So theyre scrambling. Theyre trying to figure this out as well, chuck. No indication as to whether the president has been briefed on this. Hes about to hold an event with sheriffs. In fact im told he just entered and so well try to get more questions to him about all of this. But this is unprecedented, as you say, the fact we have someone inside sounding the alarm like that. Thats what it is, someone sounding the alarm. The call is coming from inside the house. By the way, i should make a point, no Press Briefing today, no Press Briefing yesterday. How many are we up to how many Press Briefings have we had in the last six weeks . We havent had one in two weeks and we had less this summer. I think then its typical, for the record. So its becoming sort of the diminishing Press Briefing. Now, they would argue, hey, look, you had four different chances to ask the president questions today. That is true, and well take it. But of course shouted questions, yeah. Exactly, exactly. Shouted questions, not in that format of sitting down withSarah Sanders, being able to ask her questions, followups in that seating, which of course there isnt a whole lot of Background Noise which makes it so critical. But this is a week that started out with its focus on kavanaugh, the midterms, really going on the offense and here they are on defense yet again. It gets to this crux, chuck, the bottom line whats in this oped hits to the heart of whats in the Woodward Book, which is there are people here trying to protect the country from this president , chuck. Kristen welker, youve got to go. Go do more reporting, but i beg you to come back before the 6 00 hour and well figure that out. Reporter i will. Go figure out what more you can learn. I have to say that last point there, ruth, which is its sort of combined with the Woodward Book, i think its setting off the debate. I thought brit hume tweeted about. This the message to never
trumpers, has it been better to be in there and stop him and to be a prevent defense, if you will, or not . And i think this debate is getting resparked up. Does the Woodward Book prove that actually the guardrails are a good thing and they can hold . Or is it proving that this is too much to take . Well, i guess we didnt assassinate assad, right . So no assassinations yet. So maybe some guardrails are holding. I want to back it up a little bit, though. I think the fact of this alongside the Woodward Book is really telling in the sense that we know what the president is going to say. He dismissed the Woodward Book as fiction. Hes going to call this fake news. Hes going to rail about Anonymous Sources and tell us ha, ha, ha, that you shouldnt rely on Anonymous Sources and were going to have a realistic journalistic debate. So that is a separate conversation. But the fact of the matter is that each of these books, for all its flaws, the Michael Wolff book for all its flaws, the
omarosa book, the reporting that shane and his colleagues do and you and your colleagues do every single day to talk about dysfunction in the white house, they are all if its fiction, everybody is telling the same story. That suggests to me its not fiction. All these people have done a great job. But if you just follow shane and carol lee on twitter, you didnt need to read these books. Were telling the story in realtime. Hugh, theres an interesting quote from ben sasse on your show today and i feel that it gets at this larger theme thats developing right now. Take a listen. Im not trying to beat up on the president here, but the truth is, you build a team by building a cause thats bigger than yourself. And right now, so much of what comes out of the white house is just trying to figure out how to divide americans. Hang on, hugh. The president is speaking. In terms of getting things passed and getting things through, an article was just
printed, just came out a few minutes ago, trump breaks the record for Budget Gridlock wins. Scores big win. So for 20 years its a 20year record. A 20year record, they call it the fouledup Budget Gridlock. Scores big win. Heres your thing. So this just came out. So in 20 years, it hasnt been like it is now. We broke it. Thats just really positive stuff. And then in addition to that, point after point after point, if you look, almost 4 million jobs created since the election. More americans now employed than ever recorded in our history. So we have more people working today than at any point ever in our history. Weve created 400,000
manufacturing jobs. Manufacturing jobs are growing at the fastest pace in more than 30 years. Economic growth last quarter was 4. 2 . As you people know, it was headed down big and it was a low number, very low number. It would have been in my opinion it would have been less than zero. It was heading to negative numbers. New employment claims recently hit a think of that, the Unemployment Picture in the country is the best its been in 49 years. Africanamerican unemployment lowest in the history of our country. Asian american unemployment lowest in the history of our country. Hispanic american unemployment lowest in the history of our country. I mean im just looking at these, just point after point. Under my administration, veterans unemployment reached its lowest in many, many years. Lets see, almost 3. 9 million americans have been lifted off food stamps just since my election. Then you go into all of the benefits that we got from the tax cuts. All of you people benefited tremendously from the tax cuts. We go into right to try. Right to try is where you have the right if a person is terminally ill, you have a right to go and try and see whether or not a drug thats not approved yet can be used and utilized. They didnt allow that. Point after point, getting rid of the individual mandate, the most unpopular thing there is in obamacare. Coming up with new health care plans. Weve never had a period, even if you look at the olympics, got the olympics. The world cup just got you just saw them, they were in my office, got the world cup. Nobody has and we have started the wall. Nobody has ever done in less
than a twoyear period what weve done. So when you tell me about some anonymous source within the administration probably whos failing and probably here for all the wrong reasons, now, the New York Times is failing. If i werent here, i believe the New York Times probably wouldnt even exist. And someday and someday when im not president , which hopefully will be in about six and a half years from now, the New York Times and cnn and all of these phony Media Outlets will be out of business, folks. Theyll be out of business because theyll be nothing to write and nothing of interest. So nobody has done what this administration has done. I agree, its different from an agenda which is much different than ours and its certainly not your agenda, that i can tell you. Its about open borders, its about letting people flee into our country, its about a
disaster and crime for our country. So they dont like donald trump and i dont like them because theyre very dishonest people. Remember this also about the New York Times. When i won, they were forced to apologize to their subscribers. They wrote a letter of apology. It was the first time anybody has ever done it, because they covered the election incorrectly. So if the failing New York Times has an anonymous editorial, can you believe it, anonymous, meaning gutless, a gutless editorial. Were doing a great job. The poll numbers are through the roof. Our poll numbers are great. And guess what, nobody is going to come close to beating me in 2020 because of what weve done. Weve done more than anybody ever thought possible and its not even two years, so thank you very much. Now, this happened quickly. Yes, you did see that uncomfortable moment of him there bashing the press and the Law Enforcement guys clapping for that. Im going to set that aside. We do have the very top of the president s remarks. We missed those. Obviously everything is moving quickly here. This is where he addressed the oped specifically right at the top of that event. Here we go. When i was running, i think number one on our list was Law Enforcement, taking care of Law Enforcement, working with Law Enforcement, and really we have to create guidelines and principles for the incredible job youve done. And youve done an amazing job. And i will tell you a lot of times youre scorned and youre looked at by the media, because the media is very dishonest, much of it in this country. Very, very dishonest. And the job that youve done in light of all of the things that you have to go through, i guess a little bit like me also, but i will say that you have been
really outstanding, incredible people. So that was him doing a Media Bash Thing first, and i think we have now how he addressed the specifics of the article. Here it is. Somebody in what i call the failing New York Times talking about hes part of the resistance within the Trump Administration. You know, the dishonest media, because you people deal with it as well as i do, but its really a disgrace. I will say this. Nobody has done what this administration has done in terms of getting things passed and getting things through. A article was just printed, just came out a few minutes ago. All right. And you saw the rest of that. So weve shown you everything from the president. Hugh hewitt, i started with a ben sasse bite. I actually want to replay the ben sasse bite because that
event only underscores his analysis. Take a listen. Im not trying to beat up on the president here, but the truth is, you build a team by building a cause thats bigger than yourself. And right now, so much of what comes out of the white house is just trying to figure out how to divide americans. Mike drop. Well, it is Proof Positive when you get Law Enforcement to clap against the media, that is not useful. I am confused by this entire day. I began by Playing On The Radio Show its not just today. Were all confused. I hear you, man. The whole bob woodward, donald trump, Kellyanne Conway tape. Hes in control, hes calm, hes pushing back, hes making points. Its a measured its got nothing to do with the chaos that we have seen for the rest of the day. So whoever wrote this did not advance the cause of reducing chaos. And ben sasse also in that interview pointed out the senate is in chaos. The only thing that Isnt In Chaos is the Supreme Court and judge kavanaugh said he wants to be a part of the team of nine. Its the last Working Institution in the country. But ben sasse says weve politicized the courts because of a Second Branch of government, which i thought was spot on. To your point here, it didnt do anything to stop the chaos by writing this. This reads like somebody who wants to start a confrontation, who is calling out to the public and i think calling out to the Second Branch of congress, right, and saying this is what i am seeing. It comes on the heels of what bob woodward saw and all of the things that weve reported. This is someone who said they talked about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president. This is an author i think saying do something. Okay. Where is the person who is willing to put his or her reputation and name on the line and resign and say, you know what, this is not okay. This is not normal. This is not good. This is whats happening. You people need to know it. You asked about guardrails earlier. I have been an arguer in favor of the guardrails are working and i am increasingly worried that theyre not. I ha i am increasingly of the belief that everybody with a reputation to protect or shreds of a reputation to protect should get the heck out of the house. Let me push back on this idea of whether it should be right for the person to sign their name. Isnt this oped getting more attention because it does not . Well, it depends who it is. No, but thats the Guessing Game will keep it alive. A, its the Guessing Game which is maybe to shanes point, part of the point which is to force everybody to have this conversation. Well, this conversation ought constitutionally to begin in the house of representatives. Every democrat is running away from impeachment, but in fact if youre talking about the 25th Amendment seriously, you ought to be demanding they put forward articles of impeachment, period, ending of story. We might not be in an impeachment situation or 25th Amendment situation to be in a serious situation where people should, my argument is, have the guts to come forward and say what you believe with your name attached. Kristen welker is back after that. Okay. So the president is trying to address it. It was sort of a predictable pushback by him going after the medium rather than the substance of the piece. Do you get a sense behind the scenes that they are just feeling their way around on this . Reporter i absolutely do, chuck. I think that was true of the Woodward Book as well, which is so stunning, because they knew it was coming out. This was the program the president counterprogramming at his best. This is what he knows how to do. He whips out another article that talks about the jobs number. Of course thats his goto talking point. But i thought the optics were pretty striking. He sort of walked away from his event. He was isolated there with the reporters in full sort of fire and fury Mode Punching back at
the question that was asked by Peter Alexander about this oped. So what happens . What is the messaging going to look like tomorrow . My anticipation is that were going to see a lot more tweets. Again, i just go back to this point. When this first broke, we went up to the senior officials here to try to get some type of reaction, and they were just processing this in realtime. So that is the response of a president who is really responding in realtime almost, chuck. I mean the article just came out a short time ago. So i dont think they have a Communication Strategy at this point. Moving forward will they get one by tomorrow . Again, my bet is on the fact that were going to see more tweets. But this, again, i think fuels what has been a discord and a chaos here in the white house and raising questions about whether were going to see more highlevel departures here. Kristen welker, thank you. Joining me on the phone is mark lotter. He works on the political side
on the offsite of the white house. He is a former Special Assistant in the Trump Administration, in the Trump White House. Mark, thank you for doing this. Youre joining us on the phone, i appreciate it, last minute. Let me ask you straightforward, whats your initial reaction to this . This is perhaps a colleague of yours . Perhaps somebody that shared the same title as you, not some midlevel staffer. Whats just your gut reaction . Thanks for having me, chuck. I, like many people, just finished reading it just moments ago for the first time. And it concerns me for a couple of reasons. First off, we dont know the rank and the title and the position that this person holds. And while and ill include myself in this as well. While my Position Sounds you know, when i was in the white house, Special Assistant to the president sounds very senior. There are a lot of meetings that took place at a lot higher
levels than i was. And so we dont have that context to be able to fill out how this person might think. And to the point, i think, that was being made a little bit earlier, i do think its a little concerning that we do have someone that is unnamed, that is making these kinds of allegations, if they are so concerned about the white house, the presidency, that they would make these charges yet not so much that they were willing to risk their own job for it by putting their name next to it or stepping down. I think that theres a bit of a credibility issue there. So you would urge this person to resign, go public and resign immediately. If this is how you feel, if this is what it is, that would be your advice for this former colleague of yours . Well, first off, i think it puts you in a very difficult position when if you are working still in that administration and you are working with my former colleagues, they dont know who you are and so it creates a level of mistrust that we dont
know that this person, whatever role, whatever position, whatever duties they may have, are they in fact going to be carrying those out to advance the causes of the administration or are they now going to be working on some counterprogramming on or running resistance against the administrations goal . There needs to be a bond between those teams. Thats regardless of politics. White house staff are often very close because of the stress, the hours they put in, the sacrifices they make, and when you start catearing at those levels of trust, it tears those bonds apart and it will impact the administrations trying to get things done. Its true, its har