outspoken publicly about this as well. ip get president trump speaks for a long time. extemporaneously but if this is a national security issue, this is something, as you say, the people want to hear what president trump s thinking is. and i m a free trader and not here for his trade wars orrize lationism but i m here for punishing bad actors and zte two strikes in is a bad actor who could be dangerous to us on the a national security level. it is something you should put to the president when you are in the room with him because these things are so haste illy thrown together and i don t think is thought involved that pushing him on what the thought process is, why are we doing it, is it to help de-escalate the trade war with china? and are you giving them a chip to do that and keep north korea at the table? i would like to know these things and not that many people get a chance to ask the president. and the senators did talk
45 minutes and you don t know how much you have at the end. if i had a choice, i would choose the zte question because i don t think you re getting new news out of donald trump about the comments that sadler made and it is a bit hitting your head against a wall. but on zte, you could find out a bit about his thinking on this. which is what has been opaque to us thus far aside from the tweet and rapidly ordering everyone to get in line on this. you could find out some new things there. so ask the question. because it is important. it is important. simone, take a listen to this republican senator explaining why these issues did not come up at this meeting. senator, are you disappointed that the topic of the comments that a white house official made about senator john mccain did not come up? look, this wasn t that kind the meeting. it wasn t that kind of meeting said senator kennedy from louisiana. i m trying to figure out what kind it was, if you are meeting with the president
now jake, i m told from people in the room the president rifted for 45 minutes making a couple of jokes and one senate said it is as buoyant as he d ever seen the president, talking about the mid-term elections and about getting the places like west virginia and indiana and making a joke that his wife poll numbers are hopeful she doesn t run against him but the republican senators have been repeatingly telling us they had problem but the confrontation behind closed doors simply wasn t in the cards, jake. thank you so much. phil mattingly on capitol hill. the panel joins me now. republicans have been talking quite a bit about their concern about letting zte into the united states, and cyber espionage concerns about the chinese and the fact that a white house aide made fun of their colleague dyeing. are you surprised they said this in front of cameras and behind closed doors wouldn t bring it up. i m surprised. you give the president space of
problematic statements over the last couple of days, there needs to be some clarity coming from the white house. and if the republicans senator on capitol hill ain t going to get the clarity, who will? this particularly precisely is the reason why republicans on capitol hill are in trouble when it comes to the mid-term elections. they have failed time and time again to hold donald trump and the white house accountable and now folks are like we should give democrats a try because clearly you are not doing their jobs. listen to one of the top picks for a national security job testify b testify before about zte and they were told to stop selling zte phones they are concerned and here it is today. would you ever use a zte phone. i would not, senator. would you recommend anyone in any sort of position that is sensitive, whether in commerce or in government or in contracting use a zte phone? no, i would not. and senator rubio has been
cancer. here is susan collins before meeting with president trump. the best way to put this to rest and it should have happened immediately would have been for the white house to issue a public apology to the entire mccain family. from trump to the from the president himself. i think it would be helpful if the president made clear those kind of comments are not acceptable. rather than criticizing the leaker the president s meeting with republican senators ended just a few minutes ago and we re told by senators that neither chinese telecom zte or the twisted remarks about john mccain were discussed at the meeting or even raised. i want to go to cnn phil mattingly on capitol hill. and phil, the senators doesn t discuss either of these, one of the denigrations of one of their colleagues dying. resigned to reality. that is the rational one senator gave me before the meeting on