i must say, there were quite a few people that i ve noun and i ve considered friends for some time saying they were shocked and stunned and deeply saddened and they were so shocked by the personal insults that they left early. and then they went to afterparties and had a great time there, but these friends of mine for 20 years certainly didn t call me up and say, hey, joe, we re thinking about you. so sorry he attacked your fiance s appearance. yeah. hey, joe, we re sorry that donald trump said you re a murderer and you had to explain to your 9 or 14-year-old boy. i understand it. i m a big boy. i didn t bitch about it at the time. but these people so shocked and stunned and deeply saddened that a comedian did what comedians do and yet they just apologized for donald trump over and over again and kept their mouths shut, what a joke. that is rich. and you had concerns. i did. i have always about the dinner. i ll say that, you know, given
with that being on his mind facts relating to the russia investigation. i would look for a couple of things. one, whether or not donald trump has some reaction and talks in a way that could be used against him in the future, because bob mueller would do that. and the second thing i would look at is to see if the president of the united states is sending some kind of message to the potential defendant or other witnesses. and that that s in two categories. one, is he sending a message of intimidation some way, through himself or his cohorts, suggesting that people should not be talking and people should keep their mouths shut, which happens in life, from time to time. and the second thing is whether or not he sends a message of reassurance. we also have an historical record in recent months that donald trump will avoid going through the regular process for pardoning someone who s an ally, in this case it was joe arpaio, the sheriff in arizona, and there has been much speculation about wh
i think hostile captures the mood. david, how unusual is it? you have vast person when it comes to both presidents and former presidents how unusual is it to see something like this? michael duffy wrote an excellent book about this. it s extremely unusual, so early in the term former presidents to break ranks. there is a club, a fraternity, and it has certain rules, and one of the first rules is former presidents try to keep their mouths shut, they clearly violated that rule because they ve done it because they think other rules have been violated by this president. a president should be a uniter, not a divider. you are elected as head of your party, but you speak for all americans. secondly you are supposed to bring out the besting of america as lincoln said, to speak to the better angels of our nature.
michael duffy wrote an excellent book about this. so i ll wait for him to answer part of that. but let me take a crack at it. it s extremely unusual, so early in the term, for former presidents to break ranks. there is a club, a fraternity, and it has certain rules, and one of the first rules is former presidents try to keep their mouths shut, they clearly violated that rule, but they have done it because they think other rules have been violated by this president. a president should be a uniter, not a divider. you are elected as head of your party, but you speak for all americans. secondly you are supposed to bring out the best of america, as lincoln said, to speak to the better angels of our nature. and thirdly, you re supposed to be the current president, the incumbent is supposed to occasionally reach out to his predecessors and speak wisdom and advice and in turn they try to help him.
chris: and, dana, as i discussed with kellyanne conway and steve bannon in an interview with the new york times went a lot further. keep our mouths shut, zero integrity, zero intelligence. does this make sense from the white house s point of view? well, it does because i think they have effectively used the media against the democrats, right in so they were able to say to their base we have an enemy in the media, and the base agreed, and so it helps them a little bit. but i do think that so steve bannon s quote is very quotable, and i can understand why a journalist would be offended by it. but the second part of it was just give us a shot here. and i think what kellyanne said about the underreporting of some of the good policies they re doing, i ve done media relations for a long time as a republican, it would be very frustrating. but the thing is also this, human beings are always going to try to eat dessert first. if you keep feeding them sugar, they re going to go with the su