portfolio. jeff zeleny live at the white house. thank you. with me is rachel bate of politico, jonathan martin of the new york times , retired rear admiral john kerr by, and cnn s katelyn collins. admiral, i want to start with you because you have experience. to jeff s point, angela merkel is in trouble. barack obama, george w. bush, george h.w. bush, bill clinton would try to throw a friend a lifeline at that moment or certainly not pour salt in the wounds. this president seems to relish these fights with people who, on paper historically, are friends. yeah, it s really difficult to understand. we need germany. they host 30,000 some troop miss their country alone. germany is a great logistical, medical hub for us. we couldn t have fought in iraq and afghanistan for the last 17 years without the support we get there. secondly, it makes little sense to me if you want germany to ante up more of their defense spending why you would pick on merkel. it s already an unpopular thing to do
when he keeps perpetuating this notion in office. he doesn t want to hear about, well, mitigating facts like the fact that they had a ten-year window to do this. this is trump. i kind of feel like we keep waiting for him to sort of change or to sort of show some kind of growth because it s not going to happen. in part, the ten-year window, think about how he processes a lot of things. he doesn t want the text to say essentially nato allies are making progress toward a commitment made during barack obama s presidency. he wants this to be about trump pushed nato to do what he wants. and he could do that, john. 2017 was the first year since 2014 that all nato nations have increased their spending. have they reached 2%? no, of course not. but they ve all moved the trajectory in the right direction. the nato secretary general will tell you trump should take credit for that because it was in part the emphasis he put on it. he certainly has a point. a lot of them aren t even close to th
states like missouri and indiana and north korea, there are a lot of farmers there. they re going to get hit with these countertariffs from china. there are republicans like kevin cramer in north dakota who are tied to the president. i love this. this is pat roberts, republican senator from kansas, in politico. individual senators have met with the president, including me. the egg committee met with him. the finance committee met with him. there s nobody for this, said senator pat roberts of kansas, the agriculture committee chairman. trump is, quote, a protectionist who has his policy wrapped around the rear axle of a pickup and it s hard to get out. there s a lot of news in that story too. it s not just republicans verbally pushing back on this. just a couple weeks ago, bob corker put out an amendment, saying he wants to try to tie the president s hands on trade. his own party said, stop, quiet down, this is not the way to do it. now they re taking the reverse approach. senator o
one of them is amy barrett, an impressive conservative record. but if traump is ump is weighinn equals and evening, does this help or hurt? what would we have in a trump court? who knows? i think we know for sure i could say with confidence, i don t know who hillary clinton would appoint, but i can say with confidence the profile or the kind of constitutional approach she would want. trump, i m not so sure. it s an honest answer. that was just before the election. donald trump was a democrat turned independent turned republican. he did say by that point in the campaign he had come up with this list. he said he would pick from it. it s a pretty honest answer to say who knows. we go through this every day on just about everywhere. does the president take that as a slight or honesty? it s kind of interesting to hear a federal judge doing pundit punditry on camera there. that s a good find.
issue of immigration than democrats are. so it all depends on what the electorate looks like. if young voters and hispanic voters who are signaling low interest in the midterm elections get motivated to show up, then advantage democrats. i think it depends on what race you re talking about. all these numbers are fascinating. we re so polarized now along party lines and along views of trump. i just think when you re talking about it in terms of the midterms, you have to know what race. is this the north dakota senate race, or is this the house re-elect of barbara comstock? if it s the latter, i think it s problematic for the republicans. if it s the former, i think it s a better issue for them. i think it totally breaks along partisan lines. real fast, i would say we have a real live experiment in this. last year in virginia, ed gillaspie tried to run saying his opponent was soft on ms-13.