or talking to a farmer there talking about people who are in the rice business, i know some of these people who have been big trump supporters who are saying things like i am not going to vote for any republicans. they look at, for instance this thing escalating this trade war with china. this is getting into a trade war with no exit strategy. you don t go in having no idea how you are going to get back out. i have done trade mission to china on behalf of my state, been over there with rice producers. average farm is acres. which means they have to buy. if the president is getting his ego in the way like he is right now. one dynamic that is interesting, is this is probably gotten the most vocal backlash
who he s in the rice business. actually i was talking to a farmer there who was telling me about folks in the rice business there who are all very upset. he told me some of their names, i know some of these people, hov been pretty big trump supporters who are saying things like i m not going to vote for any republicans because they look at, for instance, this thing escalating this trade war with china. this is getting into a trade war with no exit strategy. whether you re talking about a trade war or a conventional war, you don t go in having no idea how you re going to get back out. i ve done a trade mission to china on behalf of my state. i went over there with rice producers. the average farm over there is about an acre, which means they have to buy from the rest of the world. they re not going to buy from us and the folks growing it here in missouri and across the south and midwest if the president is getting his ego in the way, like he is right now. one dynamic i think that s fa
levels down by millions of gallons. rescue efforts could be further compounded by heavy monsoons in the forecast for sunday. bill neely, nbc chief global correspondent is in chiang rai, thailand for more on the desperate situation. bill, i know you re at the entrance to this cave in the middle of the night there. what is the hope of finding an exit strategy? reporter: well, it s a very timely question, andrea, because literally in the last few minutes the commander of the rescue operation, who is also the governor of the province, has just given an impromptu news conference. he s saying the waters are receding a great deal. that s due to the massive pumping operation that s been going on here for days now. he says there are three chambers next to where the boys are that are now completely dry. there is in effect only one geological obstacle to getting
cabinet secretary after cabinet secretary. other aides and advisers dismissing them. scott pruitt has had a repeated opportunity to stay on board, despite all these investigations. but we are learning interesting information that it was scott pruitt himself who, in the spring, tried to go to the president to offer an exit strategy to be the acting attorney general to replace jeff sessions temporarily. the president didn t take him up on that but we re also learning a senior administration official says they believe this is at a tipping point with the president. he knows that all of these investigations are swirling around. jim, the one reason the question we ve all had is, how has scott pruitt survived this long? the answer comes because oil and gas donors and other major contributors and friends of this administration have been happy with the policies of the epa. they ve urged the president to not fire him up until this point. but we do get a sense that the president likely losing h
board in the offices of the epa moving the pieces around. right. sounds like the house of cards epa edition or something. right. someone who watched one too many episodes of house of cards, jim and appears to have been looking for an exit strategy, someone who was in potentially self preservation mode, maybe foreseeing the scandals to envelope his tenure at the epa or the next wrung on the ladder. it is possible that the two things aren t mutually exclusive in the case of scott pruitt who s been completely blind to the scandals that he s created as do you think scott pruitt to help out the president here? this is al truistic on his part trying to help out the president? do you think that scott pruitt could come in and fire bob mu mueller, for example? just as difficult i would think for him as it would be for jeff