our leadoff discussion on this friday night, susan page, washington bureau chief for usa today. she also happens to be the author of the matriarch: barbara bush and the making of an american dynasty. jonathan lemire, white house reporter for the associated press. and jonathan allen, a veteran political reporter who happens to be our nbc news national political reporter. good evening and welcome to you all. susan, i d like to begin with you. where the shattering of norms are concerned, how big a week have we just witnessed, remembering this is summer vacation for the president? you know, i actually think the controversy over israel denying entry to two american members of congress at the urging of the president was shocking. even in 2 1/2 years of things we say break the norms, never
i remember this. i was a senior in high school. charles diggs was his name. he s one of the founders of the congressional black caucus. he represented tlaib s district in the 70s. he wanted to go and see the situation in south africa. and the south african government would not give him a visa and they banned him from visiting the country. so all these years later to have our congresswoman from the 13th district in detroit facing a similar thing, what is it that they re afraid that they re going to see? what is it that what doesn t the israeli government i mean i watched earlier ali velshi had on one the israeli army veterans. he said, i was going to be her guide through hebron, and i was going to take her down the main street of hebron, where it s now vacant. all the shops are gone. the israeli army calls it a sterile street. that s what he said right on this network, a sterile street because there are no arabs
his affection for israel is guided by his political desire to improve his re-election chances by depicting the entire republican party as pro-israel and the entire democratic party as anti-israel. this week trump also engaged in veiled swipes at old adversaries by pushing a conspiracy theory on social media that the clintons somehow had jeffrey epstein killed. trump then tried to defend his action by saying he was just re-tweeting someone else s theory. that wasn t from me. that was from him. but he s a man who has half a million followers, a lot of followers, and he s respected. trump s concern about 2020 appears to be part of his motivation to begin making plans to put u.s. troops out of afghanistan. trump met with his national security team. tonight he confirmed the meeting, noting that, quote, many on the opposite side of this 19-year war and us are looking to make a deal if
minutes before the president were to face voters again. and that, for this white house, is a terrifying prospect. i think that s why we re already seeing reporting some of the pivoting to stir up other issues. this thing with israel and the congresswomen, the attacks on those same congresswomen a few weeks ago, on elijah cummings and cities, the minority/majority cities, even plastic straws. that sort of stuff is going to be in the president s arsenal right now as he tries to distract from the impact his china trade war has had on the economy and the very volatile markets. no doubt about it. john allen, the president gave us positively catskills material tonight on social media. at least her grandmother won t have to see her. is there a strategy here? is someone with a straight face able to make a mathematical argument that this is a path to victory which all efforts ideally in the white house political shop should lead to? yeah, i m not sure anyone has
history. the congressman back in 1972 i remember this. i was a senior in high school. charles diggs was his name. he s one of the founders of the congressional black caucus. he represented rashida tlaib s district in the 70s. he wanted to go and see the situation in south africa. and the south african government would not give him a visa and they banned him from visiting the country. so all these years later to have our congresswoman from the 13th district in detroit facing a similar thing, what is it that they re afraid that they re going to see? what is it that what doesn t the israeli government i mean i watched earlier ali velshi had on one of the refuseniks, one of the israeli army veterans. and he said i was going to be her guide through hebron and i was going to take her down the main street of hebron, where it s now vacant. all the shops are gone. the israeli army calls it a sterile street. that s what he said right on