our senior white house correspondent jim acosta is with us. our senior congressional reporter manu raju is with us. jim, the president not backing away at all. we just heard him at the end of that photo opportunity, not backing away at all saying that what senator blumenthal was saying was distorting the words of the supreme court nominee neil gorsuch. that s right, wolf. you ll notice the president made those comments as he was sitting at the table with some senate democrats there. senator heidi heitkamp, joe tester, joe manchin. these senate democrats are facing tough re-election battles. so the white house had those senators over today to talk about a variety of subjects. the subject of the supreme court pick, neil gorsuch, did come up. as you heard there, he was asked about what senator blumenthal has been saying about what judge gorsuch said. and you heard the president there say, make this accusation
oh, i can t wait. i ll watch it online. i just want to emphasize, kelly ayotte was a rising star in the republican party. a lot of republicans were pinning their hopes on her, you know, for, for bigger things that even the senate so this is this is astonishing. can anything help because i hear new hampshire republicans want ohio s governor john kasich to come and campaign for kelly ayotte. is there any possibility of that? there s been talk. kasich was up here about late august campaigning in the governor s race up here. there has been talk for him to come here. again, just like we ve seen across the country, carol, donald trump is doing no favors to some republicans facing some very tough re-election battles, and new hampshire is a very prime example of that. he won the primary here big. it was his first big push that helped him eventually win the gop nomination. but that was then. this is now, and donald trump is doing no favors to democrats here in a state where the democrats ha
you look at what s going on in chicago. you look at what s going on in st. louis and many other cities. this tremendous voter fraud. how republican leadership doesn t see that is beyond me. meanwhile, senators in his own party locked in tight re-election battles face those same questions, including pat toomey whose state home is philadelphia. our elections may not always be completely perfect, but they are legitimate. they have integrity. and everyone needs to respect the outcome. i don t know how this race, my race, the president s race, or any other race is going to turn out but we all need to respect the outcome because that s going to be necessary to pull us all together on november 9th, the day after the election. this election s not being rig the and let me explain to you why it s not being rigged in florida and yes hope he stops saying that why he should stop saying that. we have 67 counties in this state each of which conduct their own elections. i promise you there is no
stronger. white house press secretary josh earnest on friday used it as a chance to talk about the fact that to argue the point the president s policies have worked. things like the recovery act and also the auto bailout. the administration is hoping it will add fresh momentum to things like getting the highway fund reauthorized. that s a fight that we re going to see play out between the white house and congress this summer. but there is a broader point here which you point out. this is going to help democrats who are locked in tough re-election battles. there s no doubt about that. the republicans only need six seats to take back the senate. the democrats locked in a really tough fight to try to hold on to the senate. this is something that will help their momentum. if you look at the polls, the number one thing that voters care about, the economy. so this is something that democrats everywhere are cheering on this holiday. talk about the politics in this as we see the signs of g
problems and now there are six democrats on the ballot lot in november, and all are calling for new leadership at the va. today the white house seemed to be asking for more time. i think that the president identified last week that he expected a preliminary report from secretary shinseki s internal audit soon, and when he receives that he can evaluate those findings along with the swim report from the inspector general and then assess where we are at that time. all i ve talked to say they want to fix this problem for in the nation s heros and particularly those who have tough re-election battles in november. this is a difficult political problem as well, and so they don t want to be associated with this scandal. of course not. this is not a political issue at