believe was a good night for the president, where he was able to lay out a vision that they think matches what many of his supporters want. and also believing there are elements in that that could reach across the aisle, could reach support among those who have not been sure about president trump so far. also giving room to do work behind the scenes. this kind of speech is never meant to be chock-full of specifics but he laid out policy ideas that will require a lot of difficult work in washington to accomplish. things like immigration, for example. so, by meeting with top congressional leaders from the republican party here today at the white house, a chance to sort of take in a breath, look at what can be done, talk about policy ideas, gauge how things were received and see knowing this president likes to stress his negotiating skills, what was laid on the table in terms of ideas, like oe talked about the merit-based immigration as one example, and other ways they might be able to
senator, thanks so much for joining us. good morning. good morning, guys. brian: senator, i heard when he was addressing the sunday show anchors and other news anchors in the preview of the speech he talked about, did the president, comprehensive immigration reform. he didn t say that so much last night. is it indeed possible? has anything changed? well, first of all, the presidency has changed. and i think that makes it easier, not easy but easier to do this the right way. let s back up for a second this term comprehensive makes it sound like we are going to do it all at once. i don t think that s the right approach. i have shared this with the president. number one have you to enforce your laws. if you are not enforcing your laws now why are people to believe you are going to enforce the laws in the future. that s number one, number two he talked about this last night modernize the immigration system. merit based system our economy has changed and the criteria we use for deciding
much easier in the house of representatives where they have a dominant majority, much tougher in the senate where it s such a narrow one. i think the initial reaction from the white house is one of trying to take a bit of a victory lap and at the same time capitalize on what they believe is momentum to try to actually accomplish a few things in short order using that as, perhaps, a little lift in their sails. we also have our friend robert costa of the washington post. your sources are telling you they were a bit surprised in the white house that the pundits were having such a positive reaction to donald trump s speech because the policy wasn t changing? that s exactly right, katy. i woke up this morning and connected with my sources inside the white house and said, what do you make of the reaction? they said, we re actually, frankly, surprised that different pundits on different networks and different papers are embracing this speech. some kind of toned down president trump. the
finally, the chorus became an earthquake, and the people turned out by the tens of millions and they were all united by one very simple but crucial demand that america must put its own citizens first because only then can we truly make america great again. [applause] steve: you just heard that slogan make america great again. there was a guy there from the get-go former trump campaign manager corey lewandowski. good morning to you. good morning. how are you today? ainsley: good. steve: we were talking about the president s big speech last night. we have heard members of congress actually gave the president rave reviews to himself and the president himself is very pleased with how the speech went. is that accurate? look, i think he had a phenomenal speech last night when you look at all of the reviews whether it s the washington post, the new york times, the wall street journal, they all said the
you know that and he is very happy because i think he just broke a record. [laughter] [applause] brian: they said it was about two and a half minutes of standing ovation if you combine both times. ainsley: i don t think there was a dry eye in anyone s house if you were watching that last night. she was so emotional and she couldn t even breathe and she looked up to heaven and she said i love you, baby. steve: well, after the speech, as you would expect. there were a number of partisans who said, chuck schumer said the speech was detached from reality. the new dnc chief tom perez said the speech was steve bannon on steroids with a smile. we had marie harf who has been a loyal defender of barack obama during her years at the state department. she is now a fox news contributor. she was on with us about a half hour ago. we were curious what kind of grade she would give. watch this. what grade would you give last night s speech. actually i thought it was an a.