The words and his action tend to speak like one who knows something about being a racist. It must be in liz dna, in his makeup, but its frightening to have someone in the office of the president in 2018 speaking the way that hes speaking. The political fallout, tougher sledding for an important immigration deal and deepening republican worries that the president is leading his party into a Midterm Election disaster. First thing that came to my mind was, very unfortunate, unhelpful. Plus, among several shifts and flips this past week, this. Why is the president suddenly suggesting he might not be willing to answer questions in the russia meddling investigation . Well see what happens. I mean, certainly, ill see what happens. But, when they have no collusion and nobody has found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that youd even have an interview. With us this sunday to share their reporting and their insights, julie pace of the associated press, Michael Bender of the wall street journal, cnns manu raju, and margaret a talif of bloomberg news. Dont hold your breath waiting for donald trump to apologize. He tells friends that the media made too much of the fact of his words. Well try not to repeat his term here this morning. Several of his weekend tweets were efforts to change the subject. But one, just two words, America First reminds us, this president s first reflex is to curry favor with his antiimmigration, nationalist base. His image of America First, we learned much more clearly in recent days, is an america that welcomes white immigrants from norway, but not black immigrants or brown immigrants from places the president clearly think produce subpar humans. In the course of his comments, said things which were hate filled, vile, and racist. He said, haitians, do we need more haitians. And then he went on, when we started to describe the immigration from africa that was being protected in this bipartisan measure, thats when he used these vile and vulgar comments, calling the nations they come from shitholes, the exact word used by the president , not more, not just once, but repeatedly. Now, there are significant firstyear achievements the president could be celebrating this week. And there are significant governing challenges here and now, including the fact the government runs out of money friday, without a new spending plan. Instead, another mess of the president s own making. Heres time magazines take. The president and a presidency on fire. Perfect, as well, is the new yorkers take, at the very moment his partys grip on power depends on mr. Trump improving his image, the president is d digging the hole deeper. We talk often about how this is a transactional presidency. That the president can move his position on issues, move which fight he chooses to pick from day to day welco day to day, if not hour to hour. What is the price for this . You see the global condemnation. Does he get it . I dont know if he gets the scope of it. His instinct tends to be to dig in, even when he sees everyone around him running away. But i think that there are a couple of potential casualties for him here. One, he puts his party once again in the position of having to defend, make a choice, to defend or to walk away from pretty indefensible comments. And it puts them in a position of not being able to do things like talk about the tax reform bill, which is what they leaned on, all through last year. Every time one of these moments would come up, you would have paul ryan, Mitch Mcconnell say, but at least the president will sign our agenda. Well, now hes done that and theyre still having to answer for him. I think that it also has ripped open a real debate in 2018 about whether the president of the United States is a racist. That is a real and frankly legitimate question to be asking. And again, its quite jarring to be having that conversation in 2018. And weve seen this time and time again. His instinct is to disparage nonwhites. His instinct is to disparage immigrants. And the white house is not what can they say . What have they said . Nothing. The initial reaction from the white house is that this would help with the base. Thats additionally reps r l reprehensible. Right. And i think what you were saying before and what julie is saying is that it may help with the base. Its certainly not going to expand it. And in an election year, in a m Midterm Election year, this is really important. And there are republican consultants that are trying to get this message to trump, to the white house. Independents increasingly look like republicans this year. The base is with trump. The base will be with trump, whatever wall he decides on. Whatever President Trump tells his base is the wall, that will be the wall. And if and republicans are trying to tell him, if you would just moderate this language a little bit, if you would stop turning off these independents just a little bit, we might actually have a fighting chance in these midterms. But with this kind of behavior, with this sort of language, it digs the party deeper in a year that they need some real help from the president. And the president gets mad, he thinks he deserves more credit for the economy. Hes hoping to sell the forget the president , but the republicans are desperate to sell their tax cut plan. But if you look at the statistics, the numbers about the president are all going in the wrong detectiirection. 69 of americans say hes not levelheaded. Thats up 12 points since november 2016. 63 , not august. Up 11 points. 59 , doesnt have good leadership skills. 59 , doesnt care about average americans, up 14 points in the past year. So the president s heading in the wrong direction. Thats before these comments, which, im sorry, there is no other way to process this, as the debate about whether the president of the United States, whos supposed to be setting an example, is racist or a race baiter or just has a horrible dark reflex. This is a real low point for the country and a real low point for the presidency. There also are, as i see it, two political implications. One is domestically, its certain to motivate democratic turnout and to depress republican turnout in a really crucial midterm year, but there are also Foreign Policy implications, because theyre on the scale of haiti to norway, there are a whole lot of countries closer to the haiti scale in terms of economic wellbeing or that sort of thing. That the u. S. Is relying on right now to make a number of deals and arrangements work. Whether it involves information on terrorism sharing, whether it involves pathways, literally, across, you know, National Lines on terrorism policy, and Foreign Policy. And all of this stuff comes into play, the sort of geopolitical implications of this much less just the relationship with the allies. I mean, the trip to dpland and the uk has been canceled. The relationship with western european allies is further complicated by this. And there are a lot of countries in africa and in the middle east that are furious and humiliated and so angry at what he said. And are perhaps willing to even give up some u. S. Aid and turn other countries. Tyou get so busy, you dont pause and say, wait a minute. And one of the other things, you heard the speaker ryan at the top of the program. He said unhelpful, very unfortunate. A lot of people think when the president of the United States says things like this, the reaction from the other leaders in the Republican Party should be more forceful. Among those, lets give credit where the rare occasion where credit is due. Senator roy blunt of the state of missouri, listen here. He was asked about what the president said and he calls it straight. Its not acceptable view of the world. And its not an acceptable thing to say. One of the big problems, i think, in the country today, generally, is there are, theres almost no filter on anybody and you would expect the president to lead in determining how you filter your thoughts, rather than to continue to say things that take a lot of away from whats actually getting done. Very rare statement there. That could have even been stronger. But at least he calls it as it is, that its unacceptable, its a bad world view, and it hurts. Yeah, and look who we have also not heard from, Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell yet. And paul ryan did speak out, but it was a day afterwards, when he was asked. He did not issue a paper statement, criticizing the president. This came, remember, the story broke as lawmakers were leaving town. So republicans in a lot of ways wanted to avoid answering questions about this. Really, to me, it just one, its example 5 million of trump saying something and putting his party in an awful, awful political position. But it also is emblematic of how the party just does not know how to grapple with a president who like this says things that are just mind boggling and but they have supporters back home who are fervent trump supporters. They dont want to anger their base. They dont want to anger the presiden president , who they do need to cut deals on big issues and get his support on things. They dont want to be on the other side of a twitter storm. They dont want the president to remember them if he goes after them in this situation. I get that when it comes to a comment that they think is too much, a policy issue where hes moving toe ining to the left, oe other issues. This is a defining test question of character. And the question is going to be and when we come back this week, the members are going to have to answer the questions. I think its important to note here, this isnt just a tweet. This isnt just something that the president said at a rally. Hes talking about this in terms of shaping u. S. Immigration policy. I think republicans have to be held accountable for answering for this. Do they believe that the United States should take more people from countries like norway as opposed to countries in africa . If this is a policy challenge that he laid out there in a pretty vulgar way. You can have a conversation about meritbased immigration. That you have, you know, these are the jobs we need filled. These are the challenges of our economy. These are the needs of our economy. And the people with those talents, whatever they look like, whatever the color of their skin, wherever they come from, get to the head of the line. The second you mention a country to label it and i grew up in a city that was having race issues at the time. When you use certain words, you know we knew what people were saying. Hes not saying we dont want them because they dont have the skills, hes saying, we dont want them because of what they look like and thats a different conversation. Yeah, it definitely is. And there are this is, this is where the rubber hits the road here. There is one thing about trump talking different and instilled himself politically as someone whos not going to be constrained by political correctness. But when the rubber hits the road here, when its time to make policy decisions, is this sort of viewpoint going to dominate, you know, the republican position on one of the major issues theyre facing right now . Growing up, president s are supposed to set example. Midterms elections are historically driven by one thing, the president s poll standing. Its no wonder so many republicans are calling it quits. The morning walk was so peaceful. Until. It. Wasnt. Dont let type 2 diabetes get between you and your heart. Even if you reach your a1c goal you are still at risk for heart attack or stroke. Talk to your Health Care Provider today about diabetic heart disease. And find out more at heartoftype2. Com. Your heart and type 2 diabetes. Make the connection. Nahelps protect eyes fromue damaging blue light, filtering it out to help you continue enjoying your screens. Or. You could just put your phones down and talk to each other. [laughing] natures bounty lutein blue. Because youre better off healthy. We all want restful sleep. Thats why natures bounty melatonin is made to help you fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. So youll be ready for whatever tomorrow brings. 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And now, when you order any two new or classic entrees, you get a free tasting plate. So get your coupon at redlobster. Com and join us today back to politics in a moment. First, a quick update on the disturbing events yesterday in hawaii. Officials confirm human error. Somebody hitting the wrong button is to blame for sending the incoming Ballistic Missile alert that caused understandably quite a panic on saturday. Cnns sara sidner is in hawaii. Panic not too strong of a word for how people reacted. Reporter john, that Emergency Alert did create panic here in hawaii for those who received it. It said there was an inbound missile coming to hawaii, to seek shelter, and that this was not a drill. That last bit really sent some people over the edge. People were calling their family members, telling them this may be their last conversation. We also spoke to a state representative, who said, he gathered his family in the bathroom, put his children in the bathtub, and hovered over them and they prayed during that time. He was in tears, talking about the fact that his daughter looked at him and said, dad, are we at war . And he turned back to her and said, yes, yes, we are. But then, 38 minutes later 38 minutes later there was another message from Emergency Management officials saying, this was a false alarm. That has a lot of people frustrated here. They do not understand why it took so long for the message to get back out to the public and there is an inquiry, an investigation happening right now to try to figure out how to deal with this very important issue. One of the reasons why emotions are heightened here is, of course, because of the rhetoric that people have been listening to here and around the world between President Trump and kim jongun of north korea. Hawaii, particularly, very, very disturbed by all of it. Because they know that there is only 20 minutes between the time of a launch from north korea to the time of an impact here in hawaii. The public would have about 15 minutes to figure out how to take shelter and that information, by the way, has been released to the public quite a bit lately, because hawaii was the very first state in december to test its attack warning sirens. Trying to get information out to the public that this is what you are supposed to do if you hear this siren. What is interesting now, though, is that the sirens didnt go off. This was an accident where Emergency Managers said, look, somebody accidentally pressed the wrong button as there was a shift change. That button sent out messages through television. It sent out messages through radio and through text, but it did not sound the sirens. They said they are looking into how this all happened and theyre trying to make sure that this never happens again. Sara sidner in hawaii. Well keep an eye on that story as hawaiian officials try to explain just what happened and what theyre going to do about it. Even before the president s vulgar rant, the gop retirement list got some new additions as more and more republicans look to november and see a midterm tsunami is almost inevitable. The first target for democrats in trying to retake the house, 23 republican members of congress who represent districts that Hillary Clinton carried in the 2016 president ial election. Four of them, now, have announced theyre either retiring or running for something else. Keep an eye on the rest of them as primary deadlines come up and filing deadlines come up. This is target a for the democrats. Overall, 3 republicans already have said were retiring, running for something else, but we do not want to run for reelection in the house in this environment. Thats a big number. Again, were in january. Watch february, watch march as filing deadlines come up, how much higher does that number go . Democrats need 24. 24 pickup, net, to get control of the house back from republicans. This, for all the numbers youre going to hear, keep an eye on this one. In Midterm Elections, the first Midterm Election of a new presidency, the president s approval number almost always determines what happens in november. 37 of americans, thats it, approve of how the president is doing his job right now. A little historical comparison. It was 46 for president obama heading into his first Midterm Election. 46 . They lost 63 house seats and control of the house there. This is what republicans worry about. The president is well below this number. They remember that number. Thats how they came to power in washington. So the House Speaker, paul ryan, already with enough challenges, and then the president this week, added another. First thing that came to my mind was very unfortunate, unheal unhealthful. I see this as a thing to celebrate. And i think its a big part of our strength. Whether youre coming from haiti. Weve got great friends from africa in janesville, who are doctors, who are just incredible citizens. And i just think its important that we celebrate that. And the Political Consultants call that a pivot. Say something, so that youre on the record being critical of the president , and then try t