comey. frank, this talk about the fbi, the way we re referring to it, the attack it s been under from the president all without precedent. what do you think the effect has been on morale? and let s start with the rank and file. from what i m hearing from inside, the concern is really the perception of the public and the impact that might have on the effectiveness of displaying your fbi credentials in the course of an investigation and getting the support from the public. but i think it s important to say that most people realize, particularly those in the fbi, that it s not the issues within the fbi that are causing it to be perceived as a political entity, but rather how the president keeps portraying it that s causing that politicization perception in the public. that s a deliberate strategy by the president. and now apparently trying to involve the attorney general in that strategy. very disturbing. frank, this does call for wild guess/speculation on your
kelly. we re all pretty familiar, especially those of us in the business with his biographical sketch, working class boston, joins the military, becomes a career guy there. but then becomes secretary of homeland security. that s where immigration interse cts in a real and serious way with his life. how did he become a kind of hardened politico if you believe the portraits being written? i think there was some people that remembered that he said i believe he testified in front of congress that personally he thought the daca program should you know, the d.r.e.a.m.ers should still be protected. this is when he was secretary. and i think a lot of people in the hill took that to mean, oh, he s not going to have such a hardline stance. but in so many other ways when he was dhs secretary, he did have a hard line stance on immigration, and border enforcement went up dramatically
three-day stoppage this way. quote, democrats lost the shutdown war. that much was obvious when they voted to reopen the government with little to show for it. i suppose if you want to put it that way. our national political correspondent steve kornacki is here. yeah, and the democrats are asking, was it worth it? you have a couple weeks to get the daca fixed here, and if they don t, do they go down this road again? there are two poll questions that i think tell the story really well. first of all, why did the democrats go to the shutdown in the first place? this poll question answers that. it s that simple question. americans, you asked him about daca. do you want this thing to be permanent or do you want daca to
out a line in immigration before miller joined the trump orbit. then they feel all miller is doing is reminding trump of what they did on the campaign trail, reminding him that s how he got elected and having a hard stance is part of a signature of what he was as a candidate. there is a large group of conservatives who i have spoken with on the hill who say they feel that way. i was in that same scrum with lindsey graham on saturday. he distinguished that as tuesday trump and thursday trump. so tuesday trump was the trump we saw in that televised meeting in the white house. and thursday trump was the one who had that meeting behind closed doors that was laced with profanity and drove democrats away. and their concern is less about necessarily the fact that there are a lot of people in trump s ear but more about the unpredictability of when he is going to side with which person. anita, help me with general
to american democracy, and we see these attacks by an attorney general who is recused from this investigation about russia, an attorney general who has lied multiple times about it, after comey is fire, after a special counsel is appointed, after the attorney general s recused, we come to find out that the attorney general back at the envelope is trying to interfere with the investigation, apparently urging the new fbi director, who comes through contentious hearings because of the way the old fbi director was fired, to clean house, to follow the political instinct, to follow the wishes of the white house, to subordinate the independence of the agency. and good for the director, with showing public rectitude at a moment of pressure by this white house whose constancy with the interference with the rule of law and the american justice system is as worrying as it is