several states and some see the president s support as a smart move, others question whether or not bringing obama on board is a political liability. here now is democratic pollster and assistant to george w. bush. brad, man, did obama start a power fall fast? this was the guy that was superstar that turned into a super nova and dying star amongst his own democrats. a lot of democrats don t want to be seen with the president but they won t be seen publicly with him. that is a sign to come. look what happens short 12 months, we had a race in virginia, new jersey and massachusetts and what happened. president campaigned hard for the democrats and democrats lost all three. democrats now are in self-preservation mode. they will be talking about their own records and how they differ from the administration don t
you know, maybe it s driving your troops into the end zone or maybe it s driving them off the cliff, that s the problem. a lot of democrats are saying wait a minute, i don t think we have any more political capital to spend. i think he s on a kamikaze mission because he understands what s going to happen in november to the democrats, so let s put the pedal to the metal and see what we can get done, because it will be hard for republicans to turn back or repeal the massive legislation passed by democrats. so i think they re going to put the pedal to the metal, going to try to get everything they can under climate change passed. the problem is democrats don t have the stomach for it because they re in self-preservation mode to save their own seats. trace: it s a fair point, maria, a lot of democrats are in self-preservation mode, a lot saying we don t have any more political capital and maybe the president will win on some of these issues but democrats as a whole will certainly lose.
the senior elected republican in the country, house speaker paul ryan, on twitter, moments ago, trump wrote, it s so nice the shackles have been taken often me and i can now fight for america the way i want to. that came just after trump called ryan weak, ineffective and disloyal for declaring he can no longer defend trump and he slammed ryan and other republican leaders for what he calls zero support. let the record show after the first debate donald trump went on a tweet storm against a former miss universe. after the second debate, it was paul ryan. at least this time, he waited until after dawn and he didn t mention a sex tape so there is that. let s start our coverage with cnn senior political reporter manu raju. where should we begin? well, this party is in self-preservation mode, kate and john, and it s really every man, woman and child for themselves. the republican party is just looking to really hang on to congress right now. a lot of republican officials that i talk to h