I say to him, be like john mccain, the way he behaves, the way he serves his country, the way he conducts himself in public service. I want my boy to be like him. I dont want him to be like President Trump. Senator bob kerrey, i know we are talking about john mccain and the country should be talking about him. But thank you as well for your heroism and the work you did in protecting this country both overseas and in congress. Middle east tensions are rapidly escalating. Palestinian protesters continue to clash with israelis for the seventh consecutive we can at the border of the gaza strip. May 15th is the day after israels Declaration Of Independence and subsequent war in 1948 in which hundreds of thousands of palestinians were forced from their lands. Fuelling more of the unrest is the of mo of the u. S. Embassy to jerusalem, which is scheduled for monday, the same day as
israels 70th anniversary celebrations. Nearly an protesters have been killed by live israeli fire since the viole
Here at the table for the hour, Steve Schmidt and matt miller. But first, to react for the first time, single threads different threads of a single story. Questions about russians and contact with people in the president s inner circle. Former cia director john brennan, lucky for us, now a Senior National security and Intelligence Analyst for msnbc and nbc news. I understand now, sitting here today, why donald trump a week or so ago said dont believe what you see, dont believe what you hear on the news channels, because when you take all these events just this week together, they paint a very compromising position for this president on the question of russian influence. I think thats right, nicolle. I think weve seen over the course of the last two years basically an effort on the part of President Trump and others to pry to inoculate Public Perceptions of what actually
happened during the campaign. First, there were no meetings. Then there were meetings, but they were focused on adopt
department. it is a risky strategy. and you saw biden. there is bad blood between biden and trump. the white house is looking his chops at prospect of a re-election. any question about biden s energy level changed and shifts the moment that donald trump is invoked and you saw some of that on camera when he answered that question. secondly, yeah, what they re doing is allowing the voters to make their own decisions. voters is hyperaware of the chaos on the other side of the legal jeopardy and all of the challenges he s embroiled in as well and so they re hoping that voters will make the informed decision, biden is a creature of the senate and he governs and keeps his head down and he hopes to get credit for those things and that is where the white house is falling short off. but allow the voters to make their own contrast decision. there is always a risk. you don t say anything and someone filled up the vacuum by contending these are political prosecutions and then there is
particular moment in american history, when we are taking on somebody, the former president, who in fact does not believe in democracy, he s an authoritarian, and a very, very dangerous person. i think at this moment, there has got to be a unification of progressive people in general. is that going to work for left? it might. senator sanders i think felt a real urgency to deliver that message. because he doesn t feel as though that democrats are talking enough about the working class. and that the democrats are ceding those voters to republicans. so it makes a lot sense for him to be elevating this. we know that progressives feel underutilized and they re not elevated enough in the party and something that this president is going to have to confront. i know from my own conversations with young progressive voters that if trump isn t ultimately the nominee, it is going to be
more like governor chris christie. it is hard to think who they think their audience is because they re running in a republican primary that, you know, now the republican base voter, ramaswamy, trump, that is seeming to be what they are looking for. nikki haley was great. but when you are hypocritical on attacks on spending and hedging on abortion compared to your other rivals on the stage and talking about defending u.s. aid for ukraine, these are all positions that may make sense in a general election audience, and maybe with some swing voting women. but i don t know how they re going to play also, what they believe, it is a conundrum. if the things that you believe are really far away from the core tenants of maga or trump politics and you re at 3% or 5% anyway, why not say what you think. i mean, like if you re goal in this race, chris christie for example, is to get republicans to rethink what they ve signed