Im heidi choiniere, and this is my ancestry story. Now with over 10 billion historical records, discover your story. Get started for free at ancestry. Com welcome to kasie d. C. Im kasie hunt. Were live every sunday from washington from 7 00 to 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Washington and the white house go nuts over an anonymous oped. Well talk about whether the president s hunt is really all about the thrill of the chase. Plus, disorder over the court. Democrats grandstand. Republicans play games over papers. Is Brett Kavanaugh qualified or not . The third branch of the government politicized like rarely before. Later, two president s, two americas. Well talk about how the return of president obama to the
political stage perfectly captures this moment in history. Tonight, a piece of writing that is deeply consequential or completelyirrelevant. Either an act of bravery or cowardice. More than two dozen Trump Administration officials have disavowed the anonymous oped. Its possible we havent seen sun sinchronity. Nickly hailey took an extra step signing her name to a piece in the Washington Post headlined, when i challenge the president , i do it directly. And heres the Vice President this morning. Do you think you know who anonymous is . I dont. I dont know, but i do know they should resign and leave this administration. Should all top officials take a lie detector test, and would you agree to take one . I would agree to take it in a
heartbeat, and would submit to any review of the administration. Do you think that the administration should do that . Look, that would be a decision for the president. That, of course, is on the record. In the aftermath of the piece, two senior Administration Officials reached out to axios to say on background that the author stole the words right out of their mouths. I find the reaction to the nyt oped fascinating that people seemed so shocked that theres a resistance From The Inside. A lot of us were wishing wed been the writer, i suspect. I hope trump knows, maybe he does, that there are dozens and dozens of us. And with that, id like to welcome in my panel. White house correspondent yamish. Nbc news intelligence reporter ken dilanian, jo ling kent and stuart stevens. Great to have all of you on
board tonight. Stewart, i want to start with you because you and i spent a lot time of on the Campaign Plane covering the flap or two. There were a series of what we then thought were crises for the mitt romney campaign. Mistakes perhaps made by the candidate. It seems were living in a world where the magnitude of those mistakes seems minuscule compared to what we are dealing with every single day here. What is your view of whether or not this oped reflects what is going on inside your Republican Party . Is this in your view the dominant conversation that everybody else except for this handful of loyalists are having . I think theres a constant conversation about the president and about his office and about the decisions and the tone and the way hes conducting the office. Its often used, people say i dont like the tweets but its really about something much
bigger than that. The main thing about this is that its just completely distracting from what government should be about. I mean, government should be about not just the next news cycle but planning for the future and trying to accomplish big things that individuals cant accomplish. We seem to be consumed with this stuff. My view of the person who wrote it, a lot of people have said they think its cowardly. I dont think that. I think its good to hear these voices. And others should come out. Yamish, you spend all your Time Reporting on the white house. What is your latest view From The Inside . How destabilizing is this, and how many people in your view disagree with this oped . I think the people who disagree are the president s most loyal people around him, which is really probably melania trump, some of his children and, really, maybe a couple people from the campaign. But there are a lot of people as you know, republicans what theyll tell you off the record is an eye roll and a joke about
this president. There are a lot of people, a lot of republicans just around d. C. That are very worried about this president. Going into the white house, President Trump is fuming about this. Already obsessed about the russia investigation and robert mueller. Now he has the idea that there are dozens of people working in his administration that he doesnt know that are not only that are writing opeds in the paper that he loves to say is failing. He reads it very closely. That he reads very closely. And this idea that hes that there are people turning against him. Add to that the fact his personal lawyer paul manafort, all these people have guilty verdicts hanging over their heads. This is a president that feels increasingly isolated and angry about all this stuff. Ken dilanian, lets talk about the National Security implications. While, yes, we do talk about the potential damage to the or at least critics of the president talk about National Security damage, theres a real question about the fact this was a duly elected president by the people and there are apparently people
working to subvert his policies potentially inside the government. I think this was unhelpful from that point view of because its going to make that effort less successful. Hes now going to be more resistant to advice. More suspicious and for all his supporters who think theres a deep state trying to undermine him, this validates that point. I think it may backfire and it only really helps the writer if eventually hes outed and hes going to get a book deal and can say he was on the record saying he was part of the resistance. Im not sure this is a senior official. The New York Times had to vet this persons background. If it was a Household Name, what kind of vetting . That Household Name test. Jo ling kent. Youve covered republican politics before. My bigger question is how the Republican Party ever recovers from this because this does seem to illuminate what is a very fundamental split inside the party. Yeah. And theres a huge amount of interest. Now this article is the most viewed on the New York Times website for all of 2018 given
everything thats gone on. It goes beyond Just Washington and the bubble and what so many people here care about and goes into probably these primary races that were seeing play out and the upcoming midterm elections. What i find so interesting is in of the issues the individual who wrote this brought up were tax reform, deregulation and increasing the military size. So those are actually things very much in lockstep with the broader Republican Party. So now the question is, how much does Something Like this really affect the outcomes of november and the midterms . To that point, stuart stevens, at what point, what joe just outlined, this person in this oped saying we did x, we did y, i was here for that. Thats what republican members of congress say. Tax reform, tax reform, judges, judges. In your view people that believe the president is damaging the country but are willing to stick around for these other things, are they selling their souls . This is sort of a plea bargain with history that the
writer is putting out there. That he or she wants to be remembered for these good things that are done. Look, i think this is one of these things thats a very individual decision. Every person in the administration has to make. Do you want to stick around and try to make things better which i admire both sides of this. Or do you want to be out there speaking for what the party ought to be which is a different vision of the party. One that where character counts, personal responsibility. I think everybody has to make that choice and certainly the party and in the long term has to make that choice. So there are a lot of people thinking about this and they are looking to this broader Republican Party to try and explain this New York Times piece. Msnbcs chris hayes writes the oped is an attempt to take out an Insurance Policy for the gop and conservatism if and when things get much worse. Its a very public hedge meant to preserve the reputation of the gops entire political and governing class. And Erick Erickson writes this. Trump supporters dont want to hear it but get together in any
off the record meeting of conservatives who have gone to assist trump n what youre reading in the New York Times and the bob woodward book comes pouring out. There is no deep state here. This is the white house staff and the Trump White House approved staff of the various Cabinet Officials. If you want a salacious story with which to rile people up, let them know these are not obama holdovers and longtime leftleaning bureaucrats. This is the republican establishment that trump beat and then absorbed along with Movement Conservatives who decided they needed to try to salvage what they could and save the country in the process. So, joe, this is exactly what we were talking about. Yeah. But my question really is, how much is an oped really an Insurance Policy because no matter if you put your name on it or dont, really what counts to an American Voter in New Hampshire is what you actually do about it. And hearing from someone like
senator ben sasse this morning on Meet The Press or anyone who is running for office right now, where are the actions . And thats really what the swing voter is going to care about in the end. Ken dilanian, how does this play into whats going on with the russia investigation because i think if i am extrapolating on this question and i think that for republicans especially on the hill, its always been, what is the red line with trump . Have we found the red line . Every time we think something is going to be the red line, theres an explanation for it. Mueller may be the red line. Do we think this is the kind of thing that could push the president to for the most part republicans have been convinced hes not going to take . By Firing Mueller or Jeff Sessions . Its possible if they get close enough. Theyll hear from a lot of republicans about their view of the russia investigation. Theyre skeptical theres going to be some Smoking Gun Evidence of collusion thats going to be fatal to the trump presidency. Its going to be so muddy that were not going to get a definitive outcome. Increasingly, the sharks circling around trump make him
paranoid and act in irrational ways. Hes tweeting about the russia investigation almost every day. The last two president s have had cataclysmic crisises on their watch. George w. Bush, 9 11, barack obama, the financial collapse. We havent had that yet with trump. What if that happens and we have an emotionally reckless president on our hands. Then a bureaucracy that from what we can tell, we havent talked explicitly about Bob Woodwards book but he says jim mattis ignored an order. Do they know who they think this person is, where what are their prime suspects . What do they do next . The fact you have two dozen or more people come out and say it wasnt me tells you that i dont know if they know who the person is but there are a lot of people lining up to say it definitely wasnt me and please
clear me as soon as possible. Whether they start giving out lie detector tests, i have not confirmed theyd do that but you can imagine President Trump on monday or even over the weekend is saying, we have to get to the bottom of this and theyre trying to strategize how theyll do that. In terms of whether or not the Cabinet Members and all the people that i think Bob Woodwards credibility is kind of unmatched. If youre going to put up Bob WoodwardsReporting Versus donald trump saying that never happened, youll choose bob woodward 99 of the time. Even if the president can find this oped writer he has to deal with all the people around him. I dont think well see mass firing because the president , one of the biggest reasons Jeff Sessions still has a job is because a lot of people are telling this president you cannot keep doing this. It looks crazy. Also that he couldnt necessarily get somebody confirmed. We should also remind our viewers that deep throat, the main source for bob woodward in the watergate reporting, of course, repeatedly denied that
he was deep throat. A lot more to come on kasie dc. Is one of the most powerful figures in media on his way out. New reporting on les moonves. Plus, president obama gets some things off his chest on the Campaign Trail. But first, you might have noticed there was a little news this week in the capitol. As we go to break, a look back at the whiplash week that was in washington. And, yes, this really all happened this week. Biden went to church along with bob casey. President trump is taking on Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions. Bob woodwards new book describes a nervous breakdown of the executive branch. Senior aides resorting to hiding documents. Mocking sessions accent. Trump added, im quoting the prrkts the guy is mentally bleep. Michael capuana losing to ayana pressley. First day of questioning for
judge kavanaugh. The book means nothing. Its a work of fiction. Total piece of fiction. Some breaking news. In the times today taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous oped. Im part of the resistance inside the Trump Administration. The president s move is volcanic. Speculation about the identity of the anonymous senior staffer. Top Cabinet Officials denying theyre the anonymous writer. About 12 suspects. It could quite literally be anyone. Final day of judge kavanaughs confirmation. This is the launch of the democratic campaign. The president has taken the podium. Hes calling on the Department Of Justice to investigate who wrote it. Papadopoulos was just sentenced to 14 days in jail. Fridays, man. Fridays. When we were dating, we used to get excited about things like Concert Tickets or a new snowboard. Matt whoo whoo jen but that all changed when we bought a house. Matt voila
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mind, i think when he helped form the Republican Party. For many, president obamas words felt like a return to sanity. For others, it was a stark reminder of why President Trump won the election. Meanwhile, much of the country is just sick of all of it. I conceive of myself as an independent conservative who caucuses with the republicans but, frankly, neither of these parties have a longterm vision for the future of the country. Theres massive stuff happening in america, and Thesis Matters are really content to do 24hour news cycles screaming at each other. Why stay a republican, and when is the last time you thought about beco