Country . I hope he did write those letters. I hope he does call those Family Members in the coming days. He was wrong to try to make up this just awful lie that President Obama didnt do that. But my concern is more about what it says about future decisions hell make about putting soldiers in harms way. Or point of fact, current kinetic Military Taifd by this nation in places like niger were frankly, senator, i bet if he polled a thousand americans, 999 Couldnt Have told you that the u. S. Had members of the Armed Service theres in harms way in niger. What is going on there . What is striking to me, four americans were killed there, and what do we know about why were there, what the strategy is, what the u. S. Government is doing . Well, listen, to be fair to President Trump, this Counterterrorism Strategy of pushing Special Forces out wherever al qaeda was gaining
president talked about at length today, and i want to ask you, because i have you here and youve been very koch vocal on this topic is obamacare. He seemed to talk about destroying it at one point, saying there is no obamacare, and then saying the problems are all due to obamacare. I want you to take a listen to some of his comments and respond if you dont mind. Take a listen. Republicans are meeting with democrats because of what i did with the csr. Because i cut off the gravy train. If i didnt cut the csrs that. Wouldnt be meeting. Theyd be having lunch and enjoying themselves. Theyre right now having Emergency Meetings to get a shortterm fix of health care where premiums dont have to double and triple every year like theyve been doing under obamacare. Because obamacare is finished. Its dead. Its gone. Its no longer you shouldnt even mention. Its gone there is no such thing as obamacare anymore. What does that mean, senator . I have no idea what that means. Well, first of all, the first piece of that sound bite is very clear. What he is telling you is he is intentionally trying to hurt
americans, trying to drive the cost of their coverage up or ending their coverage in order to drive republicans and democrats to the negotiating table. First of all. Thats ridiculous. Second, he is kind of right that there is no clear part of the American Health care system that is obamacare any longer, because the Affordable Care act is now wrapped inside of the American Health care system. So when he thinks that he is sabotaging the Affordable Care act, or what he thinks is obamacare, he is really sabotaging the entire American Health care system. When he pulls these Cost Sharing Reduction Payments for the Insurance Companies, its not just that those people lose insurance or have their premiums go up. Everybody elses premiums go up because the Insurance Companies spread it out to everybody else. I guess he is kind of right that he attacking the whole Health Care System and not just obamacare. Thanks for your time tonight. Thanks. I want to read you the white
house response to the back and forth, particularly after your former colleague had that to say about the president. They say the president wasnt criticizing predecessors but stating a fact. When american heroes make the ultimate sacrifice, president s pay their respects. Sometimes they call. Sometimes they send a letter. Other times they have the opportunity to meet individuals in person. Individuals claiming their bosses called each family of the fallen are mistaken. Alissa never made that claim. What do you make of that . There. You have a statement from a white house official who says something quite a bit different than what President Trump said today. And the truth is when youre the president of the United States, one of the things that you feel is a grave responsibility for the millions of americans who have signed up to serve and sacrifice for this country. And the thing that is painfully obvious about President Trumps remarks today is he doesnt seem to understand, or at least feel the weight of the responsibility that he has as our commander in
chief. If he just spent half of the time that he dedicates to trying to convince the flab he cares for our troops with actually caring for our troops, then our troops would be better off, and i think wed all feel a lot better about President Trumps capability and capacity to effectively and responsibly manage the United States military. It also just it seems to me there is a requirement to for an address on what they were doing, what the circumstances were under which they were killed. The whole the idea that the president who speaks about everything from which espn commentator should be sanctioned to who is going to run in 2020 to the dow. Talk about everything and not talk about this, its just a bizarre, bizarro mission in the first place. Chris, you alluded to it in your conversation with senator murphy. The president has time and time again deem stlatd he is not
really comfortable assuming the responsibility of making these lifeanddeath decisions that were expecting our Commander In Chief to make. He has regularly put his generals in a position where if something goes south, they will take the blame. But if something goes well, then President Trump is certainly the one that is eager to step forward and take all the credit. Thats not what we expect from a leader. I was with President Obama on a number of occasions which he paid his respects to fallen soldiers. And one example i can think of is when President Obama used to go to Arlington National cemetery on veterans day. One of the things that he would do after delivering his speech there and after laying a wreath at the tomb of the unknowned soldier, he would make an unannounced visit to section 60. This is the part of the cemetery where the remains of those essentially 9 11 generation veterans are laid to rest. And President Obama would go there in private. He would often go with the first lady. I even got criticism and complaints from white house reporters who wanted to cover
the president making that visit. And, chris, i use this example not to portray President Obama as a martyr, but actually to portray, like president george w. Bush, as somebody who felt the weight of responsibility that the Commander In Chief bears. And like i said, President Trump doesnt behave in that way at all. I thought it what was interesting was the casualness with which this president characterized the actions of his predecessors. And he has gone to when a u. S. Service member was killed in yemen in a raid very early in his tenure, i know that he was there. I know he has contacted an gone to walder reed. I was the contention he made today standing in front of the cameras as if everyone who came before him was very casual about the whole thing. Yeah. I mean, this is sort of the latest iteration of what it is
about him to try to defend something President Trump has done that often is in itself indefensible. And to fail to acknowledge the enormous sacrifice that those four brave men made in africa is indefensible. And frankly, it would have been much better for President Trump to say i regret i havent said something publicly about this, or to be forthright and say look, i dont talk about this publicly, but the fact of the mattersy wrote them a letter last weekend. I doubt that fact. But he said it will probably be going out tonight, which i thought is a little bit of a tell, if youve had experience watching the president. Josh earnest, good to have you. Thank you, chris. Lynn sweets covered multiple president s, the Washington Bureau chief of the chicago times. Michael steele of formerly of the Republican National committee. What are you saying . How did you react having been in many of those Press Conferences with many different president s
dealing with in this long period of war, the longest period of war in the nations history, people talking about this. What was your reaction to it . I was there when he was telling this, this story. First of all, he is mailing a letter tonight. He is mailing it tomorrow. But then when he couldnt resist taking a jab at President Obama, thats when i thought is there no situation, mr. President , where you cannot resist taking a jab at obama . Were talking about four soldiers killed in action. All that was asked is are you going to send some kind of condolences to these families. And as you and josh pointed out, all he had to say is i am. It isnt unreasonable to say i wanted to give them a little time, if thats what he wanted to do. But once he started doing these comparisons that he had no fact basis on, and i applaud nbcs Peter Alexander for getting in that followup question. Because it was pretty chaotic at that Press Conference. Yeah. To trumps credit, he took a
lot of questions. And he didnt have it rigged as to who would ask questions. He could just yell it out, which i did, for a question i had. But peter asked the question in a perfect way, where he trump ended up saying he kind of knew, he didnt know. Maybe someone told him. A general told him. He was disassembling. And i know you have gone through this a lot. And i know there is a lot of things where you talk about fact checks and the president. But on this one, chris, were talking about people who soldiers who were killed, and giving some comfort to the families as the president of the United States, as the Commander In Chief. And this dissembling is something that struck me as something i had never, ever seen before. And something this serious. Michael, your reaction. Its the same. Its stunning. It is inexcusable in many respects. I watch that as the president was going there. And something struck me was that he didnt he didnt want to get caught flatfooted with the answer i havent responded. Right. And thats what this was all about. Thats right. He had not responded to these families. And probably, you know, someone came in and said you really do need to do this. And never thought hed be asked about it. And when he was, he got caught flatfooted. So the default position was, well, obama, well, you know, he never did this. Im the first president really to do this. And thus it begins. And that is the m. O. Here when he gets caught, with that light on him, and he doesnt have the correct answer, which is the honest answer, i have not responded yet. He could have very easily said, you know, i wanted to give the family some time. This is bad enough pressure on them, et cetera, et cetera. But that was not the default for
him. Lynn, what did you make of that Press Conference more broadly . You just mentioned it was chaotic. And watching it at home, it seemed kind of bonkers. Just lots of yelling out. And it seemed to kind of go off the rails. He seemed also to want to stay gallup as long as he could. Mcconnell was kind of standing there squarejawed. What did you make of it . Well, again. I applaud that the president stayed there for 40 minutes. Chris, i came from chicago, city hall, a lot of yelling to get your question answered. And thats what we did, because the system wasnt rigged as to who was going to have questions asked. On that applauded. Yeah, i like the victim too. But from the looks of the public, aside from the very serious question of not talking, his answer to the question about the families of the soldiers who were killed, we got a lot of topics covered. And there is time for followup. And mcconnell weighed in. And we went through a lot of stuff there. But, yes, it was more informal and maybe kind of reminiscent of the rough and tumble of how i came up. But he stood there and took it. And when you heard all that yelling, its because we were assembled without chairs. I dont know if you had shots of how we were. You had to yell because there was no other way for him to figure out who he had a question. Waving your hands. He didnt know who a lot of the people were. So he was pointing. And in that way, it was perhaps a good way where the press had a chance just to ask whatever they wanted of the president and have enough time to take in i would think if we went through it, at least 10 to 14 topics. Michael, finely, one of the things, the juxtaposition today is the president talking about players kneeling for anthem. It sort of struck me this perfect juxtaposition of a lot of what has happened and the way this country thinks about war in the last 16 years. This abstraction of the flag and the troops. I understand at the same time there are four Service Members actually killed in a battle in a place that most americans couldnt tell you we were engaged. And that preference for the abstraction and the symbolism over the actual conversation over where the u. S. Is fighting its wars. Yeah. It is stunning the sort of dichotomy there, the two views of the same symbol, if you will. And in the fact that this administration with respect to those four servicemen, there may be very quiet operations on the ground there. We dont know what all of that is. And, okay, i guess that. But when you do have something that occurs like the death of these four soldiers, it does bring into stark relief exactly what that flag is all about. And more importantly, what our mission. And i think there is very little that people know than at this point. And that is equally disturbing for a lot of americans out
there. The administration i think is still trying to figure its way out. The president , again, goes to the default conversation which is oh, kneeling before the flag is horrendous. Tell us about fighting in niger. Elevate that up to what are we doing in niger at the moment. Tell us why were fighting in niger. Lynn sweet and michael steele, thank you for being here. Thank you, chris. Next in two hours during two events, President Trump managed to take two different sides in the raging republican civil war. The ever widening gap between the trump promises and the trump presidency, in two minutes. The classes, the friends, the independence. And since we planned for it, that student debt is the one experience, im glad shell miss when you have the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. Ameriprise
weekends. The president and Senate Majority leader pledged well, if not their undying affection, at least their acquaintanceship this afternoon. Former chief strategist steve bannon declared, quote, a season of war against the gop establishment. Just hours after the president all but took bannons side. I have great relationships with actually many senators. But in particular, with most republican senators. But were not getting the job done. And im not going to blame myself. Ill be honest. They are not getting the job done. Todays rose garden event was an attempt to reboot a legislative agenda that has been by any standard a failure. Over the weekend, peter baker wrote about the gap between donald trump and his actual policies. Apparently the president did not enjoy bakers reporting, calling him out on twitter. Quote, the failing New York Times story by peter baker
should have mentioned the rapid terminations of me of tpp and the paris accord. And peter baker joins me now. Well, peter, someone said today eli stokols said the whole day felt like a rebuttal to the peter baker column. Did you take it that way . No. I think hes got more things to think about than that. Well, youd be surprised. Maybe so. He had a reaction to the story, and thats fine. Its fair. Actually thought his tweet was perfectly reasonable and civil. I have no kind of problem with feedback if he wants to talk about it, i would talk about with it with him. The point is to look at big ticket items and how the talk is more expansive than the actual actions. Sometimes its because congress hasnt gone as far as he would like on health care, for instance. Sometimes he is talked out of going further like on the iran deal. Both of those things happened on friday. Well talked a lot about those. That is what the story was focusing on. It wasnt meant to be a review of his entire recognize. One is the legislative agenda. I want to talk about that first. Today is the goal is to come out hey, were buddies. Two hours later, im kind of with bannon in the civil war. But reality from everyone i know on the hill and the people that i talk to there and other reporters is that the white house and capitol hill are not at all in sync. No, theyre not. And this is an attempt to show it obviously. But think about what weve seen in the last couple of weeks. Two weeks ago we saw the Secretary Of State come out that he felt compelled to deny that he was going to resign. A week ago we had the white house staff come out and deny he was going to resign. Today the Senate Majority leader come out and deny that he and the president of the same party are not friends. I mean, really seeing a lot of effort here to smooth over whats been a lot of destructive internal friction here within the white house, within the administration, and within the republican caucus. The fact that theyre doing this in public does not mean that that friction has gone away there is obviously a lot of angst on the hill. A lot of republicans who dont know whether to bel