washington. good luck. keep your eye on what s going on between the u.s. and china on that developing trade war this week. the president last week, meeting with his treasury secretary and some of the other top trade officials, to try to clear the decks for perhaps another $200 billion of goods will be subject to tariffs from china. but it hasn t happened yet and there s a reason why. it s because of the ongoing and in some cases concerns from retailers. why do you care about this? because we re talking about everything from apple, popular brands like apple, could affect the price of watches to what it costs to go to walmart or target. and then, of course, the other question. farmers. will there be some retaliation? it s taking place not just ahead of the midterms more ahead of that trip to the u.n. general assembly by the president in about a week gl another big week on the trade front. on the congressional front, there won t be a fight over
say that midterms are different from your presidential campaign. the mistake that democrats made in 2010 was not embracing the president. i just won this huge presidential. how can you not embrace me? barack obama was differential to the senate leaders in that race and for better or worse, kept a low profile and president trump is taking a different approach. when the numbers took an end of summer tank for the republicans, the question is, is that a break you can reverse or mitigate or will that cement? that s the big question. next for us here, brett kavanaugh supreme court nominee vote is on for this week even as he denies that he assault aid woman in high school.
et cetera, someone who should know better, you don t talk to russians in the middle of a campaign and you certainly don t bring them into trump tower when your nominee is named trump. that counts for something and to see a shift like this certainly suggests that mr. manafort is concerned about minimizing his exposure to any more potential time and willing to share what he knows. again, we don t know what that means. it s not good for the president. we don t know what it means for the president. manafort could have gone to jail for a lot more. number two, the special counsel can come back and ask for less than that if the fruits of his cooperation are worthwhile. fo r mueller to cut that deal, that tells you he thinks there s fruit. why would he cut that deal if he doesn t think there s nothing there? it seems pretty clear, this mueller investigation has
house, saying he didn t think there was collusion from two years of reporting that he had done. it does seem to me that they re getting manafort s cooperation but it s probably not about collusion with russia. it s about some other crime surrounding trump. so that should be interesting and it will be interesting to see the truch white house s reaction as mueller s probe proceeds. as the white house says, it has nothing to do with the president. again, there s nothing in the official record that implies it has to do with the president. we should be careful about that. the president says he hires the best people. we have his former campaign chairman, deputy chairman, national security adviser all pleading guilty to crimes. the president says this is the reason his poll numbers are down, tweeting this out last night. while my or our poll numbers are good, they re not, but with the economy being the best ever if it weren t for the rigged
understatement to say that the climate is trending toward the democrats. numbers quite overwhelming. midterm election, single biggest factor, the president s approval rating, latest poll at 36%. 36% approval with registered voters. he has hovered around 40% throughout the year. most smart republicans tell you that the president must be above 40, would prefer him at 45 to have any chance for the republicans to keep the house. 37 weeks to go. bad news. 36, this translates when voters are asked which party do you want to support for congress? it s right around the president s nim. democrats with a 12-point lead. again if this holds up through election day, the democrats will take back the house. no way with a 12-point gap on election day that the republicans can contain the house. let s look at history to make that point. president trump at 36%. you see where president obama was in his two midterms, president bush in his second midterm, 06. double digits for the president.