from my conversations with people yesterday on the hill, they don t want to be caught up in this clearly bizarre situation in which the president has said two completely different things within 48 hours. i think the real thing to watch out for will be next week when mike pompeo, the secretary of state and a former member of congress son capitol hill for a live, public interview where he ll be under oath and forced to answer. again, removing trump from the equation for one second, all of these members of congress have taken a hard line on russia. so this hearing will be incredibly important. and it was kind of stunning to me because i was watching yesterday when paul ryan was at the press conference, they all wanted to talk about tax reform, good economic news, all these things that they think will help them keep their majority. not one question was on anything besides russia. you can kind of understand why they want to redirect and change the conversation. jake sherman, robert costa
george, you wrote another column that certainly caught my attention and other s attention in which george f. will urged everyone to vote for democrats in november because that was necessary. i m curious as to what sort of reaction you got to that column and whether there will be more. are you leaving the dark side permanently and coming over or what? no. i think there are two dark sides out there now. i heard from my republican friends, not that i have that many left, but look, i think the republicans need what we parents with children call a time-out. if the republicans were reduced to minorities and certainly the house and perhaps both bodies of congress, they would have time to rethink. right now, they are having a
collusion is actually fine. if mueller comes out in six months and says that there s actually a conspiracy, they re going to be people in bars in pennsylvania saying, you know what? it s not so bad. clinton was really bad. it was worth beating her. he is going to pull everything in that direction. this is entirely consistent with what we know about human behavior which is that with any kind of habit or addiction, if it isn t addressed if it isn t called out, if it isn t treated it gets worse. it s like that with adults. it s like that with children, and there s no one calling him out other than the media who he feels he s already handedly discredited. we ve seen the point of that walk back, right, as mike put it, was to give members of congress and his party just a fig leaf to say, you know what? it s over. we saw that yesterday. people like senator portman said, i take him at his word. case closes. the only purpose to that. it wasn t for the public or us.
clarified yesterday. what did you make not just of the initial event with president putin on that stage where he refused to defend the united states of america but he attempted clarification yesterday? well, i think the president this morning is saying you see, i told you the truth is overrated because i told you the truth in helsinki. and he had to spend yesterday taking back what he really meant to say and what he, in fact, did say. it s hilarious to see senator rubio and then senator portman come out and use the word clarified as to what the president just did. republicans on capitol hill are terrified. they have individual terror and collective terror. the individual terror is that they will be individually attacked by the president thereby costing them a third of their vote. the collective terror is that if congress seems to turn on the president, republicans in congress, he will attack congress thereby depressing the
it was for congress and it worked. not just that he gets away with it, he s rewarded for it. why you see the behavior going up. the hold in his party doesn t change his hold on his base and the people in any place where there s a doesn t change. that s why you see this and there s no one around him who can say, you just can t say that. or and the reason we see those hats, there isn t anyone around him who can say, like, this is the speech we re going to stick to it. he goes out, they can have something in the prompter but he goes out and says what he wants to and a real change that we ve noticed in the last few months. they don t even try to explain anymore. the staff just says, it s trump. and you ask what he s going to do, they say, i don t know. his argument, kristin, this is how i got elected. trump being trump. seems he s convinced many handlers and aides that s the best way to go?