we ve been reporting on her, she s wearing the republican r. she s not wearing the big t for trump. you look at the trump style plings, amy cramer, the tea party activist who supports trump, they didn t go anywhere in this race. and gray, bob gray who was supposed to be the guy embracing in this race, he fell apart, so did senator purdue s candidate dan moody. all the trump republicans in this conservative district didn t really embrace trump and do well and they fell away if they were with the president. reporter: i asked hand el specifically whether she would improve trump on her list of conservatives that she was emulating. she ticked off a lot of names in georgia. trump was not among them. she kind of paused and said ok. i support our president but i m going to do right for what s oir
the host of indy advisable charlie sykes. casey hunt, set the scene, set the stakes. how do democrats claim victory with less than 50%, how do they make the case for just how red this district is? reporter: brian, the expectations game here, i think got a little bit out of hand. more democrats and this 50% threshold. you can see and kind of hear behind us that this party is still going strong. it s a bigger party i saw for a lot of the republican presidential announcements that i went to over the course of the 2016 campaign. they ve been trickling out the door a little bit as we wait for the final returns in this race. right now ossoff is holding steady, just over 50%. we re anticipating that the vote still out is likely to bring that number down below 50% and lead to a run off.
plotting major changes to the health care plan the same plan the president said he was proud of just a day ago. a senate aide tells white house officials that they acknowledge the bill now winding its way through the house will not pass the senate. that should be good news to this crowd gathered in washington by the tea party freedom works, senators rand paul, demanding repeal of obamacare but insists the current bill in play is not the right plan to replace it and the kentucky senator is pointing a finger very squarely at the speaker of the house paul ryan. i think paul ryan is selling him a bill of goods that he didn t explain to the president that the grassroots doesn t want what paul ryan is selling. doesn t that mean that the president doesn t understand health care policy? not at all. the laws are written by congress, so i think it s very appropriate that the president goes to congress and says write
things that are outrageous n a way that seem to trample on the constitution and individual liberties, people mean are just horrified and i want to stress this, it s not just democrats versus republicans. i keep hearing from a lot of republicans who say you know i don t particularly disagree with the direction that donald trump wants to take in terms of small government but he is taking too much power, if republicans stand for anything, it s a fear of centralized power and we want to guarantee individual libber tie and he s trampling on the constitution and i m getting scared, say many republicans who are contacting me. this is something very new. it s funny you say that because i m reminded of liberals telling themselves a lot of the stories liberals told themselves in 2009 about the tea party, this is astroturf, the tea party is not popular, this is a small group of people already engaged. those proved not to be true.
former secretary of labor under bill clinton, professor of university of california berkeley. michelle goldberg, columnist at slate. michleyou cered the tea party back in 2009 and 2010 and i ve seen people tweeting about similarities and here s one question i have as you watch republican democratic elected officials behavior and the activism of the base, is is the democratic party behind or ahead of the curve of what you saw happening with republicans in opposition in 2009? i think the whole thing is moving much more quickly. we re 19 days into this nightmare and not even three weeks. you ve already seen a sea change in the approach. particularly of senate minority leader chuck schumer who has been a target of these protests and now you have seen in the last couple of these confirmation fights except for joe manchin you ve seen the