Chuck Todd began today's program by asking the question of whether President Trump is feeling liberated or besieged, but really it seems like the president is feeling like he has nothing left to loss. His campaign associates are either on trial, cooperating with the Feds or about to or looking at a pending indictment. "Collusion is not a crime," is the president's and his attorney Rudy Giuliani's, which is catchy but ultimately ineffective because conspiring with a foreign government to effect the outcome of a U.S. federal election is a crime. And that's what the president's campaign did and then attempted to cover it up with a weak adoption story.
Also, the president now understands that his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr. may have perjured himself to a Senate congressional committee, which is also a crime. How do we know all this? From solid reputable journalism, that's where so it stands to reason, in Trump world that is, that he would call the media the enemy of the people.
However, more disturbing is that President Donald Trump doesn't seem to even be in charge of the country anymore. It's President Trump vs. the Trump Administration. In the past week the president said he would meet with Iran without preconditions, to which a few hours later Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined a number of preconditions. The heads of the administration's national security agencies took to the White House press room podium to declare that the Russian meddling and hacking effort is a threat and that these agencies are combating it. However, hours later at a rally the president said that Russian meddling was a hoax. Also, the president (the boss), simply 'expressing his opinion' stated that Attorney General Jeff Sessions should end the Mueller investigation, an order that Mr. Sessions seemingly ignored because he himself can not carry it out. A little closer to home, the president's daughter and administration official Ivanka Trump said that she didn't believe the press was the enemy of the people, and after the president insulted LeBron James, the first lady, Melania Trump stated her support for the work that Mr. James is doing with regard to opening a school for at-risk kids in Akron, OH. The New York Times' Helene Cooper said that Mr. Trump is redefining what a presidency is, which in this case is purely being a figurehead.
The institutions of this country are the only entities holding it up because they are certainly not getting any much needed leadership with the chief executive. And these rallies that the president holds are simply spoken word concerts where the president 'plays' his hits to make an aggrieved base of supporters forget about what the president is actually doing, which is instilling policies against their interests and putting our national security at risk.
In his interview, Senator Roy Blount (R-MO) said that he wouldn't approach the press's criticism the same way the president would, but explained that he thinks the president believes the coverage has been accurate, as if giving us a rational explanation for the president's statements which is obviously becoming more and more difficult to do. However, as the panel explained, Republican primary candidates seek the president's endorsement to win their respective primary races because as Republican strategist Mike Murphy put it, Mr. Trump's cult of personality owns the Republican base. However, Politico's Eliana Johnson explained that presidents don't usually get involved with primary races, but that President Trump has turned that on its head, which candidates are kowtowing to in a big way, the style as Robert Costa put it. Overall, they concluded that the midterm elections are going to be won or lost with Trump as the central figure.
As Republican primary candidates compete with each other to out-Trump the other, it will not bode well for them in their general contests against Democrats who look to at least take back the House.
This brings us to the NetRoots Nation conference held this week by progressives in the Democratic party, which seemed to be the Democratic equivalent to the Republicans CPAC conference. Ms. Cooper commented that the Democrats have a lot of issues to hammer out among themselves as well, which is certainly the case. However, Democrats will have an easier time in bringing these different viewpoints together for the sake of overall control. Mike Murphy was correct that the country wants a centrist but there isn't distribution for it.
A centrist Mr. Trump certainly is not as in all his time in office so far, he's only governed to 33 percent of the electorate and now he can't even govern his on administration.
Panel: Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Eliana Johnson, Politico; Robert Costa, The Washington Post; Al Cardenas, Republican strategist; Clint Watt, former FBI agent and NBC contributor; Mike Murphy, Republican strategist
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