you ve got to make a decision. you this availability. the one thing any other of the 44 presidents of the united states before this guy would have done is stick to message, talk about syria, talk about the choices in front of us, and not go on a 15-minute rant in which he picked a fight with a bunch of people who have subpoena power over him and his people. it s absolutely the craziest thing ever done, no normal president that all of us on this panel used to work for, republican or democrat, would do it. and i think he is failing this leadership test in front of the whole nation. i want to thank each of our experts tonight, some of whom got less time than they normally would because we had so much breaking news. jim, jennifer, fall, max, and sheri. thank you to each of you. thank you. . that is the end of our formal programing, this show. i do have one more news alert that came in within the last five minutes. u.s. senator chuck schumer with a new statement saying the president mus
this is somebody who is in a major position with the rnc, with their finances. they can t keep running away from this. they are accountable. and as these republican members of congress and other candidates get past their primaries and have to appeal to somebody other than trump s core supporters, they re going have to answer to this. i just don t see how they can continue to act like this is no big deal, the president with his rhetoric. and that s some of the politics. i want to go back to the leadership, to you, jim messina, having served president obama and having been in that room that so few of us have been in today. we speak against the backdrop of chemical attacks in syria and the generals gathered to deal with that. we speak of the backdrop of the independence, the doj and those institutions. your view that the leadership test that donald trump is facing tonight and how he is doing. he is absolutely failing it. you just don t do what he did today. you have a really big crisi
those negotiations are riding on whether or not those 20 senators can continue to trust each other and figure this out. and that s going to the questions in my mind, is that going to carry the day? and what s paul ryan going to do. this is going to be a crucible for him potentially. a real leadership test. and i m not sure. the house has always been the problem on immigration. it was problem back with boehner and hastert and all. they just can t seem to get it through the right wing seats throughout in the house. thank you so much, kasie, i think the senate looks better though, kasie hunt and eugene robinson. coming up, negotiating with donald trump is like negotiating with jell-o. even top republicans have no clue where the president stands on the issues right now. where has the president been to tend talks on the shutdown? he has been sitting at the white house like mrs. habersham. he didn t get his cake this year. he was supposed to have a big party on friday. he had to stick
completely honest and say it took the democrats a hot second as well, the democrats, to get on board with all this. yeah, nancy pelosi. of course! we bungled that, too, and i think so far there s only been one gop congresswoman calling for fahrenthold to resign, mia love, so they re all failing the leadership test and i think they are taking a much more political approach to this than democrats are. and the way we re approaching it is not just in terms of crass politics and what s going to help us win elections. it s did you do something wrong? and if you did, you ve got to go. but does it come down to politics at the end of the day? is this for the long game for democrats or is this actually becoming a moral issue? i very i feel very strongly about this, that this is a moral issue. and if it were just about politics, you know, you wouldn t have seen all these people saying franken s got to go. you wouldn t have seen all these people saying a guy who had been a legend, like c
a party that stands up for women, that we police people in our own ranks, that we will kick them out if they re found to have groped, sexually harassed, sexually assaulted women. and let s say let s see if roy moore gets elected on tuesday. will the republican party step up and try to expel him from the senate? that s where i could see a lot of democrats really, you know, making their voices heard and trying to put pressure on republicans. that would be a huge, huge leadership test for the republican party as a whole. i ve got to say, though, i hate that we re having this conversation based on politics. yes. looking at the long game. i heard someone saying franken resigned because in 2020, you can t necessarily see franken standing up on the democratic convention stage and saying vote for this person without sort of talking about his history with women. right. this is also a moral argument at the very base of it. yes. and you know, a lot of people called al franken the sa