dealings for 35 years. it was worst possible outcome personally for citizen trump. for all those people who got the short end of the donald trump stick, it is all coming around for them. all those deals are getting fully exposed from the university to the sexual harassments to the business deals to the whatever was going on with rush. all of that is getting played out. for donald trump, that is the worst possible time of exposure. it is exposure he can t control. i want to ask you about allowing this. when you were in the obama white house, you would have a report he or two that you would give special access to. never us in the regular press corps. i remember michael lewis traveled around. there s always a risk with that. michael wolfe got that kind of access for a while. when you make a decision like, that it s interesting.
he s made this up to feed whatever base he has out there. what s he feeding here? what s the response to, president obama said this dozens of times as president. there was no war on christmas. absolutely, president obama spor supported christmas and said merry christmas many times. i think it s a deeper issue. even michael we ir, president obama s faith director, it was a gentle critique but he did critique president obama on his approach to people of faith, on issues around contraception and gay marriage and issues where religious people in good faith felt like they had been shut out of the obama administration in a way that was sort of demoralizing over the course of his presidency. i gather what you re trying to say. it s a bit symbolic. let s get the libertarian reason magazine perspective. what do you think of the war on christmas? the president derives not a small amount of his political power by trolling people with pointless culture war feuds that don t really amount
those two guys, mcconnell and ryan, knew if roy moore won this race, it would be a pyrrhic victory. democrats were in a no-lose situation here. they were either going to win the seat, or lose the seat and make every republican senator who is up, every republican challenger, every house member was going to be called a member of the party of predation, roy moore was going to be the poster child for the republican party in 2018. for mitch mcconnell and paul ryan, they ve dodged that bullet, and almost certainly trump was wrong when he argued that roy moore would be a reliable vote for the republican agenda, or certainly the trump agenda. mcconnell doesn t have to deal with a wild card in the senate who he can t control. he doesn t have to deal with the ethics process of trying to get him out of the senate because of his alleged predation. and on top of that, he avoids the political albatross that moore would have been in 2018. so i see those guys nobody
very interesting tension to keep an eye on. the president s chief of staff john kelly you described the relationship as untenable, a synonym for irreparable. is it just a matter of time? everyone that i talk to says that general kelly is a patriot, he is not n. thin this job not own personal ambitions. he is doing it because he thinks that he can help keep the administration on track. when he realizes that he can no longer serve this country because of his limits, i think we may see him make an eye for the gexit. has he been successful to a certain extent? sg he has brought order to the white house. obviously the tweets he can t control. but the way that the information get to the president, who can get access to the president is something that general kelly as brought a lot of order to. i was he speaking to somebody
and he is mad at them. that s who he seems to be focused on. it s twofold. this is insane. he is president. he defines himself as a counterpuncher, which means he can t let any slight go. that s why you often see him in opposition with just one person. and he also his tweets especially, his immediate thoughts and what he can t control. this is a president who if he is angry, he is going to show that, often in 140 characters. i heard that from the white house today, the idea that bob corker started this. not trying to say like a 7th grader he started it. a troublemaker. they re just being factual. corker is the one who started insulting the president. republicans are saying they want the president to focus. anybody who has been watching donald trump for the last two years knows that s not going to happen. really, i think a lot of republicans are melting down because they re seeing their legislative agenda and they re wondering whether or not it s going to be able to go t