we saw with the clintons. she had been canvassing for hillary clinton and how much she in talking to opponents saw the exact talking points from some of these documentary films and, also, the talking points of fox news and she said when she talked to them, she said when i asked why, why they absolutely hated hillary clinton so much how she wanted to kill babies in the ninth month and stole furniture for the white house and how crooked she and bill were. that is exactly the portrait that is created in these types of documentaries and in this media environment where everything is passed through social media and really gets a big viewing. the reality is, too, as much as i sit down in the front row of the press conference there is a billboard that says tax reform and that s all he wants to talk about. they re not running on that in the special elections. the ads on the air. they tried that tax reform message and it didn t work. put ads of immigration up on the air. they put ads on the
what we learned from this race or what we re continuing to learn from this race is republicans with their anti pelosi message, their pro tax reform message were not able to overcome donald trump s drag on republican candidates, so that s why we see what we re seeing now, a democrat winning a race where a democrat shouldn t even have been competitive. as we speak, steve stooifers, the chair of the national republican campaign committee is meeting with republican house members and telling them be afraid, get your acts together. we he s saying we ve got to take this very, very seriously. the political report says there are 47 districts where republicans as vulnerable as saccone. what does this mean? what should republicans be thinking this morning? they may be counting their lucky stars that the bomb went off now because it is hard to ignore. you can overinterpret special elections. it s our job.
first. you ve got to serve your constituents and be ready for campaign. dana: it s possible that a lot of people that are in pretty safe districts like this district the last time around, the democrats didn t even field a candidate. so it s possible that many republican members don t even realize they re about to face a tough race. so i think your point that it s a warning. i wanted to ask you about the messaging. there was a report yesterday that said that the tax reform message possibly wasn t working in this district. was that a warning i guess to the republicans that maybe they ve got to do some more ground work legislatively if they want to keep those voters in president trump s camp? i think our tax reform message worked. but i believe it s going to be even more popular by november because, frankly, people will see money in their pocket. they ll see the economy growing more and more. this race started before tax reform was even passed, dana. i think the dynamics were made
remembers, but we just emerged from a government shutdown. however brief it was, and as we go into midterms, to have partisan battles back and forth with the fbi and doj voices involved, it takes away from the tax reform message. it takes away any sort of economic advantage republicans feel they have over democratic counterparts into midterms, which are not looking good for republicans anyway. so i do think this is house leadership s worst nightmare, as the president continues to tweet about this matter that they sort of wish would just be buried by this point. i assume you could also argue that this is not what the democrats want to be talking about either, because this is sort of a side show to what is so supposed to be the focus of the investigation in the intelligence committee, which is the russia meddling in the u.s. election, and any potential links or cooperation with the trump campaign. elena, are you sources saying anything about what the democrats plan to do next? well,
about. shawna, you re nodding and i want to know why. i agree, but i think the white house missed an opportunity coming out of the state of the union. i realize the state of the union, we re not talking about it. i think it happened on tuesday, i don t know. but the president didn t travel to push his tax reform message. you had the earnings calls for alphab alphabet, apple, they re doing well. some of their earnings are good because of tax reform. they said that themselves. he had an opportunity to tour, to travel, to try to turn the conversation back that way with events. the kinds of things that channels like this take live. and he s not doing that to help them either. let me ask you this, sara, because your point that you re making is that oversight is good and that there are instances in which that should happen. yes. i wonder if this memo release is going to be viewed in that lens given how partisan it has become. given you have the daily beast reporting that sean han