizing the president, they re not saying that he s in any way responsible for those statements, which are clearly, again, playing off of what he is putting out there on his twitter feed and his public statements. it s important to note that when you look at this last night, his comments ab
are going to get wiped out in 2020. so do you think president trump will be reelected? it sounds like you re saying no. well, i think he s made the determination, brianna, that he can only get his 35% all riled up in ginned up. he didn t get any new votes last night. he s haellbent on dividing this country. he wants his send her back people behind him. that s my question, though, do you think this works for reelection? no. no, i will say this, brianna, loud and clear, and i hope all my republican colleagues are listening. if send her back and this ugly, anti-american, racist thing that the president has unleashed, if this becomes their campaign to rally his base, trump is going to lose.
hirschfeld davis to discuss this. all right. he can speak to his own emotions. you can certainly have an opinion about whether the way he behaved was indicative of him being unhappy with it. but you can t argue with the fact that he really opened up the floor for this chant to take over the rally. i mean, the body language was not that of someone who was trying to shut someone down or pick up where he left off. and you ve seen him do this before at rallies, he always did it when they would chant lock her up, he steps back and gives it a chance to breathe because in many ways these are sort of entertainment events in his mind, and he enjoys the back and forth. but he clearly was doing that. it seems very clear that at the very least in the moment he was not trying to stop it. now, maybe upon reflection he wishes he had. but that was not sort of his behavior. and he s right, the crowd was very loud, and he seemed to really revel in their enthusiasm. so he had at one point tried to