government. that is not entirely where the president appears to be focused today. instead, more like here. as they take a knee collectively, boos can be heard from the sellout crowd in arizona. bos underscoring the divisions in the feud between president trump and the nfl over silent protests during the national anthem. during monday night football the dallas cowboys and their owner trump supper jerry jones dropped to a knee before the anthem and stood and locked arms during the anthem. the president seizing on that in a series of predawn tweets like this. the booing at the nfl football game when the dallas team dropped to its knees was loudest i have ever heard. great anger. let s get the latest on both of the major stories that takes us first to the white house and cnn s joe johns is there. joe, the president has been talking about both of these things on twitter, first, on the nfl, he has not given this up?
and so on, well, you can t define when i m going to exercise my first amendment. now, can something positive come from this? sure it can. because now we ve got the spotlight on racial injustice, police brutality and what have you. what has this president said or done since getting in office on a prior basis when you ask black america or african-americans what do you have to lose? we have a lot to lose because he hasn t focused on the underlying basis for the protests. he could do better in that regard and lead that effort, but we won t because his core base isn t with him on that. scott, chris, jason, thanks, guys. appreciate it. thank you. coming up for us, right now, voters in alabama are ighitting poll in the race putting the president s base i don t know in an awkward position but funny president. president trump s former chief strategist steve bannon campaigning against trump s pick to fill the senate seat of jeff sessions. one of the races you need a flow chart, but it s ex
this presented for the players but from the president s perspective, the president is not giving up. jim acosta reporting he s satisfied with how this is playing out saying it s caught on. which is he itching for a fight on something like this when so many other problems are facing him right now? i haven t spoken sdrektsly with the president so i can t speaks to the accuracy about the mood going into this but one of the things the president is passionate about is that the national anthem should be a unifying event. this should be something we re honoring people who have given their lives in defense of our country. current service men and women and first responders keeping us safe right now and the whole reason why this is happening, is because there s a frustration and anger by these players that are going on the field and disrespecting our national anthem. so when president trump is voicing his opinion on this, he s speaking for millions around the country who see that activity and
picked a side on it. chris, you always say that trump on twitter is the real trump. the fact that he continues with this focus today on twitter it then tells you what? well, i mean look, jason is right, the president believes strongly in this. and look, we know the president likes a fight. build you take his version which he likes to be a counterpuncher or other versions he likes to be the puncher, he likes to be involved and thinks that this is a fight that plays i think to his political base. jason is not wrong, frankly. there are millions of people who agree with donald trump. there s no question. the issue i would say is, when you highlight something like this and you call names, say this is unpatriotic, say this is disrespectful, sort of blanket it and not go into the nuance of why the protests are happening,
that s exactly right, kate. that s just one example of the tragic consequences of hurricane maria here in puerto rico. there s a huge problem in terms of distribution of fuel and that has apparently caused the deaths of at least two patients. they were at an intensive care unit at a hospital here in san juan and because they ran out of diesel the medical equipment that was being used to keep them alive was not operational and very unfortunately they perished. so it s just very, very tragic that we begin to hear stories like that. let me also tell you, i was able to visit the medical center here in san juan. it s the largest trauma center in the entire crib caribbean i need to bring in president trump speaking about puerto rico. because of the first responders and we don t want to disrupt the relief efforts.