Page 619 - Commentators News Today

>> joining me now to talk about this fascinating development, cnn political commentators peter beinart and ben ferguson. thanks, guys for being with me on this. i want to first get your reaction. here you have kevin mccarthy. he had enough votes to get this job. and then he says no, i dont want it. what is your reaction? lets start with you, peter. >> its really remarkable. i mean, the old political commentator will rogers said i dont belong to an organized political party, im a democrat. which ...

Over and say, no big deal, are the ones that go along with the business. ive watched them all afternoon try to cover this thing up. the people on the hard right, their way of dealing with this is saying were going to win. we want 247. look at the math. if you want all 247 republicans to vote for the next speaker, you have to have the hard right agree to thenext speaker, then youll have the veto right. thats what theyre saying. they want the new speaker, if hes going to get the job, to agree up f...

>> if question is whether outrageous has run its course. and people are starting to tire of antics and they want to hear -- they want him to focus on policy. >> theres no question. he has been. but hes also been doing other stuff. >> why has it been the last four days hes been on fox, hes been on cnn. >> how have the ratsings been? >> the ratings have been fine. >> thats not true. there isnt the same spike as their used to be. >> okay. well, you cant be up at that strike that fearic level foreve...

>> reporter: so there you see senator rubio not eager to answer that question. and i should remind our viewers here ana that in the past rubio has talked about the importance of doing the job as senator and saying hes got to still do a job in his current role in order to continue to represent the people of florida well. there seems to be a change in tune there and he is not so far answering questions about that. hes probably going to have to answer it and acknowledge at some point soon. >> inter...

Chemical weapons. there was very little support in congress, especially among republicans, for military action. >> very little support. the white house knew that and they knew they werent going to win on that. >> so they negotiated a solution with assad. >> what he was looking to do at the time was a specific thing, go after the chemical weapons, not, you know, try to change -- solve the civil war in syria through air strikes. now what youve seen is the dynamics have significantly shifted. you h...

Congress among republicans. >> little support and the white house knew that and they knew they would not win on that. >> but what he was looking to do was specific, go after the assad regimes chemical weapons not try to change the civil war through airstrikes but the dynamics have shifted. we have islamic state taking over vast parts of syria, and russia now is moving in, there is failure of different aspects of the administrations strategy happening now around the same time. the resolution cove...

Chemical weapons. there was very little support in congress, especially among republicans, for military action. >> very little support. the white house knew that and they knew they werent going to win on that. >> so they negotiated a solution with assad. >> what he was looking to do at the time was a specific thing, go after the chemical weapons, not, you know, try to change -- solve the civil war in syria through air strikes. now what youve seen is the dynamics have significantly shifted. you h...

Has been driven out of the race by my statements about him -- he will announce soon. 1%. rand called donald trump a clown yesterday. do you think this is why hes so focused now on rand paul, because of that comment? >> i think i saw something the other night that one of the comme commentators on another network that said name one instance where mr. trump threw the first punch and that person could not find a single instance when that took place. and i think that what we really see in a race wher...

Behind him instead of the demagoguic rhetoric. few people are speaking about what they will do, like immigration, education, the two things that the governor is particularly expert in. >> one of the things that happens occasionally with jeb bush, you do hear concern about this, when he does talk, he does run into problems with some of the things he said. recently he was talking about african-americans. he was talking about what he would provide to them if hes president compared to what democrats...

Sanctions that the united states and our partners impose on russia. its not a desire to return to a cold war. now, within russia state-controlled media may describe these events as an example of a resurgent russia. a view shared, by the way, by a number of u.s. politicians and commentators who have always been deeply skeptical of russia and seem to be convinced a new cold war is, in fact, upon us. and, you know, look at the results. the ukrainian people are more interested in ever than aligning ...