donald trump grasping for something that he can say, hey, this happened, i was president, i want credit for that. do you see do you recognize the trump who s doing this? it seems to be a pretty good guess, steve. i think it s a blessing that no one has died in a crash this year on a passenger commercial flight. the president is trying to tie himself into this fact and it is a fact, but the administration can only claim so much credit for the work of pilots and regulatory officials in the airline industry. but this is part of a broader trend of the president to try to proclaim good things on his record as president, whether he was directly involved in that or not. katy, let me just ask you this. you ve been watching donald trump from the early days of his campaign. we had there in the opening from the new york times, all the ways that donald trump has kind of changed and redefined the presidency. and there s a question there of whoever comes after trump, will the presidency be f
kim jong-un, tweeting that, quote, sanctions and other pressures are beginning to have a big impact on north korea. soldiers are dangerously fleeing to south korea. rocket man now wants to talk to south korea for first time. perhaps that is good news, perhaps not. we will see. for more, i m joined now by david ignatius, a columnist at the washington post and an nbc news/msnbc contributor and hagar shamali with the u.n. david, let me start with you. these were two examples. we have a bunch more from the last couple of days. when the president does this, when he tweets about any of these topics on twitter. when he s out there calling kim jong-un rocket man, something like that, what is going on behind the scenes in terms of the united states, the other countries around the world, whether it s the countries the president is talking about himself or allies in the world who are wondering what this exactly means. is somebody in the administration on the phone to translate for other countri
hardball. with 2018 now underway, president trump and congress face a busy to-do list for the new year, a year that culminates, of course, in the midterm elections. the washington post reports on the jam-packed agenda amid lo looming deadlines including a government shutdown and daca. president trump wrote on twitter this morning, democrats are doing nothing for daca. just interested in politics. daca activists and hispanics will go hard against dems. will start falling in love with republicans and their president. we are about results. meanwhile, politico reports white house aides are already anxious about 2018, anticipating a west wing brain drain in working under the shadow of the ongoing russia investigation, writing, quote the grim reality of 2018 has generated a sense of foreboding among white house aides. the report goes on to add that the west wing aides expect limited progress for getting things done in washington this year heading into a contentious midterm election. let
what could republicans do this year that would have that effect? nothing. nothing? nothing. i really don t think that there is anything on the agenda that is exciting, unless it is responsive to things that we don t know yet. in other words, things will happen, they ll be unexpected events. trump can potentially create another spasm like, you know, colin kaepernick and the nfl, cultural fights over nothing that sort of blow up and balloon to kind of stir people s emotions. but i don t think legislatively, there is anything that pushes anybody s buttons. so why is it that the base is so deflated? because the president is unpopular. a lot of people don t like the tweeting. they don t like the mood, they don t like the spirit of things. and they don t think that they re getting that much out of now, if there is a big economic boom this year and the tax cuts seem to be working, people will be in a better mood. however, i still think you re looking at a wave coming in november of
multiple e-mails he had with paul manafort, with corey lewandowski, with sam clovis, other senior members of the trump campaign. so he was a little more than a coffee boy. was he an intimate adviser who donald trump was leaning on for advice on what to do about various foreign policy issues? probably not. he wasn t a senior member of the team. and senior members of trump s campaign were responding to his e-mails. two points, one, react to the john dean comment when he said, he may know more than they actually know he thinks they know. that s right. john dean, i spent a lot of time debriefing him after became a witness. he was counsel to the president but he playerly met with the president.