places as well and for the president, look, he s dealing with what presidents have to deal with, crises that are not on the list of priorities they come into office with but so often end up defining their presidencies. josh, is steve bannon blocked out of this process, since he s in the white house and the president s going to be talking to his generals? it sure seems to be, in a statement like fire and fury is the opposite of the sort of guidance that i would expect a guy like bannon would be giving him, so it s a sign, a, of his lack of physical proximity, i don t think s in bedminister but also of his lack of political proximity. it seemed as if he were back as one of trump s important advisers, and at least on this issue, he doesn t seem to be having much influence. and steve kornacki, what about the polls, 32%. how do republicans and democrats alike respond to those historically low numbers? yeah, i mean the question to me has always been republicans and we were talking
for weeks and months on the north korean threat, but the president himself is dictating the rhetoric being used and he s talking to other aides but it s really the president himself driving the process. so fire and fury, bob, was not a line drawn up in a meeting somewhere at bedminister? we have no reporting on that yet. the president did have notes. joe? bob, you obviously have been looking in to john kelly, general kelly s first week on the job, and how he s doing there. it seems to me that there have been some unrealistic views of what this man is supposed to do and what he s not supposed to do. he s never going to be dictating donald trump s tweets or telling him what to say in situations like that, is he? he s not, and he came into the job i m told by some of his associates that twitter and when it comes to public messaging would not really be his portfolio. we would guide the president when possible, but it wouldn t be at the top of his agenda.