heart and soul of the republican party going on right now certainly. there is unity to some extent around issues. these are all still republicans. they all still believe in some core issues. one of the biggest divides among them is how do they deal with trump, though. do they speak out against inflammatory tweets and rhetoric and concern about national security but they re not doing that. you know the answer circling the wagons around him. and if you are jeff flake and john mccain and bob corker, probably not after what happened to flake. after giving those dramatic speeches, especially senator flake, it was right out of the movies. it was like mr. smith goes to washington. the republicans have unite. they have not. governor christy is in a position where he can give a little more honest assessment of it. members of congress have their spit waensz to please. he s gone. right. he s not here.
than falling in love. i don t think any of these senators love trump. i don t think they go to bed at night reading his cat can i seeism. why is it as a reporter do you see them falling in line? they re falling in line because they re looking at their base and when they go back to their districts and reporters like me ask them questions they are looking at constituents who say why didn t you support the president with the healthcare bill, why didn t you stand up for president trump when he was fighting with corker? i want answers from you. and that s because while president trump s numbers well, you show that they might be good among republicans, there s an approval nationally that he still has an a low approval rating but congress s is worse. you have the leadership like mitch mcconnell also not being very strong. they have to fall in line with the person at this point who is leading the party. roads svelte was trying to do he didn t get rid of anybody. he was the most powerfu
flake, it would have had the waulg tumbling down. in fact, he s just leaving. that s all. that s all that s happening. yeahel. he got 24 hours of oh, you re awesome, you re so brave, cure ages. of course, he had started this long ago with his book in which he took on the president. he took on the president and won t do it so he wasn t quite sure of his attack plan. well, and then upon realize gs he s not going to be re-elected, he decides to make a stronger statement. but, you know, virtue only lasts about 24 hours in washington, and i think that he s going to now discover that it s a lonely place for the next for the duration of his term. is it your sense that there was a rally that was done organization alley that all the republican leaders like thune and all the rest of them all were called together and say i want positive statements from you about the leadership? because it seems like all were rolling out, including lindsey graham. everybody was ready to go let s rally to
it was almost a love fest. maybe it was a love fest. but standing ovations. there is great unity. welcome back to hardball. according to president trump, of course, the republican party is perfectly unified. you just heard it. but one of his strokest allies, governor chris christy of new jersey disagrees. he warned his party they could pay the price in the 2018 election. gop unity on a scale of one to ten. five. five. you know, i think we re unified on a lot of issues, but we re not unified on how to approach those issues. and if you re not unified on both, you re not going to get things done. i want to see these things done and we re not unified on how to go about this and if we re not we re going to pay a price at the polls. who is right? let s bring in tonight s roundtable. let me start with you right down the line here. is the republican party in good shape? there is a battle for the
this year if we unite, we win, and they haven t been able to unite. 50 to 52. i remember the ronald reagan phrase, the 11th commandment, speak no ooel of a fellow republican. if you re a republican who is facing a primary in 2018, i think you keep your mouth closed. because the people who show up for republican primaries are the trump base, are the far right wing of the republican party. now, elected in a general election, that we don t know yet. now for something on the lighter side. for kimberly in the spirit of halloween, president trump met today with the children of white house press corps people. let s watch that enter mingling. i cannot believe the media produced such beautiful children. how the media did this, i don t know. she s japanese of the beautiful. i m going to be in japan in two weeks.