spends most of his executive time. and to be clear there is work being done during that time. but other parts is exactly right, he s a consumer of cable news and on twitter and on the phone with political allies and just the old friends from new york who he consults with does he ask people in the united states government kennedy and churchill, they call middle level people to find out what going on? do any of that government chief executive work like you would do it you were president. i looked up executive today for the definition, it is to manage things and make things carry through. it is the exact opposite. he wants it to be in kayous and uproar because that is his does he know he s head of the government. he knows he s head does he know that. i don t think so. and he views the government with distrust. most of this he painted the picture of the deep state and he s not making those phone calls. thank you jonathan la meyer and gwenda blair. and what the de
she has had to herd cats in the capitol for decades. she knows how to do it. and i think he respects that. i think he is also i think there is also i ve been thinking about this. maybe an echo of his dad. his dad was very competent too. and his dad really did it. his dad didn t have his own dad bailing him out. donald had fred bailing him out. but nancy, i think maybe there is an echo of that. that s interesting. gwenda blair, i appreciate you being with us, and michael d antonio. the president s notion of a prorated down payment on a border wall. just moments ago, a spokesman for chuck schumer said, and i m quoting, senator schumer and senate democrats have made clear to senator mcconnell and republicans that they will not support funding for the wall, prorated or otherwise. up next, the president s former fixer canceled an appearance before congress before he reports to prison because he says of threats by the president. now michael cohen has been subpoenaed by one committe
broad organization with disparate interests in ways the president never had to. when he tried with trump airline or the plaza hotel or the casinos, he failed. so she knows how to herd cats. he doesn t. i think she knows how to stay calm. he doesn t. so she really does have his number. gwenda, it s also she has a lot of experience in washington and knows how the place works, which he really doesn t, and it s not clear that there is a lot of great people around him who, you know, play the game as well as nancy pelosi does. no. there were all these other all these other so-called adults, a lot of military that he appointed that were going to, you know, rein him in and show him the rules and keep him on the rails. they all fell like tin pins. she hasn t. i think michael made a really good point. she s got all those kids and all those grandchildren.
he do next? speak from the oval office? crash the capitol? hold a rally outside? late last night he just seemed to give in. today here s what he said about it. i would have done it in a different location, but i think that would beer very disrespectful to the state of the union. to pick some other place. i could have gone to a big auditorium and gotten 25,000 people in one day, and you ve been there many times, but i think that would be very disrespect to feel the state of the union. what she said i thought was actually reasonable. we ll have the state of the union when the shutdown is over. two views now on how this tracks with the donald trump they ve come to know. joining us is trump biographer michael d antonio. his most recent book is the shadow president: the truth about mike pence. and gwenda blair who teaches at columbia s graduate school of journalism. she is the author of the trumps: three generations of builders and a president. does this move by the president surpri
most people aren t. she won t go there. she is staying on her own turf, and she is not playing his game. she is not playing that sort of macho game that he plays with most of the men that he has to deal with. she s not doing it. he challenges her masculinity. what is he going to challenge with her? michael, do you agree with that? i do agree with what gwenda is saying, and i sometimes can imagine nancy pelosi in a house full of kids, and that s chaos if there ever is chaos. so she s someone who can keep her head about her and knows how to impose order on a chaotic situation. i also think that there is this element of respect of what gwenda mentioned not only for the state of the union, but for the speaker herself. she is competent in a way that trump isn t. she has actually led a very