remembers at the question in cleveland during the chants of lock her up he put his fingers to the lips, and said let s beat her instead. that was a moment of restraint. we thought that was a new side of the president. he could have stopped that if he wanted to last night. he chose not to. lindsey graham s response today speaks to i think what is the fundamental question about today s republican party under donald trump. we had a period where in politics, and within the parties and between the parties there was a philosophical intellectual debate of ideas, as scott was saying. today s faultline that runs through the gop is a binary choice, are you with or again donald trump. it s no longer about the side of government, no longer tea party versus establishment. it s do you stand with the president or are you willing to com out publicly and distance yourself from him. the people they have, it s a huge gamble.
moment for that was equally bizarre. the president then went to twitter and said, yes, please, i drae. pass something that you actually don t want to be ep acted into law. we woke up this morning a deeply divided party. understand, for seven years, republicans have promised this. this is a deeply divided party. members of congress are going to hear it from their conservative base. to norm s point and yours as well, chris, we have been divided in different variations now for easily a decade. at one point it was tea party versus establishment. now it s trump world versus tea party, and there is no place for center right if you want to call them establishment or not. there is no place for center right republicans anymore in this current party. frankly, what we saw last night was the inability of this president, a republican president, to lead the party and lead the nation on one of the most critical issues we face and one he had promised to reform on day one. i want to press on the na
they relied on automated systems that they didn t fully understand. that crash injured can killed three people and injured more than 200. jon: eight states voters are headed to poles today. oklahoma. jon: maryland, colorado, utah and speck election in florida and runoffs in south carolina and mississippi. we ve been watching a bitter primary battle in that state between six-term senator thad cochran and his tea party challenger chris mcdaniel. millions of dollars pouring into this race from around the country from what say is republican establishment faces off against the tea party. ultimately who is going to prevail? joining us now, ellison barber, staff writer for the washington free beacon. the tee party versus establishment scenario, you don t necessarily agree with that setup. i don t. entire illustration there being this big tea party versus establishment battle tends to annoy me a little bit. i think it is mischaracterization.
as small turnout presents opportunity for hard liner to expose anger towards washington? ding, ding, ding. i think that s far closer to it. this is cantor s loss, not the tea party s win. you couldn t get not one tea party group can point to this victory and say that was us, this is our win. the people who are pointing to it are radio hosts, television radio hosts and conservative right wing. but that frankly, this is a low turnout election, as you mentioned, and cantor maybe just didn t mend the fences at home. it looks like al gore in 2000 who couldn t win his own home state. i think he just didn t have the support he needed in that low turnout election. it s a given that as tip o neal said, all politics are local. it fits under a larger theme of gop war. republican leader in the house to lose the primary is a big, big deal. so that s why people use terms like tea party versus establishment. it fits. the fact that talk radio opposed
consequence, not the most flattering things you read but this was a political earthquake tonight and i think we ll have you back on hopefully tomorrow night. dave if you can stay on the line. congratulations on what s a huge political earthquake and joining me now with analysis we have special report host bret baier and carl cameron. carl, what s your reaction? he s making a good case this is not a tea party versus establishment win. in a lot of cases those terms really doesn t cut it. what was really going on here, seems to be the grassroots rising up against the washington establishmen and the gop leadership. the frustration across washington is bipartisan in the republican party, the party, and long standing conservative, the base of the party. folks like bret bosell is arguing it s not a question of