happy with what senator scott had to say when it came to issues of race, but he listened, nonetheless, but he s taken a beating. he knows he s taken a beating on this. and he listened. tim scott brought up issues of charlottesville, but he also brought up issues of the fact that this administration does not have certain times of african americans in leadership. when i say certain types, republicans, high ranking republicans who know how to work washington, who know how to work both ends of pennsylvania avenue. and they feel that s missing and that s some of the problem here, you know, because some of the legislative pieces that would be in place like, you know, poverty issues, criminal justice reform are just not happening, and they re very concerned about this. it s not just tim scott but other republicans. i talked to former republican congressman j. krfrmt watts a few hours ago. so this has been reiterated throughout the black republican community. there is a major concern about
what other topics were on the table with the president beyond charlottesville with tim scott? they talked about tax reform. they talked about moving to a looking at different ways to bring the country together and about continuing ongoing conversations, making sure that they stayed in constant contact with one another and having a pretty open and regular conversation. were there conversations about hbcu sources were saying that there was a conversation about a request from black republicans to have a high ranking black republican within this administration who knows issues and understands how washington up and down pennsylvania works. was that a conversation in this meeting? there were certainly conversations about adding additional personnel that can tap into the african-american community that did come up, yes. so where did that go?
mcconnell is the person who knows how to make legislation happen in washington, and trust trump does not trust him at least not yet so if they re going to get anything done they have to repair that first and foremost, they have to get on the same page about what they want to get done, they have to decide what the framework is going to look like for tax reform, what are we going to bundle together, are we going to bundle the border wall, and the d.r.e.a.m.ers, are they going to bundle the hurricane funding for the government, these are important decisions about strategy and tactics that need to be made between the leaders of both chambers in congress and the president and trump is the one who has to come to the table here. the breakdown in that relationship is in part because of his frustration with mitch mcconnell maybe not getting health care done but at some point they have to put that stuff aside if they want to make progress on things that absolutely have to get done before the e
list what have congress is doing this fall is russia. lot of folks in congress are concentrating on russia right now in these investigations and these committees, the intelligence committees in both chambers have a lot of work to do this fall. they do and the senate will have nominations to process so there is just a lot on congress s plate here, dealing with a party leader in the president that as abby mentioned number one has not figured out how to work a deal in washington. it s not like working a deal in business. everything is interconnected. it s not totally rational and on top of that, he keeps treating the republicans his party as though he s not really of them, and if he s not really invested with them, it makes it hard for them, they re always looking over their shoulders at the next election rightly or wrongly. they re on the ballot in 2018, he isn t and it makes it hard to take tough votes if he doesn t feel like he s invested with them and i think that s part of the prob
look, they re in a marriage of convenience, no trust, bad blood and the president keeps adding to it. hold on, we re going to see it at 4:00 p.m. today. so the president is meeting with speaker ryan and mitch mcconnell today. their game faces will be on presumably the democrats and republicans and it s a glimmer of what might have been if the president pursued the art of the deal and for example led with infrastructure, tried to forge bipartisan coalitions but he hasn t. he s played to his base and attacked his own party in congress and the to do-list is serious and nose saerl the most urgent things will dominate, harvey funding, trying to avoid a government shutdown with unified control of washington and something the markets are depending upon which is tax reform. that seems highly theoretical and difficult in face of the nonoptional things they need to face. no ambassador to south korea which is important given what s happening there and one word we didn t mention looking at