9.17.17: It's Put Up or Shut Up Time, No One's Exempt This Week

In being non-ideological and narcissistic as many would describe, President Trump this week has left Democrats and Republicans alike to doubt his position on anything. But when you're goal is to simply get 'wins' and be liked, you're not going to commit to any position.  The unfortunate but predictable result of that is nothing gets done, which is what you've seen for the first eight months of his presidency.

Ann Coulter's rhetorical question of "who doesn't want Trump impeached?" is the firebrand's way of asking, "what is this president for?" After this week, everyone is left to wonder. By impulse is no way to run the United States of America and it seems that President Trump hasn't internalized that concept. As far as other conservative commentators are concerned (Limbaugh, Hannity, et al), NBC's Katy Tur who just wrote a book about her experience on the Trump campaign said that the Trump supporter (apparently a new political party according to Chuck Todd, not really) don't even listen to those people. At least they have that going for them. 

But the Trump supporter is to the right of the right, the "if I don't like the game, I'm taking the ball and going home" crowd if you will, and what the president showed glimpses of is that he may not be their guy. Mr. Trump plays to the crowd he's in front of, and now conservative commentators are realizing that he really was just playing. Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin gave the most succinct insight that only a presidential historian could, which was that Mr. Trump has "lost his mojo."

What is simply inexplicable is how Christian conservatives, white evangelicals can give the president a pass on the president's behavior, statements (past and present) and personal transgressions. David Brody from the Christian Broadcasting Network, who has his finger on the pulse of these things, explained that white evangelicals feel that Mr. Trump is their cultural warrior. Really? The perception is that Mr. Trump is playing to an unconscious (or maybe conscious) xenophobia. If that's a too 'loaded' explanation, that's only one of two possibilities; the other being in opposition to abortion. If the president ever waffles on that, he's lose all that support - the ultimate deal breaker.

And speaking of Christians, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) didn't have much Christian charity to show toward the DREAMers, some of whom have served in the military. I guess he didn't ask about that either in his time in the service, just like he punted on the issue of transgender individuals being allowed to serve. As has been mentioned in this column previously, DACA recipients are Americans, for all intent and purpose, and Mr. Cotton is certainly indifferent to the human element of the issue. The Arkansas senator threw out the phrase "unlimited chain migration," which pushes all the right wing buttons creating another 'immigration boogie' suggesting that this is what is going on now; it's unlimited and endless.

And not to leave out any chastising for the other side, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) wouldn't say if he would run as a Democrat or Independent. He also punted, on this question, and the problem is that if you want to tell the Democratic party what to do and sometimes, frankly, lecture them on how they should do things, then he should get invested and join the party. Because giving yourself the easy out when you have to backtrack on something or even nuance it by saying, "Oh, well I'm not a Democrat, I'm an Independent," is sorry to say a little chickenshit. Mr. Sanders, what's it going to be. Don't get me wrong, I agree with Mr. Sanders that Medicare for all is a good plan and you could incrementally integrate it by lowering the requirement age over a series of time periods to absorb cost adjustments. However, what Mr. Sanders wants to do, essentially, is take the profit motive out of health care. And that's not necessarily bad per se, just incredibly difficult.

In the time being, Congress should be working on prescription drug prices down because its behavior on this issue has been disgraceful. Congress enables the pharmaceutical companies to get millions upon millions of Americans on one medication or another, also addictive and deadly (opiates), and then gauge those same Americans on the price. Now that I think of it, that's actually drug dealing, and through campaign contributions, politicians get a cut of that.  Too much to think about.

***

The program also covered North Korea and Chuck Todd's trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, the latter of which you should go online and watch again, however I wanted to keep the column to the president's actions over the week and the interviews with the respective senators, but no one is exempt this week. On all sides, Americans of all stripes are saying the same thing, "Put up or shut up."


Panel: Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian; Katy Tur, NBC News; Alex Cardenas, fmr. president of the American Conservatives Union; David Brody, Christian Broadcasting Network

9.10.17: Irma Preempts Everything, Covers Everyone

"Meet The Press" has been preempted today due to wall-to-wall coverage of Hurricane Irma, for which we'll say that we hope everyone in the path of the storm comes out the other side of it safely, of course. As it has been said many times, in the midst of a natural disaster there is no politics, no red nor blue, just United States and Americans helping one another.

With that said, such comprehensive storm coverage gives cover to many things, namely special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and the fact that he's seeking to interview six White House staffers, current and former. Normally, this would be huge news but fortunately for Mr. Mueller, the general news media is preoccupied. The most high profile current staffer is interim White House Communications Director Hope Hicks. Former W.H. Press Secretary Sean Spicer and fmr. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus are also on Mr. Mueller's list of interviewees.

The special counsel's interest in these individuals centers around Donald Trump Jr.'s June 2016 meeting with Russian representatives but more specifically who was privy to the discussion about Mr. Trump Jr.'s official statement, crafted by the White House staff on board Air Force One on the way back from the G20 Summit. Just the factual description of the above scenario invites so many obvious questions with potentially damaging answers. For example, did you know about the meeting? Did the president know about this meeting? Why did the White House craft the statement and who was involved in its drafting? Not good stuff, like that... Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said that bungled collusion is still collusion, so are the actions on board Air Force One obstruction?

Of said individuals, the one the administration has to worry about the most, this column believes, is fmr. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus. Ms. Hicks has been with the president too long, years before he even decided to run, loyal and as close to being family without actually being family. But Mr. Priebus is a different story...

For every situation in question, he was present and who knows at this point how Mr. Priebus is feeling about the president and the administration, which in other words is to question his degree of loyalty to the president at this point in time. As fmr. Chairman of the RNC, Mr. Priebus is a party guy and he knows full well what actions cross the line and which ones do not. But also being a party guy means that ultimately that's where he'll put his faith. Let's face it, he got the hard boot from the White House so the loyalty wasn't reciprocated and he won't end up needing a pardon from the president.

A bit of conjecture there, for sure but the point is that this is a serious development in this investigation, and its not getting crazy coverage, which all told is a good thing.

The other thing that we need to touch on, and yes we have to go there,  is the fact of atmospheric change which is causing climate occurrences like droughts and hurricanes, etc. to be much more intense. Even if you don't believe that man's activities are having an effective on the climate changing (despite the overwhelming scientific evidence), we can all agree that these extreme weather events happen and are occurring with more frequency so can't we at least get together on climate event prevention and build and zone cities to accommodate the facts of devastation on the ground?

9.3.17: The Heat Into The Fall, The President's August and What It Means for September

The challenges for President Trump have arrived and his tumultuous month of August lingering into these beginning days of September with the aftermath of the tragic Hurricane Harvey and as reported this morning a new nuclear test in North Korea, one that registered a 6.3 on the Richter Scale.

As the Sylvester Turner, Mayor of Houston, stated it's all about housing in terms of the relief and aid for the communities. Secondarily, he said that the removal of debris was essential to prevent any public health crisis. So far, the president has responded well to the disaster and has signaled an immediate injection of $7.8 billion for hurricane relief.  It's a start but realistically, that amount is only half of the tip of the iceberg of monetary resources that it's going to take to rebuild southeast Texas.

With the limited amount of congressional working days in September and funding for hurricane relief the first order of business on the domestic front and the North Korean threats on the foreign policy end, the administration's legislative agenda is all but dead. With the suggestion that Hurricane Harvey relief funds be tied to the raising of the debt ceiling will length the debate and simply create more uncertainty with the best to hope for is a continuing resolution to fund the government. Not to mention that Mr. Trump called out and picked fights with a number of Republican legislators this past month, number one on that list being the Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). This comes after the president isolating himself with an abhorrent press conference in the wake of Charlotttesville, an alternative-universe like rally in Phoenix where he dissed both of the state's Republican senators, and then a pardon for an unrepentant bigoted sheriff who defied the rule of law. Now, senators like John McCain (R-AZ) want to stick it in the president's eye, so to speak.

The president is still talking about health care, which will not be taken up again by Congress and there just isn't the legislative time to get tax reform done, with everything else on the table. Nothing legislatively is going to get done in this next session. Further complicating the domestic agenda is the president's coming Tuesday decision on what to do about DACA - the deferred action on childhood arrivals.

Many conservative members of Congress has urged the president not to rescind the executive order (DACA), but as today's panel discussed, doing away with DACA doesn't play well with Mr. Trump's base. The hard line attorney general Jeff Sessions is advocating for the order's cancellation. There was also conjecture from the panel that the president would kick it to Congress to decide what to do, which would be the politically logical thing to do, as Princeton professor Eddie Glaude pointed out, but he seemed to think that because it's Mr. Trump, conventional political logic doesn't apply. One can only speculate, but rescinding DACA would also implement harsh deportation policy on places particularly like southeast Texas, which would be a slap in the face by the president to that community if he rescinded the order now. Bottom line is: These 800,000 'Dreamer' kids are Americans and should be made so.

And while Mr. Trump was throwing cold water on Congressional relations in August, it was fire and fury everywhere else. In addition to inflaming racial divisions with irresponsible comments, "fire and fury" was the phrase that the president used as a response to missile tests by North Korea. It's worth noting a statistic that Chuck Todd outlined: Kim Jung Il conducted 16 missile tests in his entire time in power, and his son Kim Jung Un has had 18 since Mr. Trump became president. It's quite obvious that the young dictator is testing the ill-tempered president.

Mr. Trump's terrible August, frankly, has set him up well for a productive September and despite outside mitigating issues such as the Russian investigation, can the president overcome all of these challenges to simply show that he can be competent in the job?

September is going to be the most significant month of his presidency so far.


Panel: Kristen Welker, NBC News; Susan Page, USA Today; Eddie Glaude, Princeton University; Matthew Continetti, Washington Free Beacon

8.20.17: Is There Any Regaining Of A Moral Center?

Today's commendable edition of "Meet The Press" offered insightful perspectives from every guest and panelist. The down side is that while generous in their means to inform, alas it all falls to the wayside and no one listens because it all comes back to the only individual that matters in this entire conversation and that is Mr. Donald Trump.

The overriding question in discussion of the president is whether or not he lost his moral authority this week, and if so, can he regain it?

To quote The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan and The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson respectively, "No" and "no." Ms. Noonan explained that you can not lose something that you never had as a candidate nor as president.  Mr. Robinson does not see how he regains it due to the lack of any kind of moral center, nor does Julius Krein, editor of the American Affairs blog, on whom there are more comments to come in a moment. "Disastrously amoral," is the phrase that Mr. Robinson used. But as fmr. Rep. J.C. Watts (R-OK) explained, Mr. Trump never understood the magnitude of what it meant to be president and Mr. Trump, by his words, seems to have decided that he will only be the president of red America, as Chuck Todd noted, which in and of itself is obviously problematic for the nation.

Mr. Trump, indeed, is not the calm in the center of the storm, as Peggy Noonan opined as how the president should conduct himself amidst such tragedies as Charlottesville, and once again its all about the president. One of things that people forget is that in order to be good president, let alone a great one, is to be able to show humility in the face of humanity, like Eugene Robinson noted about President Reagan's speech (that Peggy Noonan wrote) when the Challenger exploded. Mr. Trump has not shown himself to have this quality in the slightest, at least not publicly. This is further evidence that he could never regain or achieve a moral authority. But then again, according to editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes, the president is happy with the position he's taken.

The president called some of the protesters who opposed the removal of the General Lee statue "very fine people," and explained that they weren't all neo-Nazis, during his press conference this week. That's what he really thinks and by that fact all his credibility as a voice of reason and morality is lost, which again keeping sight of the larger fact that it does none of us any good. Despite agreeing with fmr. congresswoman Donna Edwards (D-MD) that the country has maintained its moral center, it's difficult to succeed as a country with a president not holding it as well.

Now, it's interesting Mr. Krein who once strongly supported Donald Trump and his ideas and who now is staunchly in opposition to the president, especially on a character basis, is getting so much attention. When asked by Chuck Todd if there was any way of getting him back into the fold, a flat 'no' was Mr. Krein's response. "They torched it," (no pun intended) he said. To that, one can only ask, "Where was your head to begin with?" From the first day of Mr. Trump's campaign when he ridiculously called out Mexicans as rapists, you knew where he stood on race. So when Mr. Krein says that Charlottesville was the last straw, I would reply that he's a day late and twenty dollars short.

More directly in terms of what to do about white supremacists and neo-Nazis, Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook explained that violence is necessary to rid the country of this scourge because its so vastly different from other forms violence. Conversely, Richard Cohen of the Southern Poverty Law Center said that that was not the answer at all. He said that the most effective way to combat hate speech is with even more speech [in opposition]. It would be a mistake to see these two views on a sliding scale, the violence isn't the answer, but many times speech is not enough. So what to do?

Enter civil right leader, fmr. UN ambassador, fmr. mayor of Atlanta Andrew Young who could not bring himself to completely condemn white supremacists. (The magnanimous nature of this man is staggering, from which we could all learn.) Instead, he talked about the poverty of these people and how they should unjustly be happy with a black-lung job and not health care, for example. He explained that these people needed help as well. Wow.

Which brings us to this crazy notion... Mr. Trump has decimated his credibility as president with his own words, there is little doubt. However... There are still deeds. In the spirit of Mr. Young, the president could turn the health care debate on its head and decide on Medicare for all would be the way to go, giving millions of working poor health care. As implausible as it would be, it is only such as deed that would begin to scrub away the words.


Panel: Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Donna Edwards, fmr. Congresswoman (D-MD); Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post; Stephen Hayes, The Weekly Standard

8.13.17: Trump's Failure To Lead Scores A Hat-Trick

The title of this week's post became a no-brainer when three-quarters of the way through the program Chuck Todd reminded viewers that the president also picked a fight with Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

That, the icing before the cake, along with the president's profoundly unwise bellicose statements on North Korea and his fecklessness shown from his no-statement on the violence in Charlottesville, VA have sealed off any doubt that Mr. Trump has drowned under the turbulent water that is the presidency and is woefully ill-suited to lead this country.

However, it's not surprising in the least, as much as it was inevitable to see. The president not specifically condemning white supremacists for the tragic violence in Charlottesville may finally be the straws that permanently pry open the eyes of Republicans in Congress.

What Mr. Trump never came around to comprehending was that as President of The United States of America, you have to be able to speak to all Americans, even the ones who didn't vote for you. His campaign whistled to and cultivated the support of the alt-right through its extreme immigration initiatives - words and deeds from Mr. Trump himself which are now obviously a big part of his presidency.

Neo-Nazis and White Supremacists fully armed in paramilitary gear (thanks National Rifle Association for pointless open carry laws) march on a town in Virginia to rally around a statue of Robert E. Lee, a general in the Confederacy. And the president doesn't specifically condemn that? President Abraham Lincoln referred to the Confederacy as rebels... traitors to the principles of the Constitution that all men are created equal and deserve equal justice under the law, hence traitors against their country because their cause was to uphold slavery. Couldn't agree more with that view. Americans have fought and died against the forces of Nazism and Racism, but Mr. Trump has nothing to say about it with the exception of a platitude that gives white supremacists a pass.

A failure to lead the country.

The fmr. Joint Chief of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen said that Mr. Trump's rhetoric takes away his maneuvering options, and North Korea knowing that the U.S. will not take military action without suffering the "unintentional consequences," as Adm. Mullen described them, called Mr. Trump's bluff making additional threats.

Only a political wing-nut would use words like "fire and fury" or "locked and loaded" referring to our military, not the president of the United States. Period, end of discussion. (The word "shrewd" never comes up when describing Mr. Trump.)

Mr. Trump's statements put two of our closest allies in more immediate peril, ramping up an international crisis that Adm. Mullen assessed could get out of control fast.

A failure to lead the world.

The National Review's Rich Lowry said that Mr. Trump need the Republican Congress and Mitch McConnell for "scandal control," which would be hysterical if it weren't so true. As Joy-Ann Reid reminded us, the Senate majority leader's wife is in Mr. Trump's cabinet - Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao. But so what, Senator McConnell couldn't get the votes on health care. He couldn't get a win for Trump which makes him a loser, as how our simplified political math is trending right now. The Republican party, especially House members, is all Mr. Trump has right now. He's been losing pieces one at a time in the Senate but forfeiting the most strategically important one is politically shortsighted to say the least. And the Senate clearly supports McConnell.

Failure to lead his party; a triple fail.


Panel: Joy-Ann Reid, NBC News; Rich Lowry, The National Review; Amy Walter, the Cook Political Report; Helene Cooper, The New York Times

Other things... just to be sure...

Adm. Mullen said that Kim Jung Un is not a rational actor.

As Chuck Todd and the panel agreed, National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and Presidential Senior Advisor Steven Bannon can NOT work together. One is going to have to go, which will be the most telling choice the Administration makes. Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller and Sebastian Gorka have no place in The White House.

Helene Cooper is sick of hearing that taking down the statues of Robert E. Lee and such people might make anger some people, to which she replied, "Make them angry." Amen to that.

8.6.17: The 'And' Versus The 'Or'

It wasn't so much of a special edition of "Meet The Press" this week as it was an enhanced or focused one, but nonetheless the discussion throughout dealt with the state of our broken politics in the United States.

Fittingly, the two guests - Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Governor Jerry Brown (D-CA) - are individuals who seek the middle ground in policy and political discourse, the middle meaning more civil in the case of the latter. The discourse is where it all starts, as president of DEMOS Heather McGhee put it. That's true, but despite the rest of the panel dismissing Andrea Mitchell's assessment that it's all about the money, she's correct.

The And vs. The Or

Chuck Todd commented that sometimes you have to compromise, but actually politics is the art of compromising all the time - where no one gets everything they want but walk away satisfied with what they did get. As said before in this column, think of the United States has a huge, fully equipped cruise ship that's always moving forward. To always be moving in a positive direct you sometimes have to tack to right and sometimes to the left. However, if you turn too hard and too fast in either direction, you tip the boat over and take all of us down. It's just the way it is and the checks and balances of the government pretty much ensure that.

That's the And.

As for the Or...

Dan Balz of The Washington Post explained that there is a full-time political industry; that fact alone - that there is an industry - was noted by the panel. However, it's designed to demonize the other side instead of presenting ideas or a vision for the future, as Governor Brown described, a vision that we now know the Republicans don't have and that Democrats still need to find. Senator Flake said it himself, that Republicans were too busy trying to make President Obama a one-term president and not enough time constructing a ideological and legislative agenda.

To prompt the 'End Game' segment, Mr. Todd teased that the panel would take the problem with real solutions, but the problem was that no one could really come up with one. Instantly, it's evident by any conservation of this type that everyone knows the problem and does have a constructive solution by the nature of the problem itself is so big with so much money involved that it seems beyond fixing.

Case in point...

Chuck Todd used the Texas second congressional district as an example of our divided politics and how it's swung in political direction from Democrat to Republican. But take a look at this district...

Every ten years, when the census is conducted, the party in control of the state has the opportunity to redraw the congressional map. Do you think this one was draw so that it only included politically like-minded constituents? Here's one of those solutions: If you want to make the discourse more civil and possible negate some of the monetary interests, make all the congressional districts as square as possible and this way politicians have to respond to a broader set of ideas from the people they represent. Never happen.

It was notable that Governor Brown said the demographics are trending in a non-Republican direction, and not saying in a Democratic one. The Democratic party casts a wider net in terms of being more inclusive of different ideas, it's fair to say. But this once great strength of the party has become its Achilles' heal. They can not seem to be able to coral it into a cohesive vision. "A Better Deal?" Please. How about starting with "We Have A Plan!" As for the Republicans, who traditionally have such discipline in message as one of their strengths of party, factions of thinking a congealing and calcifying into three camps, as the panel explained. There's the Ted Cruz wing - the hardcore right wing, the Marco Rubio more inclusive or moderate group, and then there's the cult of personality Trump Republican, who brings with it a monkey wrench.

That last part someone could say disrespects supports of the president, but the fact is that this administration outside of an appointment, executive orders, and a bill that was veto-proof hasn't gotten much done. Before going on vacation, President Trump held a campaign-style rally in West Virginia, what Andrea Mitchell called 'ground-zero' for his support and where the governor, given that political reality, notably switched from Democrat to Republican. Deference should be given to these people and it's important to understand how they feel, most certainly, but... With all due respect to West Virginia, it should not be seen as the guiding example on how to move the United States forward when California has over 39 million people and is the world's sixth largest economy.

This brings to mind that unfortunate reality of the president being unwilling to reach out to Americans who don't see eye to eye with him - to lead us all, a president's responsibility after all. The optimistic view is that this presidential leadership deficit provokes people in both parties to step up, like Senator Flake, and call for some bi-partisanship instead of zero-sum, the and vs. or.


Panel: Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Heather McGhee, president of DEMOS; David French, The National Review; Dan Balz, The Washington Post

7.30.17: Trump Is Trump and McCain is The Mav

The politics of this week leaves one only to wonder how it could become anymore bizarrely frenetic, to the detriment of us all, without digressing too much, and though not completely unpredictable, it was enough to prompt Mr. Todd among many others to describe the Republican Party as a circular firing squad while describing the presidency as chaotic. From this week's New York Post, a supportive publication for Mr. Trump for the most part, displayed this cover, comparing the White House to "Survivor."

But a reality game show, this is not - a perception that now White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly was brought in to fix, at the expense of the Scaramucci-castigated Reince Priebus. General Kelly gets sworn in tomorrow and the good news for him is that among the few people the president listens to it seems are generals; a short time will tell.

While all the infighting raged through the administration this week, major moments were taking shape in the Senate over Mitch McConnell's health care bill. To distract from a potential disaster of not fulfilling a campaign promise - repealing Obamacare - the Trump Administration, nay President Trump tweeted a new military policy banning all transgender individuals from serving in the armed forces. The Pentagon directed questions about the policy back to the White House and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders referred questions back to the Pentagon. The administration's calculation was once again an example of poor political judgement. Not only did it not soften the blow of the health care vote going down in defeat in the eyes of Mr. Trump's base, but it was widely criticized by many Republican politicians, namely Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) who said that transgender individuals didn't choose their sexuality but were born that way so why should we hold that against them.

But as stated at the top, the defeat of Mr. McConnell's health care bill was not entirely surprising. Before getting to that, it must be said that Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price only gives answers in pure ideological terms never with any specifics, as he once again did on today's program. It's almost as though you have to have the secretary on your program as a courtesy, but the fact is that no one is listening to his platitudes anymore. As the secretary in charge of healthcare, he needs to be specific, and he never is. So when he says that the president is "so passionate" and "serious" about health care, how are we to believe that.

President Trump said that he was "waiting with pen in hand" to sign a bill repealing Obamacare, and that was part of the problem right there - the president doesn't even realize. He was waiting. If you're so passionate and serious about health care reform, you're out there talking about it in a constructive way, not threatening the Secretary of Health and Human Services' job during a speech at the National Boy Scouts of America Jamboree.

And to make sure that the president and the Senate majority leader understand regular order and how it's done, in walks the maverick - Senator John McCain (R-AZ).

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) was always a no vote on McConnell's bill. The Trump Administration threatened to withhold approval on infrastructure projects in Alaska and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) punched right back at Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke by holding up hiring hearing in the Senate for his agency - pushing her to a no vote. But Senator McCain... Republican leadership and the Vice President thought they had a shot at him.

Senator McCain after having surgery and being diagnosed with brain cancer, flew back to Washington and gave a widely-praised speech on the Senate returning to regular order and working in a bipartisan way again then he cast a 'yes' vote on the motion for the Senate to proceed with debate on the ACA repeal bill. It was heartening to Mr. McConnell and Republican leadership.

But here's the rub, Mr. McConnell reversed all of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform, eliminating big dark money in campaigns. It was the kind of signature piece of bipartisan legislation that Mr. McCain prided himself on. Also, for his part, Mr. Trump never apologized to the senator for his comments on not being a war hero because the then-airman was captured. Point being is that the senator felt no obligation to either man so he voted no because the bill didn't go through the standard process of the Senate; there was no adequate replacement bill; and too many people would lose coverage. When you consider all that, not so surprising.

And just on another quick note, Mr. Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski explained that new Chief of Staff Kelly will restore order to the staff so that the president's agenda can be carried out. He also warned that if the fmr. general tries to change Mr. Trump - not let Trump be Trump - then he will fail. But he went on to say that the three main agenda items for the president were the repeal and replacement of Obamacare, the building of a wall on our southern border and tax reform. The president is demanding the Senate take another vote but that's unlikely, one down. As for the border wall, among Mr. Trump's base there is enthusiasm for it, but not among anyone else, which simply just goes unsaid among conservatives. This leaves tax reform, which prompts a question of trust toward any ideas the administration would have on the law, simply for the fact that there is no real understanding on how a said idea would unfairly benefit the president due to him never releasing his tax returns. A huge sticking point.


Panel: Helene Cooper, The New York Times; Eliana Johnson, Politico; Hugh Hewitt, Salem Radio Network; Cornell Belcher, Democratic pollstar and author.

7.23.17: A Backward Win (Perspective On A Glimmer of Hope)

Today's "Meet The Press" was preempted by the broadcast of the British Open. It's a 'free' day, a Sunday during which "Meet The Press" doesn't air, so it carte blanche on topics to discuss.

Certainly the trouble is deepening for the Trump Administration with regard to Russia because of its campaign activity. A last ditch effort by the Administration in hiring Anthony Scaramucci as the new White House Communications Director, ousting Sean Spicer, is an attempt to stem the onslaught.

As said before in this column, it's really all about the money when it comes to Mr. Trump's connection to Russia. If you follow the money, which Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his team are doing, we'll find that the Trump Organization is heavily leveraged by Russian oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin. It seems reasonable to conclude that this may be one of the reasons Mr. Trump never released his tax returns. Now, doing business with Russian oligarchs offers a minefield of illegalities, but it isn't illegal. As president, it's a different story all together. From Attorney General Jeff Sessions lack of recollection of meetings with the Russian ambassador, about policy and the campaign no less, when asked by Congress to Jared Kushner's, senior advisor to the president, constant revisions of his disclosure forms for a security clearance - undisclosed money and contacts - to campaign manager, Paul Manafort, having to register as a foreign agent to Donald Jr. taking meetings with Russian officials to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, it all raises serious questions. And now that all of these people have been obviously less than forthcoming, the American people have more questions. They must be answered.

That the last two individuals on the above list have cut a deal with Congress not to testify in public this week, but instead in a closed-door sessions. Probably for the best because Congress needs real answers and frankly, we don't need the show of a public hearing, in which these two people decline to answer questions while Congresspeople pontificate.

That's just a microcosm of what's going on and that's enough for one to say, enough already.

Then there is the series of fall-downs on the part of the Republicans with regard to healthcare and their repeal and replace plan. First, the Senate couldn't pass the replacement bill because of grievances from moderates (going too far on cutting Medicaid) and conservatives (not fully repealing Obamacare) alike. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) floated the introduction of a straight repeal and that didn't fly either.

This you know, but here's why the Republicans got stuck.

At the beginning of the Senate process, which really wasn't a process as much as it was Mitch McConnell locking himself in a room and coming up with a healthcare bill, the Senate leader indicated that he didn't want the Administration involved in the process, a hands off approach. Why? Because Mr. McConnell knows that the president, who would usually be out on the stump shouting about the new healthcare bill, in this case doesn't know the first thing about healthcare, has no desire to learn it, and could inadvertently undercut the Senate plan by contradicting it on the stump. In other words, Mr. McConnell thinks the president is unreliable. The president, for his part, had no interest in discussing the details of healthcare and just sat back, with 'pen in hand,' which is not leadership.

In boxing out the president, though understandable, Mr. McConnell couldn't utilize that megaphone, and since the rest of the Senate wasn't involved in the process, thus not knowing what was in the bill, they couldn't champion it either. Thus, with no one to sell it to the American people and with no other information to go on with the exception of an unfavorable CBO, it had no chance.

With all that said, here are the takeaways as to why there is a glimpse of hope from these adverse circumstances (and the point of this column).

Because of the Republicans' legislative failure on healthcare, Mr. McConnell also said that the Congress should work to sure up the markets by doing some fixes on the Affordable Care Act. Everyone agrees that the ACA, aka Obamacare, that it needs fixes and the only way to make those fixes is in a bipartisan manner. Hmmm...

Interesting, there is a bill traveling rapidly through the Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support on toughening sanctions on Russia, which also includes the caveat that the sanctions can not be rolled back by the president without Congress's consent. This could present a very problematic situation for President Trump, who opposes the bill. He may veto a Russian sanctions bill that has widespread bipartisan support. Hmmm... again.

Is it possible that this rudderless, troubled and divisive administration is bringing Republicans and Democrats together on the major issues facing our country - healthcare and Russian cyber attacks?

If so, it's a win for the American people, a backward one, but a win nonetheless. We'll take it.

7.16.17: A Building Political Riptide for the Trump Administration

This is the week in which the tides have permanently turned on the Trump Administration and they're facing a head wind into rough seas the rest of the way. When trusted conservative voices en mass, exemplified on today's program, start calling out the administration, using the word 'lies,' then you know you have problems. And here is the American populace standing on the beach watching the mother of all riptides.

As always, if you're reading this column, we don't have to go into the particulars of the Donald Trump Jr. meeting with Russian 'operatives' - you know it happened and you know now that he lied about the participants in the meeting. With that said, it's inexplicable, and not Trump-like, that Donald Trump Jr. would release the email chain, even if The New York Times was going to publish the exchange. 

In today's interview, Chuck Todd asked Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) of the Senate Intelligence Committee about the difference between collusion and collaboration, to which Sen. Warner demurred and didn't want to go into nuanced definitions. 

But speaking of those conservative voices, if you want an argument for collusion, refer to Mr. Krauthammer: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bungled-collusion-is-still-collusion/2017/07/13/68c7f72a-67f3-11e7-8eb5-cbccc2e7bfbf_story.html?utm_term=.9baf0fe1e13d

For Collaboration, see McClatchy DC Bureau: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article160803619.html

In the second example, the McClatchey story notes that there is an investigation in the Trump campaign digital operation lead by the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and whether he had a hand in guiding a sophisticated Russian cyber campaign to target key congressional district with misinformation.

Danielle Pletka of the conservative American Enterprise Institute said that she doesn't know if there was collusion or cooperation, but that she does know that the Trump Administration are liars. Al Cardenas, fmr. chair of the American Conservatives Union, explained that the meeting couldn't have happened in a void, from the Russia perspective. "The don't freelance," he said. A meeting like that had a structure and an approval process, he went on.

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) really wanted no part of answering questions about Russia, though he has a seat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, except to say that he thought it was incorrect to personalize [read: point directly at the Trump Administration] the target of the Senate committee's investigation; it's about Russia. As health care votes loom in the Senate, the deflections away from the president are rhetorically subtle. On the part of the president's legal team, not so much. Jay Sekulow made it clear, as he likes to say, that he doesn't represent Donald Trump Jr. or the Trump Campaign, only the president, Donald Trump. And you have to give him credit in as much as he does his job well, at least representing him during interviews, in walling off the president from all the revelations about Russian interactions with advisors and family members.

But what keeps coming to mind is how all throughout the campaign, Mr. Trump and his surrogates touted how close his family is about everything so it makes one wonder if the president did know about this meeting. Surely, someone in the FBI or in Mr. Mueller's office is looking into whether that is the case. In a way, Mr. Sekulow's job has been made easier now that Donald Trump Jr. is embroiled in a deep mess because it diminishes public scrutiny in the potential of the president's direct involvement. In other words, Junior is taking some of the heat for  his father, and from that more familial perspective, you get why he did it.

All of this leads to the overarching theme of today's show, which was that there is a serious void in leadership of the United States, to an unacceptable level. Today's great panel stayed on this theme for our benefit. Tom Brokaw repeatedly mentioned the serious situation the U.S. with North Korea and how the administration is putting it off. He said that the Chinese leadership doesn't even know who to talk to on our side of the aisle about it.

Mr. Cardenas explained that the last five to six votes are the toughest and that the president hasn't given any speeches on healthcare in states and districts where senators are on the fence with regard to support for the legislation. He hasn't championed the legislation at all, in part because he's so preoccupied with the Russian investigation. 

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin also observed that President Trump said that he would be very upset if they (meaning the Senate) didn't pass a health care bill, but she noted that the 'they' includes the president. That it's actually a 'we,' but clearly the Mr. Trump doesn't understand that.

And it's that leadership role that's costing us all time, and the tide is rising.


Panel:  Danielle Pletka, American Enterprise Institute; Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian; Al Cardenas, fmr. chair of the American Conservatives Union; Tom Brokaw, NBC News