Pleasing no one, and combat veteran wes moore. Good morning, everyone. Lets dive into it. After almost 50 hours in the making, president obama denounced racist groups by name. The department of justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the deadly car attack that killed one innocent american and wounded 20 others. To anyone who acted criminally in this weekends racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered. Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the kkk, neonazis, White Supremacists and other hate groups who are repugnant to everything we hold dear as americans. The a. P. Reported several of trumps senior advisers, including new chief of staff john kelly, have urged him to make and determination. Much of the criticism came from the party, particularly senator tim scott. After signing a memorandum on trade policy later in the afternoon, the president was asked about that time lag. Mr. President , can you explain why you didnt mention those hate groups by name . Theyve been condemned. Reporter and why did you y ssa canny can i ask you some more questions . I dont mind but i dont like fake news and youre fake news. Reporter havent you given fake news yourself . So hallie, lets start with the president s lag time, which seems to be you need to go out and speak more strongly not because its necessarily the right thing to do but because it wont go away. The feeling among some people inside the white house is the president should have been more specific in his condemnation over the weekend, but what you heard from the president is the media is really making a big deal about this, arent they. And i think his tweet after was telling, going after the media for apparently not being satisfied, he believes, with his statement, which is accurate to report that it came two days after his original one. I think there was dissatisfaction as you reported and the a. P. Reported with how the original statement unfolded. This was the cleanup job. People said better now than never and people said too little too late. We were talking about what it would mean two, three days later to come out and finally say what should have been said on saturday afternoon. Its important he said it and put it out there but his impulse, his initial instinct was not to say that. He only said it was after two days of criticism. His initial impulse was it wasnt a story. Is the bar so low that were now celebrating and giving a standing ovation to a president who condemns nazism . Lets remember what were talking about. Were talking about fascists and people who drove moles and states away with nazi helmets. So the fact that hes now come out and said this is a bad thing, its fine but at the same time, i feel like the bar should be significantly higher when were talking about the president of the United States and this is not something that people should necessarily be applauding. I thought we moved past this a long time ago. This isnt 1917, 2017. Youve been writing about what the president should have done and didnt do. We know he got advice on saturday, perhaps not to alienate some of those White Nationalist groups that make up the core of his support but then general john kelly emerging, perhaps two days late, to say youve got to do something about this. It feels like were an eternity away from these stories. He was going to rain on this white house and put the tweets in order and we have the altright prominently featured on the president s twitter account. We know hes getting advice from people like steve bannon who says you have this nucleus of support on the fringe, you cant afford to alienate them. The president s instincts seem to be to listen to people like steve bannon and so you cant afford to alienate or delegitimatize them. Theyre emboldened by the president s reticence to attack them and were probably going to see more people come out as altright and, by the way, were going to see the countermovement emboldened. Were a more fragile country today than we were yesterday. The pace of the media and the culture today has been accelerated every single day. This might be a moment to pump the brakes to stop and pause and think about what just happened to the presidency. The president of the United States creed ceded his moral authority on saturday. This is not the american story that were witnessing. This is a selfish, inward, destructive story thats taking place and the president s voice is lacking. And the president has decided not to lead but to follow and to follow what and who, we really doesnt know but its not good. Lets say again he said the thing that should have been said yesterday, he did say those words. But there was in the moments that followed, in the tweets that follow a tone of i gave you what you wanted, you wanted me to say the thing i was supposed to say now back off and now he says this is a media story and the media will never be happy. Those comments were not in his heart on saturday. He said them because he was pushed into a corner. I dont think theres anybody who didnt see reading the body language, the delay, no one didnt see this as one who was forced into doing, unlike the reaction of merck who leaves the Business Council, who is immediately on twitter attacking that person, im mad at that guy. He was not mad at david duke claiming donald trump saying were here because of donald trump, neonazis, confederates all claiming trump on saturday. Theres no one at this table who saw demonstrator, rioters inciting your name saying im here because of willie geist and thats not what donald trump did on saturday. But he did it to the ceo of merck yesterday and he did it to jim acosta in the room yesterday. So wheres the genuineness . And heres the thing i just the last thing ill say is we focus on the president all the time, rightly so. Again, the reason i mentioned david duke and those people invoking donald trump is those people are listening to donald trump, too. What they heard on saturday was, hey, hes with us. Theyve heard it from him before, they heard it from him on saturday and when they saw him yesterday they said, eh, thats the thing he had to do to appease the liberal media and libertarians. Those people when they march again, which they will, they will know President Trump has their back. They said that yesterday. He said what he had to say to push the story away but hes still got our backs. Im an optimist by nature, this country has survived much. One of the jobs of the president , any president , is to recognize something that people in this country do recognize. There are open wounds in this country, open wounds of race, of economic disparity, of class disparity. A president s job is to heal those wounds, not allow the wounds to fester and poke at the wounds and probe them and open even further fissures in the world. President s are supposed to meet the moment in times of national crisis. I think people would say what happened in charlottesville was a national crisis. People look to their president s in these times to play that role. People looked to President Trump to do that on saturday and he didnt do what had been expected. He did it again two days later but is it still meeting the moment if it happens belatedly. Thats a question people are asking not just around this table but on capitol hill. Three top ceos have now left president obamas Business Council. Kenneth frazier of merck was the first ceo to depart from the counsel. Yesterday morning President Trump lashed out on twitter writing now that ken frazier of merck has resigned from president S Manufacturing council, he will have more time to lower ripoff drug prices. And later tweeted merck pharma is a leader in higher and higher drug prices while at the same time taking jobs out of u. S. Bring jobs back and lower prices. Ge and dow said they have no tolerance for hating bigotry or racism. Lets bring in columnist for the washington examiner. Kristen, a business decision for a lot of these people. Yes, theres a moral component to it but shareholders, people who buy their products dont like what theyre seeing out of washington right now. Thats right. President trumps Approval Ratings are at historic lows. For a ceo of a company, the decision to say yes to join the president S Manufacturing council or any of these other councils of business, the answer you give is yes because that seems like the less political answers. If you say no, you are wading into those waters and thats bad. Now a few months in, staying on these councils are what these ceos are afraid of the political move. The ceo of underarmor saying we dont play politics here, we focus on sports and products. The president of underarmor came under pressure when he did an interview on cnbc who said pretty broadly it might be a good thing to have a Business Leader be in the white house. He was attacked for that. And now hes stepped off the council. People can only go on so long before pressure internally mounts enough that they walk away. What a ceo stands for and will not stand for is going to matter. Its not just from an internal perspective. It also from a business perspective. There are competitors out there. And we watch how this has played out, whether its in this incident, whether its intel, underarmor, watching what happened with uber a few weeks ago. People will nmove if they do no believe in not just a companys product but a companys values. He knows that this is not something just internal that they have to wrestle with. Companies have to be clear with their consumers about where they stand or consumers will walk. When you look at some of the new polling, the Trump Administration neers the selars sevenmonth mark. The gallup poll finds the president s Approval Rating at the new low. Bill clintons Approval Rating never dropped as low as 34 . Gallup never found barack obama dropping to 34 during his eightyear presidency. Still trumps approval has not yet reached the depths that other presidencies have over the years with Richard Nixon the lowest. John heilemann, the significance of these numbers that keep finding new lows for a president that would like to get something done but has nothing legislative to show for his first seven months. Deleterious, the effect. The president looks at all these polls and says theyre another example of fake news, says all the polls are phony and fraudulent and points to his election victory and says the poll didnt think i could win and i won. The people who dont think the polls are phony are republicans and democrats. These examples we saw over the weekend of republicans speaking out on charlottesville are not isolated. In the last weeks weve seen the senate move to not allow recess appointments, we seen them pass the sanctions bill, republican senators to ensure Robert Mueller will stay in his job. It has taken a long time for republican senators to start to break with President Trump and they havent broken fully with him. If you look over the last three weeks, there are more and more signs of republicans who are starting to stand up to trump. Those guys are mathematicians. They say donald trump who loses a couple points, every day they get a couple more points of courage to break with him. I had a conversation with a republican, i said does this mean now policy splits no. Theyre still going to work with the president because they still want to get this stuff done. Look at whats happening in three weeks or two weeks when they get back in september. They want to do something on tax reform, still rumblings they want to do something on health care and you have the border wall and some of these are really important. The opposition and the pushback seems like it may only go so far when it comes to policy. Saturday was a moment where it was easy for a republican to break with the president , ted cruz, marco rubio, on and on and on over charlottesville. The question will be do they come back around to him as they have previously. There have been moments not just during his presidency but during his campaign where they said im out, after the access hollywood tape. Then they walk back toward him. Is this a guy they need to get their jaagenda through . He has to sign legislation. Hes always going to sabotage their efforts to get tax code reform, to reform the Obamacare Health care law. Like john was saying, the republic calculus was theyre afraid of their base. They dont want to get primaried. So at 70 it becomes imperative for many members of the house to break with trump. The agenda is always going to stymie efforts to break from donald trump but the demands of reelection will force them to create distance. Kristen, is there a number out there, 33, 32, 29 that in september if that number is that number that more republicans would say, hey, we got to take a look at whats going on here and walk away at this guy, at the expense, perhaps, of some of the agenda . I think if his numbers are looking in mid 30s, the ugliness continues. Theres a chance i believe that polls are not fake news. I believe polls are good and a useful barometer of where the American People stand but can you forgive the president and others for thinking maybe the polls have got this wrong. But what that doesnt explain is why over the last month or two the polls have started capturing fewer and fewer Trump Supporters. Why would the polls have been more accurate in july than now . Part of whats going on is you have a lot of trump voters its that social desirability bias. Theyre thinking i dont want to pick up the phone and tell anybody i like the white house. Thats the way the white house has spun it, theyre not capturing my supporters. I dont think theres a good way to spin your numbers falling this low over the course of what thud have been a good part of your first six or seven months as president. Ive had a chance to get out on the road and do interviews. One of the things i heard consistently from people who supported donald trump and even those now on the fence was jobs and the economy. I think there was a reason when president came out yesterday to condemn White Supremacy, he started by touting job numbers. Its we i this it why i thino important were seeing some of these businesses pulling out of his Business Council. That top line is important, 34 , 33 , whatever it is, but its also the number of the Republican Base that still supports him. When that starts to shrink, if it does, thats when youre going to see more of an impact of these politicians coming out against him. I totally agree. This is not just about rhetoric. It is also about the policies. We can talk about rising economy and rising stock markets and all that is true but lets also talk about the fact that inequality is rising and homelessness is rising. The same people that would vote for trump because of the frustration, because of the fact that the Economic Opportunities arent there, our country hasnt been honest with them about how fast the economy has changed and left many of them vulnerable. When youre putting to the policies calling for cuts to medicaid and to pell grants and to food stampstamps, thats notg to help you. So there is a reality that this is not rhetoric, its my life is not get anything better. In addition to what you said that is absolutely accurate is these ceos on the council, each of them, because they are ceos of major corps, they know that much of what donald trump has been saying about the growth of the economy is not true, that the economy was growing last year month by month by month and it continues to grow. Its not him. Its just the way it grows. And as wes says people below the ceo level not feeling that success at all. Were just Getting Started here. Charlie dent, admiral james staff riddis Kristen Welker and george will will join us. Another busy morning morning joe. Well be right back. But at fidelity, were making Retirement Planning clearer. And it all starts with getting your Fidelity Retirement score. In 60 seconds, youll know where you stand. And together, well help you make decisions for your plan. To keep you on track. Time to think of your future its your retirement. Know where you stand. Time to think of your future looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. Even if youre trying your best. Be a daily struggle, along with diet and exercise, oncedaily toujeo® may help you control your blood sugar. Get into a daily groove. 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