afghanistan, the resignation of defense secretary jim mattis, latest knee-jerk decisions by president trump had lawmakers on capitol hill frustrated and fuming. gop senator lisa murkowski of alaska told the president the shutdown was a bad direction to take. just hours before the shutdown, murkowski said americans are expecting that a republican president, along with his republican house and senate, will have an end game. south carolina senator lindsey graham is also now calling for congressional hearings over syria. graham called the move to withdraw u.s. forces a stain on the honor of the united states. and senator bob corker of tennessee said conservative media is influencing the president, telling reporters, do we succumb to the tyranny of radio talk show hosts? according to a recent washington post report, the president s decisions and conduct have led to a fracturing of trump s coalition. hawks condemned his sudden decision to withdraw u.s. troops
human trafficking, and more, but it could be a long stay. now, what he is actually doing is anybody s guess. from what i can tell, he spent most of his time over the past 48 hours trying to pin the shutdown on the democrats for not giving him his $5 billion border slats. i specifically remember you saying, though, that you d take the blame. if we don t get what we want, one way or the other, whether it s through you, through a military, through anything you want to call, i will shut down the government. okay, fair enough. and i am proud. we disagree. and i am proud to shut down the government for border security. i will take the mantle. i will be the one to shut it down. i m not going to blame you for it. the last time you shut it down, it didn t work. so, what s changed? why isn t the president manning up and owning the shutdown he said he would? well, the democrats outsmarted him, for starters. the shutdown is just one of the
60 votes in the united states senate, so it seems like we re heading for a shutdown. he also is doing exactly what he criticized president obama for doing. he said president obama is the founder of isis. he just refounded isis. yikes! mr. president, the call is coming from inside the house. the fox rebellion was met with a coup of sorts on the hill as well, most notably, senator lindsey graham, who delivered a shark rebuke of the president s decision to withdraw troops from syria and mocked trump s proclamation that isis has been defeated. so, are we seeing the first cracks in the president s water carrier coalition? let me bring in my guests, senior columnist at the daily beast, cnn commenter matt lewis and former executive director of the new york state democratic party, democratic strategist basil smigel. what do you make of the critiques by the president on fox, and rush, ann coulter was fairly critical of the president this week. it s a turning point.
honestly. like, he ran on this. yeah. it s pretty well supported and we should do it. but shutting down the government, especially when you have the democrats coming in january 3rd, that s a time certain where now they have a seat in the house. so, i don t think it gets resolved any time in the very near future, but i think we may end up getting to something, hopefully by the time the new congress comes in. it s 25% of government. it s not the entire government, but it s no way to do business. so, do you think that trump was outplayed, outmaneuvered by democrats on the wall and the shutdown? not necessarily. i mean, you know, when you have an inflexible democratic party that says we re just simply not going to do anything that s called wall, and on our side, we re like, we want to do something called wall, it s what the president ran on, it s kind of i don t know if there s blame everywhere, but that s a really bad part of how this negotiates. and so, the president for two ye
act in a sort of untethered manner, and look, he s not my cup of tea and i don t want my kids watching him on tv, but on the big things that matter to me, he does the right thing, even when he doesn t say the right thing. and i think what we saw in the past week with the syria policy, the potential for the afghanistan pullout, mattis resigning in protest for the reasons that he stated in the letter, very openly, all of a sudden, republicans are wondering, is he even doing the right thing anymore on the things that really matter to me? and one more thing on the shutdown. look, i mean, this is a political question about who voters are going to blame, and it s sort of a game of chicken that both parties play. but i think what s bothering senate republicans and the reason mitch mcconnell has ceded all negotiations to chuck schumer tworek with the white house and work this out, is that senate republicans and house republicans, for that matter, at least leadership, had a deal that the presid