You could glean from Chuck Todd's emphatic "If it's Sunday..." that he didn't like it one bit that Sunday's edition of "Meet The Press" had been preempted twice during the Olympics, but this is what happens when the Sunday political 'Program of Record' has a weekday edition. And it was a crucial week to be back given the recent political commentary, one that we have rarely if ever witnessed.
There is no doubt that this year's campaign season reeks a God-awful stench brought on by name calling, charges of racism, mental and physical health prognostications, and the absence of any meaningful discussion of policy. Policy, what's that? On today's very show, former senior advisor to President Obama, David Plouffe, called Donald Trump a 'psychopath.' There's a label for you.
The only policy that we can think of on the docket was immigration so if we're going to put labels on someone, like Donald Trump for instance, we would say 'schizo,' because he's changed or nuanced his stance on immigration so many times in one week that we really have no idea where he stands on this issue. Hugh Hewlitt said it didn't matter as long as Mr. Trump didn't give up on what Hewlitt called his 'north star' of immigration policy proposals, which is building the wall. A bad analogy from Mr. Hewlitt to say the least. Mr. Trump is due to give a 'major' speech on immigration on Wednesday to clarify his position, which in and of itself illustrates that he's in fact changed at least some of his positions, hence the need for clarification.
But here's the rub: The North Star is real, look up and you'll see it. The wall that Mr. Trump wants to build is pure fiction. It will not happen. Will not.
And as nonsensical or offensive you think Mr. Trump is, can or could be, he's not the most infuriating person in politics. That distinction belongs to today's interview guest RNC Chair Reince Priebus, who squarely gives you answers he knows are intellectually and sensibly dishonest. He knows better. However, we understand why he defends Mr. Trump... Because he's been the architect of him getting the Republican nomination. For that fact alone, he should go because he's been a disaster lacking leadership of that political party.
Mr. Priebus agreed that the immigration issue is not a simple question and that Mr. Trump is reflecting on it. But he also assured that Mr. Trump's policy would be tough, fair and humane. Tough like in rounding people up out of their homes? Fair, as in breaking with the Constitution and giving people a religious test to stay in this country? Humane, as in breaking families apart?
And if Mr. Trump's position reflects anything close to what the 'gang of 8' in the Senate proposed with even a path to legal status, his core will blow a gasket. When asked about birth right citizenship, Mr. Priebus didn't really give a definitive answer in the context of the immigration discussion. And he doesn't know where Mr. Trump is on the issue.
It's clear that Mr. Trump has left the entire Republican party twisting in the wind and Reince Priebus let it happen. It's difficult to listen to because we can not believe that he believes what he says. He said that he's really proud of what the party was doing in Mr. Priebus's home state of Wisconsin and that Mr. Trump was very in tune with what is going on in the state. Mr. Trump has no idea what's going on in Wisconsin and Priebus knows it. So he's reduced to making false accusations about Sec. Clinton giving away state secrets, and that's his argument.
But in politics, and here is where Mr. Trump gets it wrong, is that it's not just about the argument, it's about the positive messaged solution that you deliver. And his immigration speech will not be that. What kind of message is "what do you have to lose" when reaching out to the African-American community? That kind of message is hopeless and in effect turns more people away than it would ever convert.
You go around the panel and the discussion is how innuendo has been mainstreamed, that it's a resentment election (maybe), and the banality of how 'provocateurs are entrepreneurs.' Joy-Ann Reid described the week as one long continuous 'Sarah Palin rally' (just punch us in the gut). The governor of Maine, Paul LePage, went off the rails with expletives in a voicemail to a state representative, who called him a racist. On the other side of the coin (kinda), Illinois Senator Mark Kirk (R) called the president, our president, a drug dealer. Andrea Mitchell, who's seen it all, is herself astonished to use words coarse and vulgar to describe the presidential race, but that's where we are.
We've been doing the limbo underneath the lowest common denominator successfully for some time now, but now this is ridiculous.
Panel: Joy-Ann Reid and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Hugh Hewlitt, Salem Radio Network; Robert Costa, The Washington Post
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