well, that s absolutely the case. and governor johnson and i put out a statement today to that effect. i ve been surprised, frankly, that so many republican voters stuck with mr. trump for so long given that he s campaigning 180 degrees against what everyone, reince priebus on down, agreed the party needed to do after the 2012 election. that included free trade, emphasis on free trade, outreach to the hispanic community, much more involvement of women, reaching out to the communities of color and all other communities of ethnicity, and that does not sound like donald trump, does it? because he s gone totally in the other direction. bit his thumb at the republican party. your running mate is not going to be in the presidential debate tomorrow night. gary johnson wasn t in the first presidential debate. doesn t that suggest you really have virtually no chance of winning this election?
trump and never supported him. several of most of them the ones in the past 24 hours did endorse him and willing to vote for him. but now they re saying including con da lee za rice an saying he is not fit to be fit of the united states. right. i mean, in this environment, all that does is underscore the problem. and in a historical sense when nixon got in the trouble as a vice presidential candidate, same thing. republicans said he has to get off the ticket and led to the checker speech and comeback and i think it s a mistake misjudging the country here. you heard there s a civil war in the republican party right now as a result of the videotape released 24 hours ago ai think that s accurate. the question is to focus on the future of the republican party or the present? if we focus on the present, you understand why the people are doing what they re doing leaving donald trump.
this is going to end. there certainly are succession rules. they have a plan. the republican party has a rule in their charter that in the platform that says if somebody drops out this is what we do and, you know, we won t get into that now but that s a big, big, big if. and mark preston, very quickly, because we know that mike pence always says he s a religious christian first, conservative second, a republican third. he was deeply offended by that videotape. he has children and the fact is he s made his whole career in congress as a republican leader and is a governor. you know, based on his social conservative views. that was his driving force. something like this clearly has knocked him off. he did a very good job of defending donald trump a few days ago and this is a bridge too far and as dana said, he is in a holding pattern. he called donald trump today saying you re on your own.
debate hall or watching it from a hold room? in the debate room and donald trump goes after him, imagine what could happen. sara murray, you have new information on mike pence, the vice presidential running mate of donald trump on the travel schedule. they put it out. what are you learning? a lot is made of mike pence not going to wisconsin to represent donald trump there and the campaign just advised travel schedule for pence, it goes through wednesday. it s light on details. it does include the states he ll be going to and clear that the campaign wants to send the indication that mike pence is not thinking of dropping off the ticket. now, obviously, we re hearing other things. gore gloria, dana, hearing from the sources, chatter, that could be dependent on how donald trump does in the debate and doesn t mean if tomorrow night is a catastrop catastrophe, he couldn t change his mind and cancel events. we saw that happen today and for now they re trying to calm the waters going into
republican party clearly in meltdown over his stunningly vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks, all caught on videotape. gop lawmakers are abandoning their nominee and there are now growing calls for donald trump to drop out of this race. joining us now, david gergen, a former advisor to four u.s. presidents and cnn presidential hit to historian, david brinkley. give us a big picture look at what s going on over the last 24 hours because this is truly tumultuous. it s one of the most remarkable dramas we ve had in our politics in years and years. that is basically a civil war is starting to break out in the republican party between those who are in the establishment, who really have been deeply offended by trump all along and even more so by these tapes, but very much now think if he stays at the top of the ticket, he s going to drag everybody down. if this collapse of support among women that you talked about, if that spreads among