Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell

MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell May 2, 2017

That President Trump wants and not a single penny for the trump wall. And after a negotiating defeat like that, President Trump said today that he, he could have negotiated a way the civil war. You knew damn well i was a snake before you took me in. Its clear that for our president , the Campaign Never really ends. They are gathered together for the white house Correspondents Dinner without the president. I think because he cant take a joke. Media outlets like cnn and msnbc are fake news. Fake news. I just wish someone had told me that all you have to say is fake news over and over again, you know . President brush, i never thought i would pray for the day that you were president again. Lets rate the medias 100 days should. We do that . They are a disgrace. The president goes after us because were a easier target than kim jong un. Nobody is safe. Were probably not safe over here. Its one long stream of consciousness. Why was there the civil war . Why could that one have not been worked out . This is crazy that the United States has this ignorance. Its crazy. I want to know your opinions. Youre the president of the United States. Thats enough. Thank you. Thank you very much. President trump now thinks that choe have negotiated away the civil war. This is the same president who failed with his first big bill in congress, repealing and replacing obamacare. No president has done that, failed to pass his first major agenda item. And none of those recent president s, who were able to pass their first big agenda item ever said that we could have been spared the civil war with better negotiating. Today at the White House Press briefing, sean spicer was asked to clear up the confusion about whether everyone with preexisting conditions will be guaranteed Health Insurance under a new Trump Health Care plan written by the most conservative members of the house of representatives. It is a plan that makes it optional for states to coffer preexisting conditions. Yesterday in the television interview, President Trump left it unclear as to whether he would change that part of the bill and make it mandatory instead of optional. So sean spicer was asked about that today. Was he referring to something he wants to push to include in the bill . Was he talking about the language that is already in there . I think both in the sense that mcarthur meadows amendment to ensure existing conditions continue to be covered. But obviously as this bill hopefully passes the house this week or whenever it does and then goes through the senate and the house, this is an issue that is important to him. He was asked whether the president supports the current language of the bill, which does not make the coverage of preexisting conditions mandatory, or does he support trying to push that language into the bill . Which is it . Sean spicer says i think both. It cant be both. Thats what makes governing so hard. To govern is to choose. And the choices are never easy. And if you choose to make coverage of preexisting conditions optional for the states, then you will pick up some more of those extreme conservative members of the house of representatives. But you will surely lose other members of the house. And if you push to include in the bill the coverage of preexisting conditions as a mandatory guarantee, then you will lose those conservative members. I want to make it optional. No. It cant be both ways. You cant have both. So no. Sean spicer doesnt have an answer to the question. He doesnt have an answer to the governing choice that the president wants to make on this. And that governing choice is stunningly simple. Just tiny. Tiny. Compared to the issue that drove us into the civil war, donald trump is the first republican president who doesnt lavish praise on Abraham Lincoln. It seems that donald trump may have only recently discovered that Abraham Lincoln was a republican. Here he is in march, reading a teleprompter about Abraham Lincoln to a room full of professional republican politicians, all of whom know that Abraham Lincoln was a republican. President trump seems to be learning that Abraham Lincoln was a republican from his teleprompter. As president , lincoln signed the law that built the first transcontinental railroad, uniting our country from ocean to ocean. Great president. Most people dont even know he was a republican, right . Does anyone know . A lot of people dont know that. We have to build that up a little bit more. Lets take an ad. Lets use one of those pacs. Pretty insulting to that audience to ask them if they knew that Abraham Lincoln was republican. That fact appeared earlier in the president s teleprompter. And then he had this kind of delayed surprise reaction to it. It was a National Republican Congressional Committee event. They know. Everyone in that room knows that Abraham Lincoln was republican. Donald trumps favorite president wasnt a republican. But President Trump believes if his favorite president had been president in 1861 instead of Abraham Lincoln, we wouldnt have had a civil war. I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later, you wouldnt have had the civil war. He was he was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. And he was he was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the civil war. He said there is no reason for this. Andrew jackson didnt see what was happening with regard to the civil war. He was a southern slave owning president from tennessee 24 years before the civil war. He died 16 years before the civil war. White supremacists and many southern politicians who are not white supremacists, but remain bitter about the civil war dont like Abraham Lincoln, and they do like Andrew Jackson. Steve bannon is a big Andrew Jackson fan. And now doubt turned President Trump into an Andrew Jackson fan. In order for President Trump to negotiate away the civil war, he would have to know why the civil war was fought. Jon meacham who wrote the definitive biography of Andrew Jackson said to the New York Times today the expansion of slavery caused the civil war. And you cant get around that. So what does trump mean . Would he have let slavery exist but not expand . Thats the counterfactual question you have to ask. So in the next trump interview yes, only hope that the interviewer will ask President Trump how he would have avoided the civil war. How much slavery would President Trump have been willing to allow in the New Territories of the United States . Thats another version of todays question, easier question of are you for making coverage of preexisting conditions mandatory or optional . The governing outcome is always in the details. Always. So as jon meacham is insisting, you cannot say you would have negotiated away the civil war without telling us exactly how, exactly how you would do that, without telling us what your position would have been on allowing slaves in the territories, and how that would have convinced the south not to commit treason and not secede from the you know and wage war against the United States of america. The civil war shamed the south for two reasons. First, because the confederacy lost the war. And second, decades later and a century later, when slavery was no longer even remotely morally justifiable, the south was shamed by the reason that it fought the civil war slavery. And so southerners 100 years later changed the reason. In the 1950s, segregationists started calling the civil war the war of northern aggression because they could not admit that the south was fighting the war to preserve and protect the institution of slavery. The south could not have been clearer about it at the time. They put it in writing. Mississippi called the, quote, the institution of slavery the greatest material interest of the world. Louisiana said they were fighting the war because of their, quote, determination to preserve african slavery. Texas politicians have always footnoted their policies as coming directly from god. And so texas justified the confederacy this way. The servitude of the african race as existing in these states is mutually beneficial to both bond and free and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind and the revealed will of the all mighty creator as recognized by all christian nations. President trump thinks a better president than Abraham Lincoln, a president like, say, Andrew Jackson could have negotiated with texas. Over slavery and over the divine word of god as it pertains to slavery. Or maybe he doesnt think that. Because perhaps President Trump thinks the civil war was not about slavery. Perhaps he thinks it was all about northern aggression. All Abraham Lincolns fault. Were going to have to wait for the followup interview on what the president meant. And that is the question of the day. What did the president mean . North korea is wondering what the president meant tonight. When the president said, unlike any other president before him, that it would be an honor, his word, an honor to meet with the murderous dictator of north korea kim jong un. If youre wondering what kim jong un has to do in order to have a meeting with the president of the United States, the answer is we dont know because the president wont say. We dont know what he means. That means kim jong un doesnt know what he has to do to get a meeting with the president of the United States. And so we enter the second 100 days of the Trump Presidency with a preexisting condition. No one knows what the president means. Will the president sign the Health Care Bill that allows states to make coverage of preexisting conditions optional . No one knows. How does the dictator of north korea have to change his behavior to get a meeting with the president of the United States . No one knows. Least of all, kim jong un. And how would President Trump, who has been unable to negotiate the passage of a Health Care Bill with his own party in congress, how would that president have been able to negotiate a way the civil war. Joining us now, washington columnist for the boston globe. She is with the Pointer Institute for media studies. Also with us charlie sykes, editorinchief of right wisconsin and an msnbc contributor. Indira, the press briefing every day involves a series of questions to essentially what did the president mean when he said or what does the president mean and where does he stand, and every day as sean spicer offers no more clarification of wherever the president had left the confusion point. Well, in this case where youre talking about trumps position on authoritarian leaders, this is something where President Trump has been pretty consistent even since he was candidate trump. He has been consistent in the words he used about himself. Remember at the rnc, at the Republican Convention when his big line was i alone can fix it. Which is not the kind of a line you would have heard from Ronald Reagan or george h. W. Bush or other wellknown republicans. Its the kind of line you would hear more from a suharto or a fidel or some other authoritarian leader. So i thought it was very striking during the campaign, one of the most interesting polls was one out of the university of massachusetts that showed that the single most clarifying reason people were likely to vote for trump in the primaries was not income, race, religion or anything like, that it was actually whether they had a more aauthoritarian mindset. So i think that goes some way to explaining the president s warmth towards, for example, sisi of egypt and the things that he sa about duterte of the phippines and kim jong un. That one is quite surprising, i have to say. And i bet there are some people within the Trump Administration who are knocking on his door and wanting him to resay that a different way perhaps tomorrow. I want to go to Something Else the president said yesterday. And charlie, i think this is going to come as a surprise to a lot of your republican wisconsin friends about the president. He said that hes willing to give up certain things in trade negotiation with china in order to get their cooperation with north korea. He never mentioned this during the campaign when he was talking about how tough he was going to be with china. He never said, you know, maybe ill go easy on them on trade in exchange for Something Else. Lets listen to this. And if i can use trade as a method to get china, because i happen to think that china does have reasonably good powers over north korea. Now maybe not, you know, ultimate, but pretty good powers. Now if china can help us with north korea and can solve that problem, thats worth making not as good a trade deal for the United States. Excuse me, right . Charlie, its worth making not as good a trade deal for the United States. Its almost as if he is making it up as he goes along. Almost. What a dumb time to be alive. In one day i think weve achieved peak trump ignorance and incoherence at the same time. And part of it is that you have a president who obviously is functioning without any fixed principles. He will blow which way the wind blows on personality. And obviously his knowledge of the details of public policy, whether its health care or trade policy is limited. And of course hes more than willing to share his ignorance about history as well. I mean, this is exactly what America Needs right now, right . To relitigate the 1830s. And indira, the truth is that the way these negotiations are done generally with most countries, with trade and with issues like helping us out in another Foreign Policy arena that. Tend to be very separate things. There tends not to be an overlap. But if there is in a country like china, thats completely understandable. He is right now. He is actually right that it is understandable that if china is invaluablebly helpful on north korea, that might soften a United States position in some spot in trade relations with china. But thats not a level of complexity he ever admitted to a voter who he promised to label china a currency manipulator and beat them up on trade. Yes, youre right, lawrence. It is absolutely true that we always make deals with foreign countries. And we give a little on this. And they give us a little on this. And then we give them a little on Something Else. And it was common, for example, under the obama administration, russia helped the United States with the Northern Distribution Network to get supplies into afghanistan to resupply the u. S. afghan effort at a time when we couldnt good through pakistan, and we were softer on russia on some other things. We were softer all the time. Its not something that candidate trump ever talked about or admitted to. And it surprised me that trade would be an area he is willing to give on since that was one of his areas during the campaign. He caved on the wall this week. Think about it. In the last week he caved on the wall. And now he is caving on trade. Those were the two most consistent themes of the entire campaign. A quick one, charlie, before we go. Donald trump has said less about Abraham Lincoln than any other republican politician ive ever listened to. Its not something ive really noticed until today. And i kind of went back in my brain and said wait a minute, here where is all the praise of Abraham Lincoln. Is that a steve bannon calculation . Yes. And also, there is a strain of conservatism. The paleo conservatives who have always been somewhat hostile. They think of lincoln as being a Big Government sort of tyrannical figure. But that was always kind of a fringe element on the right. And i think you can tell that Donald Trumps been spending some time in that particular swamp. Because most republicans are going to be talking about Abraham Lincoln, not how a genocidal figure like Andrew Jackson would be so much smarter and tougher than that lincoln, that dummy who got sexual abuse a civil war. Charlie sykes gets the last word in this segment. Charlie sykes and indira lakshman, thank you for join us. What people are saying, is he sane . If youve tried every pill on the shelf to treat your tough nasal allergies. Listen up

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