he s willing to do whatever it takes, no matter how whether it s legal or illegal, popular or unpopular, to pursue courses of action that others think are unjustified and wrong-headed. and that s why we have such a divided country. listen, i want to go back to this question that scott raised. it is true, the president has this president enjoys a much higher rating than the congress. but if the day comes when we decide how much power a president can exercise based on polling, how favorable polling he has, our constitution is in real trouble. we simply cannot you know, we have a declared constitution. and conservatives have said, you know, let s go with the original meaning of the constitution or call originalists. they are the ones who stood up for the constitutional arrangements all along. so when lamar alexander comes out against it because they think it s an excessive use of power, we should pay attention. this is something that s really
when president trump, upon taking office, pulled the u.s. out of the transpacific partnership or tpp, many of these issues that are being debated both with mexico and with canada today, were being resolved in the tpp, and the u.s. pulled out. mexico and canada are both signatory. furthermore, the tpp would have further isolated china in its own region and given the united states a much larger foothold in asia than it currently has, so i think the overall strategy here has been wrong-headed, and i think when we re hunkering down on relatively small issues, dairy accounts for 10% of u.s. trade with canada, we re stuck in a situation where we re fighting over things that, to the u.s., don t really accrue to our benefit in a big way. kevin, your take of that, are we stuck in that when it comes to this going on here, you have justin trudeau speaking about, you know, the negotiations on friday.
speak, another piece to the puzzle, as we were making our way through this investigation. it would not bode well for that subject. so, charlie, that s bracing to hear if it had been anyone else in government, it may have triggered a fisa-style surveillance of your life. the george will headline that we mentioned at the top of the broadcast was bracing. in your view, charlie, what should your fellow conservatives be doing and saying? who do we see about all of this? well, part of the problem, of course, is that this is so unprecedented. you can t really put this in historic context. i wrote a piece yesterday where i said, you know, donald trump is often compared to neville chamberlain, but that s unfair to chamberlain, because chamberlain even though he was deeply wrong-headed was, in fact, patriotic and a serious man. we ve never had a president behave this way. there are things that republicans can do. you know, perhaps the maximum would be a resolution of censure
so, charlie, that s bracing to hear if it had been anyone else in government, it may have triggered a fisa-style surveillance of your life. the george will headline that we mentioned at the top of the broadcast was bracing. in your view, charlie, what should your fellow conservatives be doing and saying? who do we see about all of this? well, part of the problem, of course, is that this is so unprecedented. you can t really put this in historic context. i wrote a piece yesterday where i said, you know, donald trump is often compared to neville chamberlain, but that s unfair to chamberlain, because chamberlain even though he was deeply wrong-headed was, in fact, patriotic and a serious man. we ve never had a president behave this way. there are things that republicans can do. you know, perhaps the maximum would be a resolution of censure or a resolution of congress, reasserting our support for what intelligence agencies have done, but i do think this is one of those moments where i
russian leader vladimir putin. joining us now is msnbc news white house correspondent kristen welker. let s skip to the nato summit. the president is critical of nato. his tweet this morning, again, misleading. there s a goal by 2024 that nato countries should spend 2 % of their defense of their gdp on defense spending. the president still messaging to his defense this is a nato bank that countries are supposed to put money into. it s wrong-headed. it s wrong-headed but it works for his base. when you leave this news room and go out and talk to people, they say well, he s defending the united states. the other countries are not paying their fair share. his lie works. well, and i spoke with the senior administration official who said that s going to be his key focus. what you saw in the tweets. previewing, essentially, his tone. he s going to continue to take that tough and as some say misleading tone.