Idea who these women are. Theyre lying. Mrs. Trump said he will push back ten times as hard. No matter if youre a man or a woman, theyre equal. Is someone advising him to be silent . I dont think its silent when the president has addressed this. Weve addressed it extensively. Theres nothing else to add. Just because you guys continue to ask the same question over and over and over again doesnt mean that we have to keep coming up with new things to say. Weve addressed it. Weve addressed it extensively, and theres nothing new to add to this conversation. Again, the breaking news tonight, the president will not be adding to the conversation anytime soon because our source says he doesnt believe its hurting his poll numbers. I spoke earlier tonight about his reticence about this, among other things with republican congressman charlie dent. Congressman dent, are you surprised at all that the president still hasnt commented about Stormy Daniels, and hes certainly not shy about, you know, commenting on the special counsels investigation, which potentially holds far more serious consequences for him. Well, actually i think the president has played this better by i thought silence is probably not a bad strategy. It seems to me that, you know, the less he says about this, the better. So i thought thats the right way to handle it. I think he should frankly use this strategy more often on more issues, particularly with respect to you mentioned director mueller. He should be silent. So i think thats the right approach. According to the Washington Post, the president has privately been telling people he believes daniels the story is a hoax. Im wondering, do you believe its a hokax . Do you believe her allegations . Well, when people elected donald trump, i think they realized they were not electing a choir boy. So, you know, i think shes credible. I think shes credible. I thought Karen Mcdougal was credible. But, again, im not so sure that the American Public is completely surprised, you know, by these events after what we went through during the campaign and the access hollywood tapes. You raise an interesting point because weve heard from a lot of evangelicals or other Trump Supporters who say, look, were not electing a pastor in chief, you know. Were electing a commander in chief, a president. Im wondering what you make of that argument. Do you see it as the job of the president to be a moral leader for the country . Well, i happen to think its important for the president to set a good example, and i do. I think thats very important. I think the American People need to be able to trust what the president says. I do get concerned, for example, on friday when the president talks about vetoing an omnibus spending bill that he helped negotiate. I mean those types of things do concern me, or i do get concerned when he makes statements that are false in the event, ill say the canadian surplus issue when in fact the United States runs a surplus with canada. Hell say things that are factually not accurate, and i think thats a problem. I do. And i dont know how many in the evangelical community can reconcile, you know, some of their positions at this moment. They seem to be more concerned about someone who embraces their policies on a public level as opposed to maybe, you know, living by a personal code that they would find objectionable. It does seem like if the shoe were on the other foot, if, say, president obama had been facing allegations like this, i wonder if, you know, the evangelical community would have been responding in the same way or other republicans would have been responding in the same way. Oh, no, theyd be waving a bloody shirt. It would be a human rights violation. It would have been the shoe on the other foot. Theres no question about it. You know, had this been a democratic president who had been, you know, conciliatory toward the russians, for example. Im sure as republicans, wed be, you know, screaming, you know, morning to night about such a situation. Bill clinton, lets face it, i wasnt in congress back then, but a lot of folks were pretty darn alarmed and outraged and had a strong voice about the character, saying character counts. And now that the shoe is on the other foot, a lot of those same folks are pretty damn silent. The president s behavior, whether its past behavior or current behavior, more generally could impact the Midterm Elections or in what way do you think it could impact the Midterm Elections . Oh, yes, absolutely. This Midterm Election in my view will be a referendum on the president of the United States and his conduct in office. Thats what typically Midterm Elections are about, the party in power and specifically the president and his party. I think that will be the case this election, and all the other issues will be secondary or terty ari to the president. This will be a straight up referendum on the president and his conduct. So i think these issues will have an impact. Congressman dent, appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you, anderson. Lets bring in the panel. Hopefully they are not remaining silent. Ryan lizza, kirsten powers, rob astorino, Alice Stewart and frank bruni. Frank, you wrote about this, about President Trumps silence. You said it was, quote, a glaring and fascinating omission. What do you think is behind it . You know, i think weve also assumed the people hes tweeting the most about are the one whos are rattling him the most. I think it may be the case when hes not saying anything about someone, thats when hes really rattled. I think there are many possible explanations but one of the ones i wonder about is when you have someone like Stormy Daniels coming out. Shes striking what she could or couldnt say is striking one of the pillars of the president s vanity. He has spent many years of building the persona of the irresistible ladys man. He used to brag about it on howard stern. We had a debate where he assured us everything below the belt was just fine. He knows that someone like Stormy Daniels is going to talk about various facets of their actual encounter. She found it pathetic she was pointing to himself on a magazine cover and said does this work with most women. She talks about spanking. She said she didnt find him attractive, didnt want to have sex with him. I think this stuff bothers him. I think this was the kind of thing he knew she might say and i think hes running away from this because its part of his identity that freaks him out. The other thing you wrote recently or in that piece was about traditional president ial etiquette is gone, and traditional president ial ethics are gone, which unfortunately i tend to agree with you because we all knew this about donald trump. We all knew this was part of his character. We all knew that he was a ladies man and philanderer. But a lot of people elected him anyway. And as charlie dent said, people stood behind him. Republicans stood behind him because of his policies. I think at this point we have to just accept the fact that we knew we had a flawed candidate in the republican party. I worked really, really hard for someone who had ethics and integrity to be the republican nominee, and he didnt make it. We ended up with donald trump. I think at this stage of the game, we have to understand this is who we have. He is tremendously flawed, but at the end of the day, he is our president. And clearly the reason hes being quiet here is because he knows hes wrong here. He knows that these women despite their careers and playboy playmate and porn stars, he knows that theyre right, and theres nothing he can say about it. And attribute thats why we have rob, why do you think hes being silent . I think its the right kind of thing to do because once he opens his mouth on this, it will be never ending. It amplifies the story. It does. It will give credence to what she has said whether its right or wrong. In the interview i was one of the 22 million who watch the it because of curiosity. I think thats what a lot of people wanted to see in this and what she could possibly say. I learned two things. One, spanking, which is completely salacious. And the second about a threat, which was not salacious. It was uncorroborated. So i didnt really learn anything new from this. This is old news. It has nothing to do with what hes done in the white house, which is a very big distinction. People are making an issue about the nondisclosure. Just go back to when that was signed. He was well down in the polls. So it wasnt like they were doing this to potentially hold the lead and win the white house. Are you saying it was just a coence dense that she was asked and signed a nondisclosure agreement 11 days before the election . Thats what Michael Cohen is saying. I think what is the case, its less political because everyone predicted he was going to lose at that point. Nobody had him winning the election 11 days before. But more an embarrassment to he and his family. Isnt there just a simple legal explanation . Not that donald trump usually takes the advice of his lawyers, and we know with the mueller investigation, hes constantly tweeting against their advice. But it does seem like theres a simple legal explanation for why he hasnt spoken about this. The whole argument of stormys lawyer is that cohen broke the nondisclosure agreement so its null and void. Thats one argument theyre making. And otherwise that trump didnt sign it. So trump is out there talking, giving oxygen to this that hurts his case. Right. The other thing is they think they have a strong case on the merits of the nondisclosure agreement. They want to get this into court, back into arbitration behind closed doors. Out of court and into arbitration. Exactly and make it go away. I think this is an example of trump listening to his lawyers and pursuing the smart legal strategy which is to shut up. I think thats what so interesting about it, kirsten, is legally its the smart thing to do, to remain silent. But there have been so many times when the p has just ignored that advice. Hes basically under investigation now because he ignored advice that he was given about how to deal with the fbi, right . How to deal with the counsel. So i think he ignores people even when it can put him into serious legal jeopardy. So i dont really i dont know if that makes sense to me. I think its more what franks saying frankly. Also anyone whos following Stormy Daniels on twitter, i wouldnt get in a fight with her, you know. I mean shes hes met his match for sure if he tries to get into it with her. And i think it could become very ugly for him very quickly. Lets also remember hes married. He has a wife who is not very happy about this, we can assume. And i think that thats a factor in his thinking. And another part of remaining silent, hopefully hes learned you dont continue to add gas to a fire. And a lot of times he has these stories that arent positive and he tweets and pushes it out there and it further elongates the story and makes a oneday story a longer story. I think hes wise to be silent on this. Hopefully in their mind it pulls it back. But lets take the sex out of it. Lets take what happened out of it. The real problem for him as ryan said is the legal complications here, the fact that they potentially paid people off and potentially threatened people. Thats the bigger concern. The sex in my view is between he and melania. For the American People, its about the lies and the coverup and the potential threats that i think the president needs to be concerned about and americans. There was a time when he was relatively quiet on mueller too until he stopped being quiet, right . He never mentioned mueller by name until just recently. Right. So far i think hes doing the right thing legally and hes doing the right thing for the country. He should be spending his time preparing for his summit with kim jongun. Hes got more important things to be doing. I think its worth noting with donald trump that you simply never know, and it may also be that he doesnt have something he needs to distract from right now. But tomorrow he will have something he really needs to distract from, and well want everyone to Start Talking about Stormy Daniels so they wont talk about the crazy thing hes done tomorrow. So i think we need to be careful about predicting that weve seen some kind of pattern here. Youve raised this idea as well that you cant underestimate just the personal aspect to this. I mean hes got a wife obviously. I dont know what he has said previously to her, if that contradicts what Stormy Daniels is saying. You know, this was allegedly shortly after she gave birth. There could be just a very big personal element to this. Melania trump knew when she married donald trump, i think she knew she wasnt marrying a choir boy just like americans knew they werent electing one. I dont think she was ready to be publicly shamed and to see headlines every day about what he was doing. When she was raising a child who had just been born, i think weve seen a lot of signs of estrangement here. If not making that worse is served by not tweeting about Stormy Daniels and bringing attention to it himself, thats a strong motivation not to do it. When we come back, more on the president s belief that he can give this story the silent treatment and why his aides may disagree. Also ahead, ryan lizza talked about the president listening to his lawyers. Just one problem, hes now got fewer lawyers to listen to. High powered attorneys seem to be lining up to stay off the legal team. The president denies this. Well talk about that ahead. Behr marquee presents its got potential. I think itll look really, really good without the stripes. Margo and sam had a vision, brought to life in one coat. Whatever your home may hand you, behr through it, in one coat. Behr marquee, 1 rated interior paint. Guaranteed in 1,000 plus colors. Find it exclusively at the home depot. Directv gives you more for your thing. Your toprated thing. That five stars, two thumbs up, 12outof10, would recommend thing. Because if you only want the best thing, you get the 1 thing. Directv is rated 1 in Customer Satisfaction over cable. 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I think they say they believe it. That doesnt necessarily mean they believe it. Look, many polls show that six in ten americans believe these women and they dont believe donald trump. But the reality is recent poll numbers for the president s Approval Ratings are up. Right. So why would he talk about it . Why would he change the i dont agree with their comms strategy on, this but why would they change course given the fact that people know this is true, and its not affecting how they view him and his Approval Ratings as president. So i believe theyre going to continue the status quo, deny, deny, deny. The narrative of donald trump as philanderer and womanizer is much more benign than the narrative of donald trump as commiter of Sexual Harassment, right . And actually which was the more dominant narrative until Stormy Daniels kind of emerged on the scene. So in a certain kind of way, i actually think this actually helps in that it kind of buries that other story, which was a massive story during the campaign. It still should be a massive story, not about consensual things he did, but about nonconsensual things hes accused of doing. I said this when we talked about it before. Maybe as i woman i saw this as a little differently. I found it very different than the Karen Mcdougal interview in the sense i thing Karen Mcdougal was a little older. She was at least in her mid30s when it happened whereas Stormy Daniels was 27 years old and he was 60 years old, and it was clear what she said to you that she didnt want to have sex with him, and she felt sort of pressured to do it, and i think he knew that. I think he cups oomes off at particularly sleaz