quickly escalating fight at a time when i think a lot of republicans on the hill are saying, hold on, why aren t you talking more about health care, tax reform. that s where we want your focus this week. you bring up the why. so melanie i want to ask. president trump tweeting last night roger goodell of nfl just put out a statement trying to justify the total disrespect certain players show to our country. tell them to stand. melanie, is this donald trump at the core of his character, or is this a political calculation or do you think it might be both? i think it could definitely be a little bit of both. you know, roger goodell s statement also was very veiled. he didn t call out the president specifically. but it was interesting to see, now that it s not just the players, as sean pointed out. we re having the heads of some of these sports teams having to weigh in, and really, you know, speak out against the president which is not something a lot of these business owners want to do
tensions. in the latest wall street journal poll just 25% of americans approve of how mr. trump is handling race relations. the president also criticized the nfl for giving penalties for hard hits. they re ruining the game. you ve got mothers, fathers, all around the country saying, we don t want our kids to play football. and, donald trump wants to go back in to the time when it was the roman gladiators. reporter: donald trump using rallies to rant against opponents is nothing new. professional sports, now the latest political football. kristen dahlgren, nbc news, los angeles. joining me now, melanie zenona, and sean sullivan congressional reporter for the washington post. thanks for being here, both of you. melanie, i want to start with you because president trump was just tweeting a few minutes ago, if nfl fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our flag and country, you will see change take place fast. fire or suspend. does this just show that john
at the situation and say to your point, we re going into a midterm campaign here. these are the kind of things that are going to get democratic voters fired up. these are the kind of things that are going to get potentially democrats to recruit and get new voters on their side going in to next year s election, so they want to kind of defuse some of these things and focus more on policy so they can make policy arguments to the voters. there s really no resolution in sight right now for that debate. because you have a lot of trump supporters eagerly picking these fights. eagerly waiting until the culture wars. and on the other side you have republicans who say boy, this is the last thing that we want to see right now. sean and melanie, stay right there. we ll talk health care in a few minutes. but first, the defiance against president trump is venturing beyond the world of sports. stevie wonder staged his own protest at last night s global citizens festival in central park. tonight,
tweak this. but the reality is pretty clear right now. this is a really, really tough road to passage and i think a lot of republicans are realizing that and kind of ready to move on right now. melanie, what is the strategy in congress? and from the white house? at this point to pass graham/cassidy? well, at this point, it all rests on susan collins, and possibly murkowski. the senator from alaska. they were two no votes on the last version, and both of them have expressed some concerns similar concerns that they had last time over pre-existing conditions, cuts to medicaid, we have heard reports that there was a draft bill to create a carveout for lisa murkowski in the state of alaska to try to get her in to the yes column. but none of that matters if susan collins is a no. and there s three defections at this point, which you know, there s no room for error here. so looking forward it depends on whether the bipartisan negotiations that had fizzled out pick up again.
forms of techniques that they re trying to use to persuade voters, they re going to say, you know, a vote for congressman x is a vote for president trump s have a president whose approval rating is at 39%, that worries a lot of strategists. we don t even know, you know, perhaps it could be even lower at this time next year as we get even closer to the november-terms. so i think there s a lot of widespread worry about how low his approval rating is right now. melanie, i want to turn to the russia investigation and roger stone is set to testify this week. what should we expect? well, with this investigation, you know, we re seeing a lot with the congress, and efforts on whether or not there was meddling in the election. and i think from the congressional side, you know, they re looking at a different thing what the federal probe is looking at. the federal probe is tasked with looking at criminal wrongdoing. but congressional efforts are looking more at whether there were efforts to