it down. jeff, are those around the president okay with his response? reporter: jake, in a word, they are, and largely because there s nothing they can do about it. it s kind of a mixed school of thought here as we spent the day reporting this out and talking to a variety of people here at the white house and republicans who are allies of the president. some believe he missed a moment here. some sort of wondered 12 days before the midterm elections, if he could have stepped into more of a presidential leadership role and talked about national security, sort of framed this as a security issue, but the president has not done that. he s framed it as an anti-media issue. we saw that at the very beginning of the day, at 7:18 a.m. this morning, he tweeted out his only comment so far of the day about all of this was going after the media. he did not address this at all as he was talking in the this afternoon as he was talking about lowering prescription drug prices. he didn t talk about
that they speak up, they say something, you know, you see your post person delivering something that looks suspicious, you know, i would certainly say something. but i don t think we should assume anything from what we re hearing. homeland security kirstjen nielsen has been at the border for several days, preparing for the arrival of this caravan full of migrants. are you surprised she s not in washington, d.c., at her office helping to lead the response to this serial bomb maker or bomb makers on the loose? i am. frankly, here we have an act of terrorism where people are certainly concerned, inciting some fear, and it s a huge concern for me and the american people. instead, what we have is a secretary down at the south border really just doing more of what the president s doing and making the immigration issue political. i think this is a time where the country needs to come together. we can start with the president not just unifying people but staying there.
banks, pharmaceutical companies, donald trump on the cultural side, it s the immigrants, trade. so i think we ve got this we re just in a bad place in this country and as a small sea of conservatives, we should be more temperate. you know, we re about order, discipline, stability, temperate statements, measured statements, incremental changes, and i m afraid that, you know, when we talk about the incendiary comments, instability, chaos, dysfunction, that s bad for us. stephen, i want to play something that the president said last night, campaigning in wisconsin. those engaged in the political arena must stop treating political opponents as being morally defective. the language of moral condemnation and destructive routine, these are arguments and disagreements that have to stop. on the other hand, take a listen to some of the things that president trump has said about the individuals who were
say about the president and yeah, if you call him those kinds of things, he s going to strike back. well, all okay. go ahead. so, first of all, let me just say that, yes, bernie sanders had a populist message and he did tap into some anger, but he never incited violence or praised violence, and he also is not the president of the united states. so that s number one. number two, donald trump has the most powerful bully pulpit not just in the country but in the world, and he uses it to go after his political enemies, who he perceives to be his political enemies. he incites violence. he praises violence. and he does that every time he s at a rally, and he does it behind the presidential podium, behind the presidential seal and that is that matters. yesterday, after the crisis that we had yesterday, most presidents, both regardless of if they were republican or democrat, would have brought the country together. what does he do? he goes to a political rally where they are chanting,
apparently targeted. a very dishonest person, crooked hillary clinton. good old maxine, low iq individual. no confidence in a guy like brennan. holder is a he s got some problems. sleepy joe biden. we call him 1% joe. and by the way, george soros declared $1.5 billion. so, obviously, i mean, it s a lovely sentiment that people, you know, we shouldn t use the language of moral condemnation and destruction and make it routine, but the president does. well, look, i mean, i disagree with a little bit with charlie. i think he did seize the moment a little bit yesterday. and i think he did sound very diplomatic and tried to bring the country together. but look, this is a president, you know, who is a and he was the same way on the presidential campaign. this is a guy who is a counter-puncher, and politics is a contact sport. and you know, i know donald