Oh my gosh. This is amazing. Were so much closer to home ownership. Welcome to kasie d. C. Im kasie hunt. Were live 7 00 to 9 00 p. M. Eastern every sunday from washington. Tonight, the president campaigns in pennsylvania, but there is new reporting out hes already getting cold feet about the republican candidate. Well take you inside the remarkable race with former governor ed randall and boyle and costello. And Anthony Scaramucci joins us as more and more Trump Campaign insiders like hope hicks find themselves outside the white house. And just out tonight, brandnew reporting on the
future of ivanka trump and Jared Kushner in the white house. But first, the president begins the week with major wins for his agenda, signing his tariff plan and announcing a meeting with kim jongun. A potential breakthrough, but also a huge gamble. But in the background the advancing mueller investigation. The public melt down of a former staffer on live television, the exit of gary cohn, and reports trumps lawyer paid alleged hush money to an adult film actress. Sometimes you want to get away from it all. Sometimes you want to go where Everybody Knows your name. You like me . I think so. I like you, too. I love you. Pennsylvania is the state that gave us the 45th president of the United States. Normally i would not come except its pennsylvania. I love it anyway. I love the people. I went to school i went to
wharton. Shes writing like im some kind much neanderthal. Im really smart. I dont know if im a good speaker, but you know what, every time i have a 25,000 seat stadium, we fill it up. Maybe its pure ideas. Ill say to friends, did you see my speech last night . Yes. I have to say, how good was i . How good . And they say, good. I said, did they show the crowd . No, they didnt. He said, but you know what . I could tell by the noise that crowd was really big. You cant hide that. It sounds like a Penn State Football game. It sounds like an Ohio State Football game. I hate to put this pressure on you, rick. Theyre all watching. Because i won this district like by 22 points. Thats a lot. Thats why im here. Look at all those red hats, rick. Look, look at all those hats. The president also found time to talk about nafta, tariffs, tax cuts, and of course the border wall. And we barely scratched the surface. Joining me on set, former rnc chairman nbc political analyst Michael Steel. White house reporter for the Washington Post and msnbc contributor Ashley Parker. And house editor for the Cook Political Report dave wasser man. Joining us from my favorite, the city of brotherly love, former pennsylvania governor ed randall. Thank you for being here tonight to talk about what is going to be i think the dominant story through the week because dave wasserman, a lot on the line for the president here in pennsylvania. Talk to us about the dynamics of this race. I mean, republicans that ive been talking to, theyre blaming the candidate. Theyre saying rick succone didnt raise any money. He shouldnt have gotten this nomination in the first place. He has failed us. So, if we lose thats the on the reason why. This is a 20point trump district. Youre absolutely right. Republicans have been playing the expectations game for a couple weeks trying to lower expectations and trump himself finally is getting into the act. But look, for a democrat to actually win a district that
voted for trump by 19. 6 points, two things need to happen. Number one, they need a favorable environment where trump is unpopular nationally and i think that isnt getting them halfway there. The other half is the difference in candidate quality. And lamb has been relentless on message. He is an outsider at a time when his republican opponent is an eight year veteran of the State Legislature and has taken right to work vote. There are 86,000 union house districts. This district has the type of dna for democrats to be able to count on some ancestral strength to make it close and perhaps win. Ed, i want to ask you on the point dave is making. What is your sense of where this district is . The Union Households that are there, did they just vote for trump because hes trump, or are they going to be Republican Voters, do you think, for decades, and do you think ultimately republicans may be able to pull this out . Whats your sense . Well, a lot of questions, kasie. Im sorry. First of all, President Trump is not unpopular in the district. He is in the very reliable monday mouth poll. He has a 51 favorable rate. So, now, with democrats hes unpopular enough that hes going to still turnout. Theres no question about that. And the only way the democrats are going to win is if our turnout really exceeds republican turnout by a lot. And thats possible because connor lamb has been a great candidate and rick succone, although he won a primary, defeated two other republicans, succone has not been a great candidate. Connor lamb has won all the debates. Hes done a great job in not allowing this race to be nationalized like in georgia. Hes pro life. Hes pro gun although hes for background checks. And hes a conservative democrat. He said to nancy pelosi he would not vote for nancy pelosi for leader. He took that issue off the
board. And the 10 million of negative ads that republican i. E. S have been spending to try to Trash Connor Lamb are backfiring. There is a very popular former prosecutor by the name of dave hickton who did the response to some of the ads and its cushioned them. I wouldnt be surprised if connor lamb won, but if he loses by 2 or 3 points, thats a 17point pickup for the democrats. Its a bad sign for the republicans. Of course, the whole point of the president s nearly 90minute performance was to promote rick succone. So, between jabs at the media, mr. Trump managed to find time to offer his endorsement of succone, including of course some Light Taunting of his opponent, the attractive democrat connor lamb. We need our congressman succone. We have to have him. [ cheers and applause ] we have to have him. The people of pittsburgh cannot be conned by this guy lamb. Lamb the sham, right . Lamb the sham. I hear hes nice looking. I think im better looking than him. I do. I do. Personally, i like rick succone. I think hes handsome. [ cheers and applause ] do me a favor. Get out on tuesday. Vote for rick succone and we can leave right now. So, thats what hes saying in public. But privately the president reportedly has not been so generous. According to new reporting just in from Jonathan Swan at axios, trump is trashing succone behind the scenes. Why . Trump thinks saccone is a terrible, weak candidate according to sources who have spoken with the president. The president nearly piling on after politico reported earlier this week that leaders in the Republican Party had also turned on saccone. Theyve been telling me that as well this week. Nbcs Vaughn Hillyard is with us from carnegie, pennsylvania. How bad is it on the ground for
saccone . What do you know that might not be obvious to those of us here . Reporter kasie, i want to start with connor lamb. He had about 300 mainly union workers, coal miners, a ruckus rally down the road. Was also with connor lamb here in carnegie. They had canvassers. The campaign hadnt talked to but they were coming in off the streets, going out canvassing, phone banking. It was an operation much like we saw with doug jones in alabama in those closing days. Compare that to the Get Out The Vote effort for rick saccone. Outside of the rally he has been nowhere to be seen this weekend. Nowhere yesterday, we dont know where rick saccone is today. We dont know where hell be tomorrow. He had the Get Out The Vote rally. About 15 individuals showed up for that event. I want to put this in perspective. Connor lambs campaign has spent more than four times what rick saccone has on television. Paul ryans super pac has put comparatively more than 2 million on tv here. They had 80 door knockers, paid
door knockers they had out here essentially trying to make up for what rick doesnt have. He doesnt have a Campaign Operation in place. I talked with the head of that super pac, the Congressional Leadership Fund earlier today. She told Me Essential Sri what they should take away from this is the Republican Party in these congressional races, they need better candidates and better campaigns. Kasie . Nbcs Vaughn Hillyard. Thank you for that rather dire assessment of the status of the rick saccone campaign. I will see you starting tomorrow. Thank you very much. Michael steel, 15 people. That was a party. Whats going on . There are a number of things at play here. Its just kind of amusing to listen to it all sort of play out. The president doesnt give a rats patooey about this race and doesnt care about the candidate. Its all about him. When he sits there comparing himself to the democrat as opposed to the republican nominee for the seat, that should tell you everything you
need to know. The second thing is lamb is a republican light and he will play in this district and he will play well in this district. He gives republicans someone to go to who may have their fill of donald trump which is why the numbers look the way they look from two years ago. And that truth for the Republican Party across the country right now that they need to come to grips with. You can look back and say gee we won this district by 40 points last time. This is not the last time. This is a difficult rint space now and republicans have to take ownership for that. They can blame the candidate, they can blame the campaign, they can blame the fundraising, blame everything you want, but the one person you need to start with is the president of the United States because thats the biggest drag on every republican running in every district in this country this year. He does claim hes 50. Questionable there. Ashley parker, my sources have been telling me the president wanted to go and do this partly because he believes hell be blamed no matter what. Hell be blamed, you know, if he loses, its somehow its going
to be the president s falts fault if he goes or doesnt go. Obviously he made the decision he wanted to hold a rally. What do you know about how the white house is approaching this race . Well, one thing his sort of rally we saw last night, it does give you a sense from what ive heard from people inside the white house of what we should expect in the midterms. Its going to be the president going to these districts. And again, not every candidate will want to have him. To be clear, there is a real risk to having him, which is the risk in some ways we saw last night. The candidate hes actually campaigning for is utterly incidental to the trump show. And you run the risk that the president sort of trashes you privately so then the whole story is even the president doesnt like this guy. Or as we saw in alabama, i believe even when he endorsed luther strange, maybe im making a mistake. There is a real downside. If there is a district where the candidate agrees the president should go, hes going to go there and treat it like its 2016 all over again. So, its going to be the frenzy, the energy which is maybe
positive, but its also going to be all of these statements once the president leaves the drilkt, the candidate may not want to answer for. Do you agree the president thought that the olympics wouldnt have been fun if south korea had been nuked . Thats not something a candidate wants to have to respond to. Right. Well, they should get used to answering these questions if they want to win. Dave wasserman, how much do you buy this idea this is candidate based or should republicans view this as a reason to panic . Kracrazy thing republicans trashing the race. That is going to be the opposite of most races this fall. But in this case, democrats to their credit have largely stayed out. Dccc has not spent in recent weeks helping connor lamb. They have run they have let him run his own campaign. I think they have taken a page from doug jones in alabama who also won in a very red state. And so republicans, on the other hand, are counting on, i think, perhaps the lastminute surge of
enthusiasm, tariffs rolled out in the final week of the race, a jolt from trump to kind of light a fire under Republican Voters to turnout because thats been their biggest problem in these offyear elections. Yeah. Ed rendell, last word to you on the tariff question. Is it your sense the president brought this issue up specifically around the politics of it as it plays in pennsylvania 18 . And do you think this is a positive for the president , is this a policy that is going to earn republican votes . Well, he brought it up to help mr. Saccone. Hes not doing it because connor lamb came out and endorsed the tariffs as well. Connor lamb is endorsed by the local Steel Workers. That is not a strategy likely to help very much. The Steel Workers are solidsly behind connor lamb. As far as the president coming into districts, kasie, id like to invite him into congressman costellos district to campaign. Congressman costellos district that is looking to change dramatically for the worst for mr. Costello. Thank you both so much for your time tonight. We have much more to come. Inside a battle that left dozens of russian mercenerys dead. We are going to dig into this under story. Plus in our 8 00 hour ill talk with olympian adam rippon. First former White House Communications director Anthony Scaramucci joins me live. Just three minutes to pop your popcorn. Were back after this. Friends, colleagues, gathered here are the worlds finest insurance experts. Rodney mastermind of discounts like safe driver, paperless. The list goes on. How about a discount for long lists . Gold. Mara, you save our customers hundreds for switching almost effortlessly. Its a gift. And jamie. Present. Together we are unstoppable. So, what are we gonna do . Insurance. Thats kind of what we do here. Imagine if the things you bought every day. Earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. With the United Mileageplus explorer card, youll get a free checked bag. Two united club passes. Priority boarding. And earn Fifty Thousand bonus miles after you spend Three Thousand dollars on purchases in the first three months from account opening plus, zerodollar intro annual fee for the first year, then ninetyfive dollars. Learn more at theexplorercard. Com
ladies and gentlemen, thank you for being here tonight. Rick saccone will be a great, great congressman. He will help me very much. Hes a fine man and has a wonderful wife. I just want to tell you on behalf of the United States of america that we appreciate your service. Ask to all of tnd to all of out there, we respect you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And then you go, God Bless You and god bless the United States of america. Thank you very much. That was the president Last Night On The Campaign Trail giving an alternative possibility of what looking president ial could look like. Joining me now is former White House Communications director Anthony Scaramucci. Mr. Scaramucci, thank you for
coming on tonight. I really appreciate it. Its great to be here, kasie. Thank you. I want to start by asking you, you said earlier this morning that you believe that this president is president ial. What was president ial about that . He seems to be mocking the office of the presidency. Okay. So, i still dont understand why everybody has such a hard time with the president s sense of humor. I mean, that instance hes displaying a sense of humor. When hes saying things like his button is bigger than the other guys button, if you really know him, its displaying a sense of humor. I think hes also making another point, he made this point on the Campaign Many times through transition, even the short time hes in the white house, that if he acted president ial in the way that he was mocking as you saw last night, he would have lost the campaign. And so he really believes that he has to talk in a little bit of a jarring way to the American People to wake people up and activate them to vote and get
out there and be energized. So people can dislike that, but thats how he is. When you are the president of the United States and you have that Nuclear Button available to you, does joking about it doesnt that actually put millions of people at risk . No. I actually dont think so. I mean, hes a very temperate guy when it comes to making decisions, particularly about the military. Ive been in situations with him where there have been several situations where his Military Advisors have had no idea what he was going to do before he did it, including this meeting that hes taking with kim jongun. How does that demonstrate hes measured . Kasie, thats totally a diplomatic response to a hostile situation and an intractable problem weve had for a quarter century plus. You can take it back to the 53 armistice. Thats a totally different thing than, quoteunquote, Nuclear Buttons. The president , again, you guys may not like this about him, but he is a very temperate guy