no drama. inviting everyone in. real professionalism. right. he s a real statesman. think that s this funeral shows that. and the relationships that the bushes have with the clintons and the obamas speak to that. and i don t think anyone in the bush family would ever use words to describe their conduct in office or out of office, but george w. bush for his part made a point to never criticize his successor. he never said one word about the obama presidency. george h.w. bush did the same for president bill clinton. and the friendship that endures is sort of the proof in the pudding. this moment, this it feels fraught because donald trump, you know, it also it reveals how low the bar is. donald trump hasn t said anything obnoxious about the 41st president and we re all calling him i haven t some are calling him presidential for a minute. i was just thinking about the same thing. it s like we grade him on such a curve. right. because the thing is, this is just common
wouldn t have been a problem if he did it. right. i have it here. it s a shame because it s actions during the transition were lawful, there was nothing to hide. but it brings you back to the same question. then why lie? exactly. and so i think we re going to learn why lie today in this filing, and we re going to see whether the president s story stands up. just give everyone a little reminder, mike flynn, i think of mike flynn when he worked for stan mcchrystal. he was he had an admirable military career. that s right. he then became particularly agitated i think during the balm. ma ye obama years over foreign policy questions, adopted some radical foreign policy views and led the lock her up chants at trump s convention. for a while, and i remember he appeared on morning joe, he was rumored to be a candidate for the vice president s slot. right, imagine that. he was as high up as you could get on sort of a swash m swash buckling presidential campaign. if the pre
it came to russia, mike flynn would have been in on it. one would presume so. in fact, mike flynn was a guy who was essentially fired by the obama administration and started to talk around town that the reason he was fired is because he was talking too starkly about radical islam which wasn t true but he sort of became radicalized in the trump campaign and rose up the ranks and absolutely, he would a guy and by the way, barack obama warned donald trump on at least one occasion not to hire so did chris christie. absolutely. he was the guy that trump outsourced many of his foreign policy, foreign contacts to, during the campaign. so if there was a russia conspiracy, one can presume that flynn was aware of it. matt miller, mike flynn was reportedly on the phone with the russians on the day of the inauguration. you and i both worked in incoming administrations, and there wasn t anything other than press calls that i dealt with on the day of the inauguration that was so urgent.
he revered traditions as did his son who would probably describe himself as far less perfect than his father. i think what comes into sharp relief is just how abnormal the times are in which we re living. yeah, and i think the way that george h.w. bush and his family handled the funeral is a reminder to the country about, to your point, about, you know, the way things should be. like, there s a normalcy that we re missing. and i think, you know, the fact that he did invite trump to sort of make it so there was no drama over this it was normal. it was normal. a president died and i don t want to i m not criticizing how mccain s family did it. right. but i do think he was a senator. it was different. exactly. before no drama obama, there was george h.w. bush. you didn t see a lot of drama in his administration. you can agree with him or disagree with him on a lot of his political decisions but the way in which he s conducting his family has conducted these las