9:00 in the east, 6:00 a.m. out west. here s what s happening. taxing situation. the battles that lie ahead, the gop gets ready to rewrite the u.s. tax code. we re going to tell you about one idea that could keep high earners from getting a big break. gone but not forgotten, the lives of four american soldier were remembered this weekend while the search for answers intensifies. new insight into why so many troops are in africa and what their mission is. you knighted front. for the first time in years, five former presidents gather on stage at the same time. what prompted the gathering and how it helped so many in need. but we begin with politics and president trump s ongoing feud with democratic congresswoman frederica wilson, entering the sixth day with the president ramping up his attacks in a tweet again this morning saying wacky congresswoman wilson is the gift that keeps on giving for the republican party, a disaster for dems. you watch her in action and vote r. in a series of tweets last night, president trump focus ed error. as josh said, he could have handled this so much better by saying, if i was misunderstood, i apologize, i respect the service. and instead he s elevated it into this national week long fight that has no end in sight. he went after a gold star family on the campaign, this is territory he s gone down before and knows it doesn t end well. he s incapable of restraining himself and admitting any kind of error, apologizing in any kind of way. to the tweet about the dossier, the president again asking the justice department to interfere in the russia investigation, which is centered on him and his campaign. is this another sign of president trump feeling the heat or do you think these tweets feel a little different to you? the strange thing to me is that the president seems a lot more focused on the dossier than almost anybody else. it is really it seems to have shaken him through the whole investigation, unprompted and insisting that what is in the dossier is not true. time, similarly to the conversation about the johnson family, he s incapable of avoiding making anything about himself. and in terms of people paying for things, these tweets came out less than an hour after the washington post put out that report on the president pledging $430,000 to help pay the legal fees for some of his aides. is that what the tweets are all about, what can you tell us about the pledge, $430,000 seems like a small amount for legal fees. in this line of work it is not much at all. this pledge comes after the rnc paid roughly that amount in legal fees. there was controversy about that, people giving money to the rnc doesn t know the money goes to lawyer and not campaign activities. but you re right, it is not very much money. i talked to somebody in the clinton white house wrapped up in that scandal there. they were not directly connected to anything close to the millon and says you can have a tax cut that leads up to $1.5 trillion in deficit increases over the next decade. and then following that, it has to reduce the deficit or not increase it. that creates the box in which they have to write the tax reform bill. they have to argue about what to do with the space inside the box. there is a lot of competing interests, even among republicans on the hill. rand paul has been out there attacking the plan for the fact that it raises taxes on many middle income families. the plan needs to be substantially changed to hold the families harmless. john mccain skeptical, people sometimes forget he voted against both of the bush tax cuts. senator bob corker, retiring senator from tennessee, has been saying he doesn t want a tax plan that raises the deficit at all. people can change their minds about things, can compromise but also a number of other people like senator mike lee from utahed are voluntary cautah ed advocating a larger child tax credit. the plan as written according to the tax policy center would lead to more than $2 trillion in deficit increases. you have people saying they want to give out new goodies, you have people who want a bigger child credit, you need to take stuff away to fit things in the box. so that s going to be the really hard political part, making those decisions about who wins and who loses and that s what i think makes it really difficult to actually get a tax reform done, if you did the plan as it is now, you have 25% of american families actually paying more taxes than under current law by 2026. that would be very unpopular, the changes you have to make to avoid that unpopularity. the way this will potentially squeeze 401(k) plans, that will be a huge discussion point. your concerns as well on this? i think they re trying to thread a very thin needle here. passed with the thinnest of margins, the budget before we get to taxes. the president and the white house have been reaching out aggressively to democrats that are up for re-election in states that trump won. so far no real success there. so it looks like they have to do this almost entirely with just that 52 vote republican majority. very, very thin, they already lost rand paul. it is going to be really tough. josh and alex, good to see you both. thank you. to the investigation in niger, new attack there, saturday left 13 paramilitary police officers dead, gunmen on trucks and motorcycles crossed the border and fired on a security base. hans nickles is in washington with more with what officials want to know about that attack. good morning. reporter: good morning. the families continue to mourn, congress is preparing to ask some hard questions next week, not only about this specific mission, but the overall strategy this that is putting american troops at risk in africa. army sergeant la david johnson was laid to rest saturday near his home in florida. his pregnant widow kissing his casket as she held an american flag. johnson was killed in an ambush in niger earlier this month with three of his comrades, his body found one mile from the ambush site, 48 hours after the deadly attack. there was hope he was still alive with his beacon emitting a signal. the new york times reports that some nigerian officials say the army convoy spotted and chased insurgents until they crossed into neighboring mali. the times adds that the american soldiers did not mention giving chase. and they claimed they were ambushed and surrounded by insurgents outside a village. possibly tipped off by tribal leaders who they were meeting. all week, pentagon officials have insisted that u.s. forces aren t in niger to hunt extremists. our missions are advise and assist, we are not directly involved in combat operations. reporter: a senior congressional aide tells nbc news the ambush stemmed in part from a massive intelligence failure. congress now demanding more information on counterterrorism missions across africa. have to keep us informed so we can make good decisions about do we want 1,000 soldiers in niger? if we don t want them, the way to deal with it is to cut off funding. reporter: the commander told congress earlier this year he had only a quarter of the reconnaissance flights he needed. the readiness of the airplanes has gotten better. but when you go from 12 to 6, the capacity is cut in half. and the impact, we have to do a better job coordinating and sharing assets because the continent is extremely large. yes, sir. reporter: there are roughly 800 u.s. troops in niger, most of them building a drone base, which will serve as a hub for a drone network across all of africa. thank you so much for that. he called on voters to reject the politics of division and fear, but there was another reason former president obama returned to the campaign trail this week. i ll speak with democratic congressman jeffries about that next. up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, 1,200 workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. today we re bringing you america s number one shave at lower prices every day. putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. as one of those workers, i m proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. gillette - the best a man can get. t music) - [announcer] imagine what you wear every day actually making your body feel better. that s exactly what tommie copper does for people everywhere. they call it wearable wellness, and tommie copper has infused it into everything they do. why not experience the difference tommie copper can make in your life? visit tommiecopper.com to see the entire line of wearable wellness compression. go right now and find out how you can save 25% on your first purchase plus free shipping. life hurts. feel better. of new york, he sits on the judiciary and budget committees. with a big welcome to you, sir. does the white house have a point there? is there a line that should be drawn when it comes to topics like this when they re so personal. a line that should be drawn and the one that broke through that line and highly inappropriate way was donald trump, the president, as well as the white house. i m stunned that the white house chief of staff would make the decision to engage in character assassination against congresswoman wilson, a long-standing, well known civic advocate, activist, down in south florida. i m stunned that to justify that character assassination the white house chief of staff would functionally lie about the speech that congresswoman wilson delivered back in 2015 during the building dedication and stunned at the fact that on the same day that sergeant la david johnson would be funeralized that the commander in chief, donald trump, will be at the not at the white house, will be playing golf and attacking congresswoman wilson who is sitting at the funeral. would you be appeased, would you think the majority of americans who take offense to this whole tit for tat back and forth, would they be appeased if general kelly were to say i misremembered what happened in that speech at the fbi build ing dedication and i apologize for my mistake? that would be the right thing to do. doesn t appear that the white house has ever had any interest in apologizing or clarifying misinformation or misstatements that have come out of 1600 pennsylvania avenue. we all assume that the adult in the room is general kelly. and he would be the one to take that type of mature step, hopefully we ll see it in the week to come. we have a whole host of issues that we need to get behind in terms of this particular drama that has been inflicted upon the american people, we need to deal with tax rae foeform, strengthe the affordable care act, protecting the dreamers, the white house has us mired in conflict, controversy and confusion. i want to ask you about a political report saying that the president is personally interview ed two candidates, this for jeffrey berman and ed mcnally. the white house is saying it is the president who is making these nominations. so since they re candidates, he has the right to speak to them and figure out and try to decide for their position on things. but it has been raising concerns. can you chalk this up to political novice on behalf of the president or more? i doubt it. it seems to be of concern to a lot of people who are interested in good government and the even handed administration of justice. these u.s. attorneys functionally focus their energies as a chief law enforcement officer for their particular jurisdiction. manhattan happens to be the home of donald trump. and what is troubling about it is this evidence of an effort to help shape the mentality and the mind set of the individual who will be eventually confirmed as the top law enforcement officer, because the president is concerned about the investigation into his campaigns possible collusion with russian spies, interfering with the election, it will be best just to leave the process alone, make sure that it is not political, as every other president in the history of the republic with the possible exception of richard nixon has done. it is my understanding that president obama never conducted any of these candidacy interview s, is that correct? that s correct. as far as i understand it. neither did george w. bush or george h.w. bush or ronald reagan or bill clinton. house is gearing up for big legislation. you mentioned it. tax reform. top of mind of many certainly. in the coming weeks, look, there will be a lot of debates about this idea of a fourth tax bracket we heard about. house speaker paul ryan says the idea is to put that in place to make sure high earners don t get a big drop in their income tax requirements. so is this something you are on board with? well, i m on board with focusing on trying to create better jobs, better wages and better future for the american people and part of creating that better future which is what house democrats are all about is making sure that tax reform is done from the middle out. if anyone deserves a tax cut in america, it is the middle class. what appears to be happening is that president donald trump, republicans in the house and the senate, continue to put forward this failed theory of trickle down economics. where there is an argument if you cut taxes for the wealthy and the well off, everyone else will benefit. the problem is that there is no evidence of that having happened. if anything, what you do is you explode the deficit, the wealthy and well off save the money, put it into things other than creating jobs for middle class americans, and wages will remain stagnant. that was the record of george w. bush, that was the record during ronald reagan s tax cuts and if it happens again, it will fail again. we ll do everything we can to stop it. i want to ask you about former president obama on the campaign there in the gubernatorial race in virginia. among the theory that or concerns that black voter enthusiasm is waning, they say the sentiment goes beyond that of virginia, and new jersey, and more should be done by the party about all of this. what are your thoughts? well wi, certainly in the context of president barack obama s historic eight-year tenure, he was always going to be a very difficult act to follow because he would naturally be a vehicle to create a great deal of enthusiasm among african-americans, people of color, young people and many others across the united states. jackie robinson who broke the color barrier was a tough act to follow. but that said it would be issue that i think will be important in driving african-american turnout moving forward and we can all do a better job of speaking to the concerns of the african-american community, higher rates of unemployment than anyone else in this country, the mass incarceration phenomena, the voter suppression, the rise of the alt-right and the white supremacist movement in america, all issues that we re going to be sensitive to, speak to, with a laser like focus, and in the aftermath of president obama s tenure in office, those will be the issues that will drive african-americans to the polls, to turn things around in this country. thank you so much for the conversation. i appreciate it. still ahead, bill o reilly firing back at a new york times report of a multimillion dollar settlement and the amount will make your head spin. it started on a field of accomplished dreams and continued into the locker room, the houston astros last night celebrating their game seven victory over the upstart new york yankees with more than a little bubbly. now advancing to the world series as underdogs against my or the los angeles dodgers. sorry. today, the new new york is sparking innovation. you see it in the southern tier with companies that are developing powerful batteries that make everything from cell phones to rail cars more efficient. which helps improve every aspect of advanced rail technology. all with support from a highly-educated workforce and vocational job training. across new york state, we re building the new new york. to grow your business with us in new york state, visit esd.ny.gov. to grow your business with us in new york state, when it comes to strong bones, are you on the right path? 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that s coming up. these friends were on a trip when their windshield got chipped. so they scheduled at safelite.com. they didn t have to change their plans or worry about a thing. i ll see you all in a little bit. and i fixed it right away with a strong repair they can trust. plus, with most insurance a safelite repair is no cost to you. customer: really?! tech: being there whenever you need us that s another safelite advantage. singers: safelite repair, safelite replace. now that we have your attention. capri sun has four updated drinks. now with only the good stuff. do you know how to use those? nope. get those kids some new capri sun! finding the best hotel price is whoooo. now a safe bet. because tripadvisor searches. .over 200 booking sites - so you save up to 30% on the. .hotelock it in. tripadvisor. injuries. back to politics, and the white house remaining optimistic about its timeline for tax reform. here s what omb director mick mulvaney said in an interview moments ago. we re hearing now that the house may go ahead and either take the senate amendments or move very quickly to accept the senate amendments and we may save as many as 10 or 12 legislative days, a big deal, sounds like not much when you re here the end of october, but in the congressional calendar, that s a long time and it really does buy us more time and more opportunity to get this done before the end of the year. okay. and let s go to the controversy that started with president trump s condolence call to a gold star widow earlier this week. and joining me now, republican strategist robert trainer and marjorie clifton, welcome to you both. robb robert, you first here, would you say the president got off on the wrong foot with this call to start la david johnson s family? these are tough calls. clearly the family is grieving. they frankly some as i read, the president for the decision to send the loved one into a theater of war. these are really, really tough. however, a family that is grieving always has the upper hand. a family that is grieving gave the ultimate sacrifice and so for anyone, whether the president of the united states or any elected official to criticize that or to question that goes beyond the pale, no question about it. there is a great story about not great, but very indicative story of how difficult it is for president george w. bush, when he had to make a condolence call, he came away from marine one and had a tear rolling down his cheek and said they hate me he because the family just yelled and yelled over their pain. to your point, these are very difficult calls to make. but marjorie, once the criticisms came in, couldn t the president have taken the high road, are his whispers telling him that attacking a congresswoman who happens to be close to a gold star family in mourning fires up his base or what is it? well, i feel like the president brought this upon himself when he started politicizing it from the beginning, criticizing the way obama well, obama didn t call everyone the way i did. he opened the doors to a conversation that should have never been had. these should be intimate moments between a president and grieving families. every president has handled it differently. and by opening that door, he already takes away the intimacy and the care that came from that moment to begin with. absolutely it is problematic. it shouldn t be talked about in this way. it makes me sad that we re parading these people s grief around and that the president can t, you know, act like an adult and just be gracious and let the moment ride. we have to talk about the privacy of the phone calls and the fact that the congresswoman, she was in a car, with the family, with whom she s very close to. the widow of la david johnson got the phone call, put it on speaker, so her mother and the congresswoman who i believe was riding in the back seat as the story goes could hear what was being said. so she made a lot of this public. did she not? yes, but i will say that the conversation around how calls were handled which started when the president talked about i call everyone and president obama didn t call everyone and, again, these calls should have stayed private and became public, and in the same way that when, you know, president trump offered $25,000 to one of the fallen soldier s fathers, and then the money never arrives, he goes to the press, so he s made what were private moments very public, which has invited the recipients to also bring that to the press. this has become a media storm where it wasn t one before. that in itself is a sad, sad state of affairs. one that he brought on himself. yes, robert. just very quickly, if i was the white house press secretary or senior adviser in the white house, this is what i would have done. i would have said, mr. president, the widow and the family has the right to do whatever they want with that call. that s their call. we will be silent on this. this is a family that is grieving, please be quiet, don t say anything at all. okay. i think he should sign up for that press secretary job. no, no, no. he s like, not right now. don t want it. let s move on to with you marjorie to president having praised and then trashing a health care proposal. now he s pushing for a rightward shift that would get rid of the aca mandates. do you think he ll get his way? it is a daily flip-flop. i think it goes to the core of understanding the health care policy, which is just cost driven. the mandate was absolutely fundamental to making sure that cost was spread out among the sick and the healthy. and that s what it was in place for. republicans were at the inception of the aca bill. until everyone s covered, we don t have an even marketplace. it rattles the core of the affordable care act. so dare we try to predict and look in a crystal ball to understand what trump will do next. the subsidies they were proposing had to do with keeping it afloat, keeping costs afloat. it is how do we fund this, and nothing about the way trump has approached this has made us feel like he understands the core of how the markets work around the affordable care act. so then, robert, is the president just setting himself up for another health care failure? well, i don t know if it is a health care failure from his mind. he did in fairness to him, he did campaign on repeal and replace, he did give republicans in the house and the senate three opportunities to be able to repair and replace this. and they failed in that regard. what he s doing here, and i agree with what she said a few moments ago, this is the fundamental foundation if you will, the affordable health care act. you need a pool of healthy people in the system to subsidize the sick people. that s the reality in the marketplace and how it works. the question becomes do you take the heart out of the affordable health care act, does it collapse? i think it probably does under its own weight if in fact the president is successful. all right, well, thank you so much for weighing in on all of the topics. see you both again. word of another huge settlement involving sexual harassment allegations against bill o reilly. a new york times report not verified by nbc news goes into detail about the $32 million settlement with a long time fox analyst. nbc s morgan radford has details. cautioun, you are about to n enter the no spin zone. reporter: according to a new york times report, o reilly paid a $32 million settlement to lis wiehl, often seen on his top rated primetime show. the report alleges o reilly had a nonconsensual sexual relationship with wiehl, in a statement that fox admits they knew there was a settlement in january but was informed by mr. o reilly he settled the matter personally, adding the terms were confidential and not disclosed to the company. one month later, fox extended o reilly s four year contract for $25 million a year. at the time fox re-signed mr. o reilly, it knew about the settlement, it was also trying to make the argument to the public, its employees and its board that it had cleaned up workplace issues that had arisen under roger ailes. this was the sixth payout made by o reilly or fox to settle allegations against him. the company says the anchor s latest contract included a clause, saying it could fire him if other allegations came up, which, in the end, fox says it acted on when he was ousted in april. o reilly continues to maintain its innocence, his attorney is calling today s report a smear campaign. last month, o reilly speck to matt lauer. you said at the time you did absolutely nothing wrong. you stand by that? i do. i never mistreated anyone on my watch in 42 years. that was nbc s morgan radford reporting. in the state, o reilly s lawyer claims the new york times story ignored evidence taken under oath, adding the reporting was based on unsubstantiated allegations, anonymous sources and incomplete or stolen documents. president trump claims he contacted almost all of the gold star families of military personnel this year. but reports say an e-mail from the pentagon tells a different story. later this morning, joy reid talks to frederica wilson about the condolence call that has become so controversial. i m ginny and i quit smoking when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. some people had changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, agitation, depressed mood, or suicidal thoughts or actions with chantix. serious side effects may include seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking or allergic and skin reactions which can be life-threatening. stop chantix and get help right away if you have any of these. tell your healthcare provider if you ve had depression or other mental health problems. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. the most common side effect is nausea. thanks to chantix, i did it. ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. many insurance plans cover chantix for a low or $0 copay. an exclusive report from roll call is revealing a scramble at the white house, sparked by comments that president trump made last week. they obtained an e-mail in which the white house asked the pentagon for information about surviving family members of all service members killed after trump s inauguration so that the president could be sure to contact all of them. the e-mail was apparently sent after president trump said in a fox news radio interview he had contacted the families of, quote, virtually everybody in the military who died in service to the country since he took office. the associated press found that to be inaccurate. joining me now is chris, welcome back to the broadcast. what does this tell you about how the white house is operating behind the scenes? well, it is just more fallout from a terrible week for john kelly. he really this was a terrible blunder on thursday, a self-inflicted wound, when he went on that tirade against representative wilson. and got all of his facts wrong. but, you know, in fairness to kelly this is what happens to almost everyone in the orbit of this death star known as donald trump, who diminishes and tarnishes everybody around him. this should have been an easy thing to do. with any other president, you call the widow back, you apologize, end of story. but this president is incapable of empathy, incapable of apology, and that has to be hugely frustrating to john kelly. speaking of kelly, he opened up about his own experience, you talk about empathy and sympathy for him, i don t think there was anybody whose heart didn t go out to him as he talked about having lost his own son in afghanistan. that notwithstanding, do you get a sense of how much influence he has or doesn t have in this white house? first of all, you know, he was eloquent on the subject of his son, he was eloquent on the subject of the fallen soldiers. but, again, he veered off and lost control when he went after representative wilson. and i think that, you know, as for whether how much influence he has on donald trump, i talked to denis mcdonough, president obama s last chief of staff, who told me that he s been on the business end of some phone calls from general kelly and there is never any doubt that in his mind that he speaks hard truths. another former republican chief of staff told me, okay, if that s the case, how did rocket man get on to the teleprompter of the speech before the u.n. general assembly? that s malpractice by the white house chief of staff or evidence that donald trump isn t listening to kelly. so, the comments by frederica wilson, the ones which john kelly has gone after, they have been proven to be inaccurate. he didn t speak the truth about what she said, whether intentionally or not. is it in his makeup as a four star marine general or as a chief of staff in a white house to issue an apology or do you think that is something that just is part of the either within this white house, the fact that everyone says this president is incapable of issuing apologies. well, it is certainly part of the ether. i think we learned a number of things about john kelly this week. one thing we have learned is that he s out of his depth politically. the jim bakers, the leon panettas, the denis mcdonoughs, the really good white house chiefs of staff understood when you stand in front of a camera, you re not speaking as a marine, you re speaking as the white house chief of staff. you have to stay above the fray. even dick cheney, when he was gerald ford s 34-year-old white house chief of staff, his views were described as being to the right of ghengis khan and yet cheney was able to stay above the fray. he was always an honest broker, never would have known what his politics were, he never got into the trenches to fight the partisan battles. and that s a lesson that kelly, you know he, is apparently unequipped for. he doesn t have political experience. the white house is still firmly defending general kelly as you know. you ve got a top white house official telling axios that kelly made himself the moral core of the trump administration. do you agree with that assessment? that remains to be seen. i think another thing we learned about john kelly this week is a lot of people thought he was the nonideological grown-up in the room who would take the edge off of donald trump s excesses. well, maybe not so much. i think in that tirade that he went on against representative wilson, we got a sense that he may share more of donald trump s view s than we realized up to this point. it may not be a safe bet that he s always going to be the grown-up in the room here, taking the edge off of trump. okay, chris, thank you very much. we ll see you again no doubt. it has been 32 days since puerto rico s been without power and a majority of the island, but the drinking water situation there is also dire. my next guest will explain just how dangerous it is. and the home of the brave you see it there. all five living former presidents appearing last night at the one america appeal concert at texas a&m to help raise money for hurricane relief. the presidents jimmy carter, george h.w. bush, bill clinton, george w. bush and barack obama all united in their call for americans to do what they can for the victims of the disastrous hurricanes. as heart breaking as the tragedies that took place here in texas and in florida, in puerto rico and the u.s. virgin islands have been, what we have also seen is the spirit of america at its best. when ordinary people step up and do extraordinary things. president trump made an appearance in a video praising the relief efforts of the former presidents and vowed that america will recover and rebuild areas hit by the hurricanes. since the one america and rebui hit by the hurricanes, more than $31 million has been raised and you can go to oneamerica.org if you want to make a donation. maybe too affordable and fast. wbut they are buying them to protect their secrets?!?!, hi bill. if that is your real name. it s william actually. hmph! affordable, fast fedex ground. what happens to the factories if there s sustained damage, what happens to the people that live near them? the environmental impacts of the aftermath of hurricane maria are tough to even determine whether it s industrial pollution or animal pollution. what we are seeing is that at this point there s very little monitoring, and what we know is that unfortunately a lot of the chemicals and contaminants end up in peoples drinking water no matter where you are, and when you add the extra layer of the ca catastrophe brought on by maria, and a weak infrastructure, it could be a disaster. 18 superfund sites there in puerto rico. what is a superfund site and what do they pose to people and the threats in the environment? there s a superfund site location is could be a long-term contamination of soil and water and other resources, and they recognize this could pose a serious threat to human health, and those are sites basically slated for cleanup, and what we know is that even some of the recently designated superfund sites are still being used as sources of drinking water, so we can only begin to imagine the magnitude of risks we are taking there. the truth is, unless there s continued testing, we are potentially leaving a lot of people very vulnerable if these sites are even considered from spots where people can draw any drinking water. cleanup and ultimately getting puerto rico back in shape from an environmental perspective, how long is that going to take? it s anybody s guess, alex. it s likely to take a tremendous amount of time, probably years. in the immediate future, what i think we can look forward to and hopefully will have the epa s support and funding for the epa to get in there and duty work, to test and to analyze whether it s soil samples, drinking water, and to really assess what happened to a lot of dangerous industrial sites, coal, ash, et cetera, and even landfills after the hurricane, and how those might be affecting human health and the population because until we really know what we are dealing with, we are guessing and leaving a lot of people in really, really a really p precarious situation. thank you for providing that information to the show. in just a few minutes, nancys will be joy s guess on the future of obamacare. e. we re talking to you, cost inefficiencies, and data without insights. and fragmented care, stop getting in the way of patient recovery and pay attention. every single one of you is on our list. at optum, we re partnering across the health system to tackle its biggest challenges. at breathe freely fastring awmy congestion s gone. i can breathe again! i can breathe again! vicks sinex. breathe on. ever had hepatitis b, a liver transplant, other liver or kidney problems, hiv or any other medical conditions and about all the medicines you take including herbal supplements. taking amiodarone with harvoni can cause a serious slowing of your heart rate. common side effects of harvoni include tiredness, headache and weakness. ready to let go of hep c? 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candid views of this president. you talk to them one on one, they re pretty up front about the fact that they don t take all the president s words to heart. that they are kind of getting used to how he conducts himself and his disregard for the facts. and that s a remarkable thing for an american president, members of his own party, in the congress to say. it s where we are. and i m kind of used to it too now, because you talk to members of the congress. and in private, they don t even bother offering a defense of this president. they acknowledge he says things that are not true. look at what bob corker told us a few months ago in that interview, where he really broke with the president. he said the president tweets things that are not true, you know it, i know it, he knows it, damage to the fabric of american democracy, and that s an extraordinary thing for them to say. yeah. but yet they won t say it publicly. here s what i have to ask you, and one of the main reasons i m asking you. in are other reasons i m asking you about this. i m not sure if you heard the conversation i had just before you, with the military folks. talking about possibly going to war with north korea. do they question this president s grasp of reality. this is a person who can declare war. who has the military codes, but is lying and admits he does, and doesn t have a grasp on reality opinion do they voice concern about that? senator corker mentioned this to me a few months ago, he s uneasy about it i think what these lawmakers comfort themselves with is the fact they believe a lot of what the president does is mere bluster, he is blowing off steam, he doesn t follow through with his threats. i think they reassure themselves that he s not going to follow through with the comments he makes, they re merely words. they look at people around the president like john kelly. and they believe there is some restraint around a president if he does act impulsively, for the most point they ve gotten to the point where 11 months into this administration, they don t believe he s going to follow through with what he says and does. they do discount his public tweets and threats. what was it, the new word of the year was complicit? there s a good reason for that. jonathan, i want you to stand by, i want to bring in david now. weren t you hear the night that access hollywood tape were we on the air that night? we kept waiting for the apology to come the president apologized. i ve said and done things i regret. and the words released today on this more than a decade old video are one of them. i said it, i was wrong and i apologize. i said it, i was wrong and i apologize. now i want to send investigators, it s not me, it doesn t sound like me, it s what? yeah, don, so what. as you said, that day that that tape came out. my washington post colleague reported this story, we were on the air later that night. waiting for the president to come out and make that statement you just played. now that we re a little more than a year later, you probably would expect the president at this point still love him or hate him, to not acknowledge the many allegations against him. you wouldn t expect him to acknowledge things that he could be in jeopardy for, you would expect anyone especially the president of the united states to acknowledge a tape we ve all heard with our own ears and for which he apologized in a videotaped address you played. that is the lengths president trump will go to rewrite history on these cases, whether it s on that, whether it s on president obama s birth certificate, on a whole host of issues. but you just don t expect the president of the united states to lie as my dad would say, flat foot in your face. apparently now we do. for everyone who reads that story, what i took away from those quotes, from those members of congress who were speaking on background was this idea that they ve already priced in that you can only sort of take everything the president says to them in private with a grain of salt, you talk to the president. i m going by my take from these quotes. you talk to the president, he says some thenks, some of it is probably not that true. some of it maybe is true. you move on and work with members of the administration. but not not taking the president fully at his word. that is the gift of what some of those folks were telling jonathan in that story. a year into a four-year term, that s where a lot of people are, it s unfortunate. we all expect politicians and political operatives to spin, it s another thing, to just flatly go against what people know very well from their own eyes and ears. i want you to. remember this i want to play this for you. it s a strange press conference the president gave during the campaign. where he walked back from the birtherism. although it was tepid, he was like barack obama was born in the united states, period now we all want to get back to making america strong and great again. i just as a black person, seeing those people behind him. really? come on. the former president who he made up those bogus claims about said that all along i can t believe how ridiculous this is. we have better things and much more important things to deal with. it s clear he didn t believe it, he didn t want to say it, and he doesn t believe that now. or maybe he does, maybe there s some reason he s saying it, he just doesn t like the president who he inherited a great economy from. a great job market from, who he continues to say, you know, the stock market s doing great, doing great for years under barack obama. i wonder what he would have said if he inherited from barack obama what he inherited from the president before him. there s something particularly loathsome about the way president trump glommed on to the birther movement as a way to crawl his way to the top of the heap in presidential politics. leaving that aside for a moment. the president part of this is about president obama, and part of it is about president trump himself. it s about obama to the degree you feel like he s still in competition about president obama. he brags that the stock market is up 20% since he s been president. it was up 150% over obama s eight years. he knows that, i think his behavior suggests he s in competition with president obama. the part of this that s about president trump. and regardless of president obama. is that our presidents from george washington to president obama, you have to have a healthy ego to run for president, to say, i can be the leader of the free world. most presidents come to the job with an agenda, and trying to accomplish something for their legacy. for history. the ethos of president trump so far, he s daily seeking the affirmation of himself. he s often saying behind the scenes, he can t accept the results of the election. or can t accept president obama s birth certificate or can t affirm what he said on the access hollywood tape. those things don t redowned to the image he wants to have. so much more to talk about. i only have so many hours in the day, and so many hours in this broadcast. thank you, david. appreciate it. wonder what you re going to be reporting tomorrow, or in the next couple hours. i want to bring in now, a new york times columnist who has been standing by patiently here, what do you make of this? you know, presidents always exaggerate, they spin, they re always at least tethered to reality. sometimes with a long tether. president trump is the first president i ve seen who is untethered, and he s been this way not only for the last year, but for decades, and i think what is also unusual is typically, when we elect a flawed person, that person grows into the presidency, president trump has had a remarkable ability to stay the same as he s always been. you re being kind saying flawed? yes, i am. the thing that people don t want to talk about, this is not rational, this is not sane. this is crazy. there are two aspects here. one is the degree to which this demeans the u.s., degrades the presidency. it s hard to call the president a liar. it s hard to question the president s grasp of reality, as a journalist, i feel i have more respect for the office he holds than he does. saz a person who s supposed to call into question, supposed to hold the president s feet to the fire i feel an obligation to say this is nuts, this is insane. i do think we i think you re absolutely right. we respect the office by holding the people who hold that office accountable. i think our job as journalists has to be to try to continue that true squadding, and this raises obvious questions about what this does to american soft power, to the to the role of the presidency, also to the degree to which decisions are made based on facts, as opposed to some sort of alternative reality. this is what the reporter in the piece, maggie haber man tweeted. it was one of the rare moments he felt public humiliation in his life, people who know him say he s trying to will it away to some extent when he talks about it. what is going on? is he gaslighting himself? what is that. i really do think there is a continuous pattern here, what he s doing now with that access hollywood tape, is the same thing he was doing in the late 1960s, when he was caught denying blacks access to his apartment buildings in new york city. and he absolutely dede nighed what was crystal clear, what was proven in documents. and this has been a continuous pattern throughout his career, a lot of other countries do this too. i spent five years in china, where political leaders routinely if they don t like a reality, they construct an alternative one. and any connection with reality is largely coincidental. i think that s what president trump is doing. if a situation doesn t work, he invents a new one. we used to have the luxury of saying it happens over there. now those sort of dictatorial behaviors and is being used on american people. and it has a real cost. speaking of, north korea, i want to turn to north korea now, the president is now reacting, this is the frightening part, north korea s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile earlier today. as you probably have heard, and some of you have reported a missile was launched a little while ago from north korea. i will only tell you we will take care of it, we have general mattis in the room with us. we have had a long discussion on it. it is a situation we will handle. that was toned down, and it should be. do you think he realizes the seriousness of the moment? i hope so. i think there s a lot of nervousness in congress and in the pentagon that there s a growing recognition that our strategy has failed, our strategy had been to get china to apply pressure to north korea through sanctions to get north korea to change its behavior, i don t think anybody thinks that is working, it s also clear that our strategic aim was to get denuclearization of the korean peninsula, was not feasible. we have a strategic aim that is not feasible. we have a tactic and policy that is not working, and so there s a lot of anxiety that what s left that president trump may as he has promised, talk about military options, and presidents have thought about this since president nixon in 1969, they ve always pulled back, because those options are so awful. i know you know the power of your words, and i can feel you weighing them every time you come here, i always appreciate your candor, i think when you come on this show, you re always honest, and i think you re even more honest, i appreciate that. good to be with you, don. president trump continuing to push false conspiracy theorys from the access hollywood tape, does a president really believe all this? 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but i thought we were supposed to be talking about investing for retirement? we re absolutely doing that. but there s no law you can t make the most of today. what do you want to do? i d really like to run with the bulls. wow. yea. hope you re fast. i am. get a portfolio that works for you now and as your needs change. investment management services from td ameritrade. give a little bit give a little bit. -hello. give a little bit. . of your love to me oh, haha. there s so much that we need to share so send a smile and show that you care i ll give a little bit of my love to you does the president actually believe the words that come out of his own mouth. you have to wonder that in the face the president has made over 1600 false or misleading claims since taking the oath of office. which according to the washington post, works out to be more than five per day. does he believe what he is telling us? is he gaslighting himself? or is he gaslighting us? that provocative question from vanity fair. gaslighting according to psychology today happens when a person causes a victim to question reality. that could certainly apply to the president, who regularly denies the things that we all know to be true. things we have seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears. we remember when he was caught on tape saying this. i m automatically attracted to beautiful i start kissing them, it s like a magnet. and when you re a star, they let you do it, anything you want. they let you do it? you can do anything. before his inauguration, trump told a republican senator, he wanted to investigate that recording, even though he himself admitted he said those words and apologized for saying them. i said it, i was wrong. and i apologize. so which is it, mr. president, should we believe your apology then or your apparent denial now? i want to bring in tina nguyen who wrote that article. julia yaffe who is a staff writer for the atlantic. when donald trump tells a half truth or all out wli, he does so with assurance that it is often impossible to tell whether the president is deliberately disassembling, creating more comfortable depictions for himself give us examples? the one that comes to mind is the feud he had with jeff flake who delivered a blistering indictment of him when he announced his retirement. when asked to respond, he said, i don t know who jeff flake is, he s never met me. they met months before he was even elected. i could go on and on and on. gop tax cut zm. yeah, he claims he s not going to get any sort of benefit from the tax cut, which is pretty incorrect honestly, the entire history of covering donald trump has been what he s saying matching up with the truth. what about the fake renoir painting? he has a painting in his house that he insists is real. and the real one is hanging up in chicago. that s been debunked for a long time. but he still insists he has the real one. president trump continues to insist the voice on the access hollywood tape isn t him. and he s questioning the authenticity of barack obama s birth certificate behind closed doors. he also claims he lost the popular vote because of widespread voter fraud. does he possibly believe these things? i think it s something that he decides on a moment by moment basis. so his pattern is to establish many different claims about the same thing. so he could at one moment say that president obama was not born in the united states. then he could say i m sending detectives to honolulu to investigate, and then say oh, they re finding amazing things, and none of those things are true. but it s a great story to tell he can fall back on, and then i think he really does imagine that we re all buying this. that we only are aware of what he s saying in the moment. it s almost as if he s living out he declared would be his life. when he was much younger he said his life is a comic book, and he s the star of it. the show is trump and it s sold out every night. he oirk straights his life as if it s a dramatic performance. and we re the audience and the people around him are props. reality just depends on what the show is that moment. and if it needs to change, he changes it. i see you re nodding in agreement. you wrote a great piece about the president manipulating the media in a putin-esque way. putin figured out a better way to keep the press in line. explain how president trump is doing the same thing? we ve seen reports. it s weird i m saying this on cnn. we ve seen reports that one of the reasons that the time warner/at&t merger was blocked by the trump justice department was cnn s coverage. and cnn has been a constant punching bag for this president. he calls it fake news. he s at times literally like to tweet about punching cnn. this is the tactic the kremlin has figured out. they don t kill journalists any more, they just lean on the big company that owns as one of its many, many assets a cnn or a bloomberg or whatever publication, or an advertiser who among many other things, advertises in some magazine that s critical of avladimir putin, behind the scenes they lean on them. they don t want to risk their big business empire. they stop advertising or sell off the media property, they get laid off, they leave journal i678, because they have families to support. the reason independent media died in russia is because all the outlets were shut down for economic reasons. the kremlin has perfect plausible deniability. they can say, we had nothing to do with it. if the advertisers don t want to advertise with you, you don t have an economically feasible model, it has nothing to do with putsen. where it does. i appreciate all of you joining me here this evening. when we come back, the president told me he is the least racist person. just because you say it, doesn t make it so. we re going to dive deep into president trump s insensitive statements next. our average customer can significantly lower their monthly bills. quick. beat the fed s next rate hike. do not miss this window. are you sure you have the best rate? it only takes 3 minutes to find out. go to lendingtree.com right now. warren were sure applause lines on the campaign trail. and pocahontas is not happy. she s the worst. when the insult was repeated in front of navajo code talkers, only silence followed. the democratic senator called it a racial swlur. i think that s a ridiculous response. it s far from the only time the president has crossed racially sensitive lines. when a white supremacist rally ended in bloodshed. he suggested the counter protesters also bore blame. you had some very bad people in that group, you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. as the nfl players protest against police treatment of african-americans evolved. he was quick to demand their firing, tweeting about it numerous times, including this morning. the american public is fed up with the disrespect the nfl is paying to our country. out of control. he is as president who he was as a candidate. look at my african over here. look at him. while he bragged about support among minorities, he beat his base by demonizing them. immigrants from mexico. they re bringing drugs, they re bringing crime. they re bringing rapists and some i assume are good people. an american judge trump argued was biassed against him. he s of mexican heritage and his very proud of it. you have sacrificed nothing. and no one. the muslim mother of an american soldier killed in combat after her husband spoke against trump during the democratic convention. she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably maybe she wasn t allowed to have anything to say, you tell me. he relentlessly and falsely suggested the nation s first black president barack obama was not a natural born citizen. if he wasn t born in this country, he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics. trump refused to believe five young men were falsely accused of savage rape in central park in the 80s. trump has continually and emphatically defended himself against charges of prejudice. i am the least racist person. are you bigoted in anyway? i don t think so, no. islam phobic? no, not at all. when people say you re racist or homophobic or islam phobic or whatever it is. or compare you to hitler. does that bother you? if things are true, it would bother me tremendously. the president almost always doubles down on his remarks and his defenders deny any racist intent. those denials are less and less convincing as more examples pile up. when we come back, is there a deeper political motive behind the president s statements, or does he actually believe all of this? getting a bad haircut. overcrowded trains. turnstiles that don t turn. and spilling coffee on themselves. but for everyone else, there s directv. for #1 rated customer satisfaction over cable, switch to directv. and for a limited time get a $100 reward card. call 1-800-directv give a little bit give a little bit. -hello. give a little bit. . of your love to me oh, haha. there s so much that we need to share so send a smile and show that you care i ll give a little bit of my love to you to find smarter solutions. to offer more precise and less invasive treatment options than before. like advanced genomic testing and immunotherapy. see how we re fighting to outsmart cancer at cancercenter.com/outsmart and her new mobile wedding business.tte at first, getting paid was tough. until she got quickbooks. now she sends invoices, sees when they ve been viewed and-ta-dah-paid twice as fast for free. visit quickbooks-dot-com. of us were here. although we have a representative in congress who they say was here a long time ago. they call her pocahontas. there was silence after that comment. because everyone in the room knew he was using a racial slur directed at senator elizabeth baron. joining me now, bakari sellers and ed martin. good evening everyone, here we are bakari, i want to read this, this is from maggie haber man. this is from the new york times. it says, in recent months, they say mr. trump has used closed door conversations to question the authenticity of president barack obama s birth certificate, he claims he lost the popular vote last year because of widespread voter fraud. one senator who listened as the president revived his doubts chuckled on tuesday as recalled the conversation. the president has had a hard time letting go of his claim that the president was not born in the united states. his political career began with birtherism, this was a conspiracy theory he harbored. why can t he let this go? maybe because that s who he is. i don t think this is anything new about his character, you can go back to atlantic city, can you go back to the central park five, housing discrimination, his comments about muslim americans, about mexican americans, judge curial, we can talk about the usage of pocahontas under the portrait of andrew jackson. at a memorial where we remembered some world war ii veterans. you can go through this long litany of things. the problem we have is two fold, people are becoming desensitized when he makes racially innoce e insensitive comments. two, you have good people who are willing to set aside that and still support him anyway. so those two groups of individuals, the ones who are desensitized to this, and the ones who are putting this aside and supporting him anyway. are a bigger problem than donald trump in my opinion. i happen to agree with bakari on that. the excuse of this is just who he is, many of us warned the american people that this is who he is they cast that aside, and didn t care. just because you can explain it, doesn t mean you should excuse it. that s what people who supported donald trump are continuing to do now when he lies and behaves in a way that is is existential threat to our republican, our norms and institutions, every single day, something else comes out that demonstrates the threat he poses. it s sour grapes. because he won. no, it s not sour grapes, pointing out what s happening, the reality in front of us is not sour grapes, those of us are concerned with how do we move forward. how do we protect the country from this, you cannot have a functioning government, when the president of the united states behaves this way. and i mean, he knows the comments offend people, but he doesn t want he says that he doesn t want to stop insulting people. why does he keep saying then? i mean, two quick comments, guys, i know we re talking about some of these comments and i hear them. donald trump s political career, if you look back over 25, 30 years, he s been talking about immigration and china, and other issues, in addition to some of these comments you brought up. i watched your show, i watch your show with some devotion. and i m on frequently, when i watch the new york times reporter report a series of anonymous sources, the main one is a senator who made comments before the inauguration about the president s state of mind regarding the access hollywood. there s a reason out here maggy has been on day after day now about anonymous sources about the state of mind where sarah huckabee-sanders gets out and says he hasn t changed his mind. you realize these are the same reporters the president calls frequently whenever he wants to get his message out. and she s so discretted why did the president call her? the question was why does he continue to do it when he knows it s an insult? about pocahontas you mean? why does he continue to insult even beyond pocahontas? i don t think it s a racial slur in anyway. and if you call someone who isn t a native-american pocahontas i think that isn t a slur. i think that s called making fun of someone, not a racial slur. we don t know that she is. she s already admitted regardless it s not the forum. it s inappropriate. does anybody realize pocahontas was a real person? she s associated with james town in 1613. she was actually kidnapped by white cologniests. and died of a horrible disease. and died of a horrible disease. there is nothing about that story there is nothing about that story that you should actually use that. let me help you understand this. this is like you calling me j.j. or even more importantly you calling me leroy. it s the same thing. no, it s not. listen, i ve got to say this because i m out of time. disney made a movie about pocahontas and the movies with to honor pocahontas not to make fun of her. and it s a real story. exactly. and i agree it s not a slur. i mean wish i had time to take care of my portfolio, but.. why aren t you using this guy? 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and also talk about facebook targeting sexual assaults also the tax reform build this week but can they get the job done is a the end of president trump? with the a coup to overthrow the president? all that and mortar fire was taking money from big business to screw small business we have that shocking story pearl we have a packed show tonight was so much going on you don t want to miss any of that but first to be issued that fuels the populist revolution the forgotten men and women left behind that made the rich richer and half of the country pour. new numbers came out on friday and more good news we were told. 220,000 new jobs the lowest unemployment in 17 years in the tax bill will make things even better that is the pitch to the way but especially the senators who represents the states that president trump won its 16th day did not feel they were in peril if they opposed it but there are too many experts making the argument that the estimates are to hold little not trickle-down to labor but it will benefit corporations and not enough of wage increases. so there is some anxiety so first lead if we passed it? if they all feel that palpable difference in their lives with medical deductions what if they go on to the entitlement reform working for a middle-class black it does not feel that something has been taken away? that is a huge political problem. so the quibbles with the tax code to have a pro-business president in the white house to give energy and momentum we can argue about how much so what will those critics do? when the economy does better and better?. base still say that it continues to get better we have a former president taking credit for that but the economy is doing better even president obama agrees with that. and i agree with what you were saying in part it is optimism and the republicans show but get this to say we need a victory. we all know this is not perfect we agree this is not what we wanted but it is a step in the right direction is send a message we will do something this president is pro-business and open for business again and bad in itself will be the uptick in the economy with worker confidence and america s confidence for bad as with the president brings us. democrats have been telling us it will raise taxes on the of the class that is overwhelmingly live people will file their taxes and find that is not true. we will see. i am all for it is a step in the right direction but now the other big story where are you on the roy moore situation?. here s the deal. i don t think this is any place the republicans to be in it is not ideal but nothing this past year is ideal. when you have a debacle with the year book and the of forgery i think it is becoming a mass of voters are seeing back. some will not be happy because of the allegations but moving forward americans care about the agenda for co at the end of the day i think the voters want to see the agenda to be flushed through so with those allegations going back and forth a think everybody is sick of that. i could not have voted for roy moore even before all the women came forward he is an odious character on the national scene. i do think he will win. i think the development in the last two days it turns out that the year book signature was not represented totally accurate the was probably the last broad that broke the camel s back from those wavering voters to say okay i can put this aside the they re not totally up front about that at the beginning is damaging to the accusers credibility i agree he will win. there are not enough voters know republican senators, all of them for them to say initially they would expel him when he arrives. they absolutely will not under any circumstances. no way. democrats nominated a moderate he may have a chance to dave nominated the left-wing in an alabama. steve: not much longer to wait. coming up the ethanol industry that fills up the d.c. swamping and former campaign manager joins me from the trump campaign now the politicalization of everything continues. this week linsey von take said shot a president trump. don t go away. this is electricity. this is a power plant. this is tim barckholtz. that s me! this is something he is researching at exxonmobil: using fuel cells to capture carbon emissions at power plants. this is the potential. reducing co2 emissions by up to 90%. while also producing more power. this could be big. energy lives here. looking for a hotel that fits. whoooo. .your budget? 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what do you make of this?. when she said she wanted to represent the american people and initially was to represents the one dish she doesn t find it deplorable that is like hillary calling them names that seems to work so well for the democrats that is why we have president trump but they cannot help themselves these athletes instead of doing their support they are dried into it by the interviewer or they feel they must make a statement and all she will do is to send americans that probably loved her before the interview trump is supporting america by the way we are still americans mueller still representing as going to the olympic games. steve: the question was ridiculous but there is a simple way out to say i give my support i don t get involved in politics. everything is politicizing. i just think it is since comparable. she was asked a leading question and there are many americans who find president trump the pauling says she answered the question she did not get on twitter to say on patriotic things i think chelsea and is a disaster and she says horrible things all the time i cannot compare the two. i am just exhausted the last time we were here talking about the nfl is exhausting i like to think of myself as kind of normal but it is exhausting to how politics shoved down my throat all the time there is somebody on the right he is a writer who was hilarious and talented talks about the politicize how it is sold crushing and sold sucking so vineland s yvonne do your thing at all folie want twitter for reason chelsea handler if there is of fire coming to conceal their roster for spot is you donald trump and you need help. in 2012 he lied about day president over years. this will go on and? will rex i will say this about chelsea handler i debated her and i have to say speaking with her i think everything she stands for is ridiculous but as the upper said we had a good conversation. when she says this is that she doesn t realize it but she is donald trump s ago is on twitter she is as ridiculous things think it s a reaction and she is donald trump but she hates him for that very reason. what about sarah huckabee sanders? you make a point. but they get away with it. tuesday i can do it because it is my art but it is also a woman who has done very questionable things. some people say that about sexual harassment. it is funny i can do it. chelsea handler is donald trump. she will love that. but is there a coup against president trump within his own party? i will ask the campaign manager that very question next percolator to take on the ethanol industry. stick around for that. evice that s drug free, wire free for deep penetrating lower back pain relief. and now get aleve direct therapy. available at walmart. i met bruce i saw on his lapel (che s got a purple heart.e (bruce) we started talking about the service. i outrank him. 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(chris and bruce) put a little love in your heart. our recent online sales success seems a little. strange?nk na. ever since we switched to fedex ground business has been great. they re affordable and fast. maybe too affordable and fast. what if. people aren t buying these books online, but they are buying them to protect their secrets?!?! hi bill. if that is your real name. it s william actually. hmph! affordable, fast fedex ground. pleased that you stop by on our little show it is great to see you. my pleasure to be here. thank-you steve. steve: i have seen you on different occasions i appreciate what you ve got to the trump campaign right into the lion s den on morning show on msnbc. how did that feel?. i don t think it does get much ratings it was like the octagon to get ready and prepared myself with a little martial arts ahead of time because you have a few people there who just don t want to give this president the credit and the big story this week that not enough people talking about is the decision the president made as to it relates to israel. tel president preceding him in on the first year in office to fidel another campaign promise to recognize jerusalem as the capital is a huge steel not getting enough press. steve: i am glad you brought that up. you said drop the campaign led trump we trump this is a perfect example cerros saying something and sticking to with. i appreciate that but something that has been on my mind we talked about taxes earlier many agree that would be a terrific results but the question that i give to year-old to your that the fact that the republican establishment detest donald trump frankly they detest him now they will get the tax bill done and side but left period and i have heard is that president trump s the many signs that the bill that they don t need him anymore that at that point all of the establishment republicans it is time to do get a good of you and we will try to move against him in washington. what you think about that very?. he is exceptionally popular to most of the republican base hit is stronger and more visceral more than it was on election day with those 10 democrats they re looking for his help and for his guidance in places where it is actually popular when it comes to the republican party if they are not willing to play ball they are willing to call them out to fulfill those campaign promises if he has no problem to called about them out. can they take on that entire establishment and win? all you hear is the fact whatever they say impossible and public. the republican establishment those people have completely failed to be leaders in the u.s. senate jeff flake has decided not to seek reelection because he knows he will lose in the state of arizona because trump would support somebody else. those who want to keep washington the same way it has been the last 30 years is a failure. because the people of this great country voted for change and that changes donald trump and it has come to washington. steve: i agree because the big thing that is missing is the populist revolution going beyond the of white house that is why your book is a useful reminder to be to that entire republican in the establishment. if you have questions or comments?. give is great to do see you and i agree 100 percent electron be trump he really is making america great again there are some better very happy right now but i get it all the time here is a question of republicans say the agenda is working and like what he is doing but i don t like his tweets he is mean what do you say? day miguel of the fact he tweets because donald trump is bypassing the mainstream media with example after example of him being disingenuous he did it today with the washington post he put a picture out of the rally in pensacola and then guess what? zero accountability i think in general the american people love it because it is him unfiltered directly to them. steve: that is a good example of top twitter activity shows so i completely agree. corey allow to talk about the democrats in 2018 iran. couple of states where they are vulnerable or moderate democrats who might say they want to work with the president on some level that every single one of them vote no on tax reform. taco letting trump we trump to you think he will head to west virginia and montana and missouri and north dakota to call the about and replace them with republicans next year court. i think he will hit the campaign trail hard to next year impresas he is popular if you look at the state of west virginia where there economy is going under the trump administration tel manchin could walk across party lines he has chosen to be an obstructionist and win trump goes there to campaign for his opponent that would be a problem. he is exceptionally popular because of the policies and the regulation taking place the regulation taking place. i am interested in a the disconnect led the president characterize this as the of the class. rigo steve spee and appointed a 44% rate over $5 million now we are looking at basically those are great corporate cuts but not so much for the middle class. there is talk of the next agenda item in the election-year they are calling welfare reform. the president said he was not unlike those other republicans to take your safety net programs aware like medicare or medicaid and would not cut them what will president trump agreed to that makes up for that deficit spending? i cannot believe they tried to do this during the election year. what is the plan? seven channel began to move forward back quickly. to look what the president talked about on the campaign trail first, replace obamacare that still needs to get done it is a campaign promise that needs of the old. the largest tax cut since the reagan administration that is on the cusp with transportation infrastructure spending bill that has the potential to be bipartisan support and a just one of these is accomplished it would be a very successful first years of the administration it took barack obama until february of this second year to get obamacare it looks like we get the tax cut done in the first 11 months of this administration and i call that success. steve: thank you so much the book is called what trump we trump by corey lewandowski sent the box to your of liberal friends. banks for joining us. steve: coming up blue newt that guest in your car was fuelling the d.c. swamp? we look at the ethanol industry. like the flame that burns the candle the candle feeds the flame topped steak & twisted potatoes at applebee s. now that s eatin good in the neighborhood. hesumatra reserve told in the time it takes to brew your cup. let s go to sumatra. where s sumatra? 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steve: government subsidies for ethanol have long been a swamp the tradition in america dressed up as action to help the environment it is one more example of big government in bed with big business at your expense. you may have voted to drain the swamp in 2016 but with the ethanol lobby it is still business as usual. of a corrupt ethanol industry this week is on swap watch. ethanol a type of fuel used by a processing corn mixed with gasoline to have a few of the of the decree greener than traditional gasoline for the federal government ordered energy companies to produce a certain amount every year. the renewable fuel standard of course, it is a racket because it artificially boost the ethanol market in turn boosted the demand for corn. sold get rich industry has a lobbying operation to keep this being produced. the big government boondoggle hurts the consumer of like the manhattan institute says the government run at the all system cost drivers ted billion dollars per year in extra fuel costs. when you buy your groceries because the ethanol back it raises corn prices artificially high. gary and chickens and cattle farms have to spend more to feed livestock so you spend more of your gavin immelt. here is the crazy part does the club agreed regulation is bad for the environment a report by the national academy of science s sake those court based ethanol creates more emissions than that of production and use of regular gasoline also contributes to pollution in one study estimates over half of the nitrogen pollution was due to cornyn soybean crops so if that hurts consumers why on earth is it ought to by the federal government? as usual not just lobbying but straightforward al-anon corruption big business buying of politicians to get what they want. i what is the number one producer of corn and ethanol in the united states guess who gets thousands of dollars in donation from. ethanol companies and interest groups? iowa senator chuck grassley and t negative v i space renewable fuel industry and monsanto and other giant and archer daniels midland. and other ethanol producers and of course the ringmaster the renewable fuels association spending nearly $8 million is lobbying but to really a understand all this works you have to understand why they need chuck grassley because these senators have themselves on that key committee to cable big business corruption earnst is a the member of the environment and public works committee that takes the adopt more negative the nomination to the that epa to administer the ethanol rex there. earnst printer s row with democrats with the epa nomination did not promise to go with nt caved to the blackmail so he renewed it to keep that status earnst was proud of her work i was not afraid to put the squeeze on him this was important we have family farms here in iowa how dare senator earnst use hard-working family farmers in iowa to cover per corruption? cargill and monsanto these giant global corporations shovelling money in their pockets they are destroying family farms and in iowa and earnst is helping them do it. it isn t just those farmers with small or medium-sized many don t have the infrastructure so unbelievably in order to comply with the federal government small refiners have to pay to produce more ethanol on their behalf and then this gives even more money so if you one day textbook example how does it system is rigged to this is it. this disgusting racket hafez incredible rocket and in 2012 philadelphia energy solutions had a patent million dollars for a battlefield that it could not produce itself. it would have spent 300 million that is twice as much the small independent refiners will get those middle-class workers but because of that burden of the racket the philadelphia energy solutions have to pay off 17 workers from last year earnst when she first ran for senate remember this?. i have senator earnst i castrated hogs on dave iowa farm when i get to washington and know how to cut pork, senator earnst you joined the swamp just like the others you with the stooge with the agriculture corporation schering the businesses in your home state and beyond to the pig now? iowa congressional candidate is one of those incumbents so you there in iowa campaigning for election but that ethanol racket is good for small family farmers?. it was always presented as a bridge deal and here in iowa we need to have that conversation. at the values as 40 percent of our corn so what will happen?. steve: how does that affect the small farmers compared to big agricultural companies?. this zero eager were they paid the money and the golan the committee s that is in the business s interests. but they are left out of the picture. totally. we are actually negative we are on the verge of a farm crisis our debt levels are high you are seeing that conservation taken out to have ethanol but when you take that swamp money that is why it it is happening because the senator earnst and senator grassley. wade to talk about where lead going? ethanol is the bridge but that doesn t seem to be working dupont just closed a plant a plant so now what is the neck step? looking at your conversation it should be over solar with china flooding the market with solar panels but small farmers are struggling and it could get worse if we don t talk about this now. steve: really what you think the government system is propping up the dying industry trying to help the farmers move to the next generation?. but with that industry and transition to show signs of weakness that is why i raise this issue but i will modify take that tech from monsanto because that is what many. that is what is going on with those big players dominating the policy with the smaller industries that are left behind. steve: the controversy of the renewed statements when kids as young as six use social media? coming up next. they can even pay their bill- (beep) bill has joined the call. hey bill, we re just- phone: hi guys, bill here. do we have julia on the line too? k, well we ll just- phone: hey sorry. i had you muted. well yea let s just- phone: so what i was thinking- ok well we ll- phone: yeah- let s just go ahead- phone: oh alright- the award-winning geico app. download it today. i just want to find a used car start at the new carfax.com show me used trucks with one owner. pretty cool. [laughs] ah. ahem. show me the carfax. start your used car search at the all-new carfax.com. when you re clocking out. sensing your every move and automatically adjusting to help you stay effortlessly comfortable. i can even help with a silent night. does your bed do that? i don t actually talk but i can tell you how you slept. i m the new sleep number 360 smart bed. let s meet at a sleep number store. we are the driven. the dedicated. the overachievers. we know our best investment is in ourselves. we don t take no for an answer. we fight for what we want. even for the things that were once a given. going to college. buying a home. and not being in debt for it for the rest of our lives. but we re only as strong as our community. who inspires and pushes us to go further than we could ever go alone. sofi. get there sooner. steve: welcome back to you the next revolution this week the tech giant rolls out a new messaging gap between the ages of six and 12 facebook says it is in response to growing safety concerns from parents that many are asking if they should have such access is parent to prove contacts and they can control another device facebook says this is responsible although critics say if they are grooming future were customers with the market share of the young people of that is taken by snap chat. it is naive to assume that young kids are not on social media there are concerns ultimately led find this data collection of the big silicon valley companies but it is the reality. comes down to parents if they want to make that choice and if they don t then don t do it. i think would be silly to say it should exist because there is a market. with a source very close to facebook my wife were to there in the executive royal but actually with the low income people working irregular jobs actually day keep in touch with their children through this kind of thing that is really helpful. with faddy the criticism. i could come up with a few examples with the social media of platforms can lead to beneficial outcomes i dig for the developing mind on social media they could get into the goal problems there on it all the time they re not doing sports were their homework. but this does with neuron the sites you have a fake version of yourself to a market that and dealer now living your life spending hours a day developing that mine to always lived there. interesting. i agree with both of you but it always goes back to do parenting there are parenting uses technology and social vesa to say this is the fault of facebook and those that working companies and with the parents are asking for. so let s be honest ago is back to the parent if you are a good parent you watch what you re children are doing it doesn t matter. steve: that is a good note to end on. and the truth of all of this aa. and i don t share it with mom! right, mom? righttt. safe driving bonus checks. only from allstate. switching to allstate is worth it. guess what i just got? hello again. hi. get up to $400 towards a galaxy note8 or s8 with qualifying trade-in. only on samsung.com 3 toddlers won t stop him.. and neither will lower back pain. because at a dr. scholl s kiosk he got a recommendation for our custom fit orthotic to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. dr. scholl s. born to move. what maheart-healthyle salad the california walnuts.ver? the best simple veggie dish ever? california walnuts. the best simple dinner ever? great tasting, heart-healthy california walnuts. so simple, so good. get the recipes at walnuts.org. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that s why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management. steve: the debate about social media and children are raging around the table. we will come back to it on another occasion. before we leave each night, a quick thank you an important thank you to all the men and women battling the horrific wildfires here in california. hopefully brave first responders will get the fire under control soon in time to have a peaceful christmas with their loved ones.
mining your fish florida and i work at the. inconceivable atrocities took place in the nazi era. three european authors have written very successful crime novels and the third time. so why is this a fitting shondra for writing about this chapter of german history. shaped almost more buffy the moment i wrote a new r. novel about paris during the occupation because the french know very little about those years should. and even less about the collaboration with the nazis but he almost this city itself becomes a protectionist in the novel a bit too much of a moment it was a violent time. in some parts of paris people were partying while in other parts they were starving for no good no he s a quintessential elements of the war fiction but we re not allowed to sell steal money. because of the price because in the final republic because of the nazis because of the cold war he was being probably the base for t.v. in changing cities most interesting city to write about the us had you said from the point of view of crime right up to the anywhere so let s get right. to the body by my life in berlin the final yes but the most exciting time after that because of your apart from the economy everything was flourishing intellectual and cultural life and science all of that ended up promptly ninety three it s almost impossible to explain this cultural breakdown which was ultimately to wreak havoc on the entire world of the crime novel is the best medium for understanding this period but a lot but good reading. philip was the first to create a german police inspector who works in the third. based in berlin. after the nazi takeover and high stock fire the nature of policing changed opposition politicians were rounded up. a man with drafted in to work as exhilarate police. increasingly jews became a target of persecution. in his novels kermit is history and fiction. boss is detective superintendent. a modern police officer who introduced the use of crime scene forensics he was also the inspiration for superintendent in fritz lang s film. only. it. started out as a copywriter. in london in the one nine hundred eighty s. first office the second one moment smile face when. that was the agency i worked in before i went to work. for a subject such. so yeah i worked a man for. five years. across the street from because former office is the london library was bored by advertising work so he turned to studying. and writing crime novels. i was very lucky because i mean you know. working there and having this library here. that seemed like a really you know lucky charms nobody knew i was going it was like. you know i could be over here for an hour and nobody would notice. a sleeve my coat hanging on the back of the chair i come in here yeah exactly. is this the first place. and i said they came interested in the whole phenomenon of the nazi revolution and i wanted to understand it better and once i started to read german philosophy i sort of started to get much more interested in how it all happened he s a kind of extension of me in a lot of ways he s big he s grumpy he s misanthropic. he s some decent he s temperamentally unemployable. and post your mo he s got a very dark sense of humor as i have got a free blacks and if you man myself but i find that some. i find that chimes with berlin itself and it i think berlin is have a free a very dog sense of humor a cruel sense of humor. perhaps it s me growing up and skull on the debt now but the scots have a very cruel sense of humor and they re cruel people. and so the cruelty comes out in the humor i think really and that s that in a way it s the it s the humor that makes it possible for the writer to get through the book without committing suicide. writer and former journalist fuckwit child lives than. his first crime novel was published in german in two thousand and seven it was the start of an award winning series about cologne native. who also works as a police inspector in berlin. carry on a lot. it s a typical cologne native the church is important for him and carnival season is even more important he s not as catholic as his parents think he should be but he s more catholic than he realizes he s actually sort of agnostic his attitude is typical of his home city of gnostic or maybe there is a god so we should live our lives in a way that we just that we can to have and. that s also how german comedian you re going back to put it in the great of the minus is good enough it s not a mortal fear minos of iced. in contrast to philip begins his work in the weimar republic. he s interested in how inspector hot deals with a transitional from democracy to dictatorship. and his fifth case hartis in cologne for the famous monday carnival parade. in one nine hundred thirty three mayor con had ordered the removal of swastika flags from the streets the parade motto was cannibal like it used to be. but not a flags were everywhere one year later and racist and anti-semitic themes also featured increasingly on the flights this reached its india in one thousand nine hundred eighty nine. that here the war began. and by nine hundred forty five colonial a in ruins. but in one thousand nine hundred eighty three god s world was still in pretty good shape he even had a flag after all it was khan of all time. and food on site. in those days. things weren t as permissive as they are today still at the carnival celebrations guys could find a girl everyone was in a party mood was told so found a woman but unfortunately he was already engaged that was not exactly appropriate this them so pleasant. procession of damaged tanks and very young soldiers have it be so. eight years or more exhausted many are wounded. and they re on their way home. testing football this is the cover of the paperback edition photo. the photo shows paris residence during the occupation they re standing under swastikas and flanks and fraternizing with the germans in a fight that he s su. well known that you can see a champagne glass in the foreground. here is very relaxed it shows ordinary people having a great time. the nazis chief character. is a vice squad inspector who works undercover for the resistance and is in radio contact with london. he frequents the glamorous parisian salons and observes firsthand how easily the germans are corrupting french society. he belongs to both the resistance and the police has to play a street in conspicuous character at all times. he s watched into playing this role he has to appear completely insignificant. absolutely mo i know but under normal circumstances he wouldn t be like that at all. so ok now on the condition. in her book why not he also writes about a massacre of young resistance fighters that was carried out by the french gestapo in august one nine hundred forty four. we suppress exact among them so that actually happened in what events in. what i moved to the border blown you. all novel writing is politics it s a huge luxury to be able to write about you know the worst people in history. and go learn people like that they are. it s lighter it s like dracula i mean the these are wonderfully villainous or for people to write about that are beyond invention novelis could invent a character as wicked as hydra. this is general pace was one of the main architects of the holocaust and cursed first novel march violets going to me titus who sends him to the concentration camp as an undercover agent it s a painful experience for bernie. in later books had this evolves into his make this. race was fully capable of being a loving father and a brutal police functionary the checks called him the blonde beast. how did it was assassinated in prague in the one nine hundred forty two incurs novel prague fertile how trace has bernie s lover checks by brutally tortured in his presence. so that scene came around because i just wanted to remind people of what these who these people were and what they did to people and what they were capable of doing to people you know. but equally the method that they used to interrogate their goal is what the cia are doing today so that s why it s there you know the nazis invented waterboarding or probably they didn t but they were certainly very effective at doing it so you know you with all the stories you want there to be a kind of. something that resonates in the modern world. in january nine hundred forty two presided over the vines a conference on the final solution to the jewish question. there it was decided that most of the jews in german occupied europe would be deported to poland and made it kirk has come here to do research for peace of the. worst of the worst. and they see it as. the swearing we see you ve done after the war was declared he did a lot of time in the in the lift up he became first bill came a recount. in the buff and went on bombing in. norway. and he really enjoyed he just enjoyed sitting back machine gunning. another of his nazi era crime novels focuses on a fictional police conference that was held five months after the conference. is dead by then and as she says the conference which is also held at the van s a villa the all. the same time the international crime of the century was being committed by many of the people sitting in the room and it just struck me as she always love these kind of ironies of history i love the sort of the bits between the lines of history that we don t know about i mean it was trite most people is absurd that they would they would do that but that s exactly what they did so you know here where we re standing now there would have been in july nine hundred two there with the being policeman from all over you re standing here having a cigarette i mean cup of coffee and then going in there and having lectures from various policeman and one of whom in the novel will be pentagon for. so burney us turn up and make a speech in there so that s really what i was after i m. standing in that window thinking that s where he stands that s where the speech occurs and then they come out here and they have a cup of coffee he s introduced to somebody who will be pivotal in the rest of the story who s a swiss policeman. in one thousand nine hundred forty the nazis occupied paris. minorities main character is the head of the french kostopoulos. a highly decorated police officer and he controls all of paris together with former gangster all the love for. both our collaborators and criminals those who oppose them full out of windows will simply vanish for ever he ll need to vote against that before we re here at ninety three rule lower east on that chris was an infamous address during the occupation. it was the headquarters of the french to stop oh yes the people who think that your division. when the lot of money is building where bonnie and la phone had their offices was called lock erlang or the cockpit minimill. you see i see this building witnessed many dreadful crimes who you see many people were tortured here has not been thought the french to stop a was a key element of the collaboration structure and next day it could be in the thick head don t mean huge because i. feel neat because of this it says you need. to consider the plasticity as uni just a few steps away but as they sit there. day the frame i guess topple prison was located here at number three. on their prisoners were kept here between interrogations they would do that before they were turned over to the germans i ve owned and even it s at their grammar. about twenty meters away from the gestapo prison at number eleven is the alltel dunno why you during the war it housed one of the liveliest literary and artistic cellphones in paris. he there were two big cell phones one was run by florence the other by madame de no i. met them to know i. wasn t the buildings are close together was some of the every time i come here i m struck by the contrast and it reminds me that people must have known what was happening here again your plea they could not have ignored it and this is where it all took place memo. this year they extravagant parties and their that doc torture and death spots memo and the buildings were right next to each other. maybe the french upper class completely accepted the s.s. and they were mocked they don t mean the s.s. men were more popular because their uniforms were much more attractive uniform that black is a lot more becoming than field gray. a pretty young good to have to go through. the chief collaborators came to an inglorious and the germans abandoned them when they pulled out of paris. when la phone was taken prisoner after the liberation he said i spent four years surrounded by orchids tell you send bentleys it was worth it for a the phone was the rest of the day paris was liberated and was executed immediately. his stance resistance means admitting that terrible things happened. if you don t talk about them you allow them to happen again. i hope you will. as this is instituted which if you are the first sentences are really important just like the last one as you appear to not just in the novel as a whole but in each chapter to get seeger s that s the sentence i ve got now is ok it s ok it definitely gets you into the scene but how i m going to stop the book because well i can read it as it s going to fall in the suggestive comments on their own the room was full of people muttering and clouds of cigarette smoke max hansen s voice grated from the phonograph speaker and then comes a call from hanson books and yet. we had a good beat up. on. the main issue you. need me if you know the think you need to. believe him and i ll talk right of inishmaan how can i continue my daily routine when i realize that everything around me is changing radically and i throw this up the shaft a lot since i got to be careful he is just one of us no more rule of law often and it s easy to fall into the clutches of a wild pack of essay wolves that s bush didn t need money would never stick his neck out like phillip because benny going to no way even if he says i m going to know what he s a totally different kind of character your feet are going to sometimes i wonder how going to could have survived back then. rod might have a big mouth in charlie s present but never around anyone from the s.s. o.s.a. it was if we had was as they can all go projects i used to carefully plot out everything as you should do with crime stories of the plot is really important but lots of ideas come to you while you re writing and that s great it s surprising how many of these ideas you can use and how things work out differently than i d imagined and that s not so bad because if i can surprise myself hopefully i can surprise my readers as well at least that s what i m striving to achieve for us just as he s gotten most of. this is what gave you my heart to look like in a new graphic novel. this is beyond your comic all soon this is how the artist imagine same effect of being done for them his gear we are in front of headquarters on berlin s alexanderplatz in the plots and that s barely house. you can see the stop lights and power lines and of course a cigarette you better carry all never leaves home without one. we all know. the especially novels written in the first person are the i. in the eye makes it more personal it s like you yourself are meeting gerbils you re self or having to shake his hand and have a meeting at a coffee and a cigarette with gerbils and you yourself are having to be careful about what you say so hopefully the choices the conversation brings you to. brings bernie to the same choices that the reader would have which is you know how do i say how do i give this person what they want but without compromising my moral. my my true moral inner self how do i do that how do i not do everything he wants without ending up dead and so you know these are the things that interest me as a as a writer how to be how to walk that tightrope. little. girls was famously. wanted. you seem to have had an affair with many actresses. principally one called lead a bar over but he got a bit of a reputation as a ladies and it wasn t just the sort of rest of the the third reich that made jokes about about his sexual. appetites it was pretty much so. and of course being in control of germany s film industry which was based here was like sort of. putting this you know. a fact kid in charge of this week s show really wasn t perhaps the best thing that could have. could have happened. and cast early crime novel a quiet flame danny boldly climbs into the flask of yours if god is in the bathroom he leaves behind a most unpleasant calling card. i was asked myself what i would do you know and i guess that s what i would have done if i ever found myself in goebbels his bathroom you know i did yeah use this toilet and then flush it and. i got it as i think i probably told you earlier i m going to sort of naturally dark sense of humor. makes writing about nazi germany from a detective point of view so interesting because nobody is what they seemed. just from a point of view and from a point of view of survival that quite often the good the good guys aren t what they seem to be because they have to pretend not to be good guys it s like bernie as old as he might have always been a big fan of his era the one nine hundred twenty s. and thirty s the berlin of the new york jets tipitina s meant and american gangsters from the twenty s and thirty s. and for her that s a good device he got from his emotions just in the end of it i ve always found them fascinating despite as i got the idea of combining the two after watching two fillets but i feel like it s a standard wished in. road one was road to perdition with tom hanks which came out around ten years ago. he did enough to me. when i was the other was fritz lang s m. salt honest i thought and it takes place in one thousand nine hundred eighty one the same year that the film was made on. the road to perdition also takes place in one nine hundred thirty one but was shocked about seventy years later when a lot i could do it. right there that. all of them. oh dear here take. you back to mike and the world featured in the road to perdition and the world of one nine hundred thirty s. berlin it can also contemporaneous so why don t merge them that s how i got the idea for giving them oddities. to put it to suspect definitions of the political aspect germany s political development is now the most important thing for me to be asked as so the idea to follow the course of this development was the second step and. then i had the idea to create a series that goes beyond ninety thirty three instead of having these gangster stories take place before nine hundred thirty three in a more or less normal society thinks the mine shaft i want to use the crime novel to show how society changes us if you use it and for that for me much to anybody didn t know my crime novels usually try to restore things to the status quo especially evil should be punished and locked away and gave me on does this the best he can he says but this is ultimately futile in the third right it s the criminals he s hunting up both the murderous and his superiors you know and he s in a rather bizarre situation and this is what i wanted to trade. for you. i have vivid memories of the third man it s wonderful i always try to imagine those scenes when i write. sometimes i imagine scenes in black and white or. similar has had an enormous influence on me. that s. what the book now. yes he also addresses the fact that many french artists including john cook told admired they german counterparts people like hitler s favorite skull to. cook doorway to play was a major collaborator he organized the big breaker exhibition in paris in one thousand nine hundred two and wrote an introduction for it. who was fascinated with erotica visited the exhibition. he said it s a good thing statues don t have erections otherwise there d be no room to move around. according shasta swap on the bus comply purposely going to. his publisher is based in new york. and when his books come out in the u.s. he travels around the country to promote them this time because wife jane time has come along americans love his blend of nazi horror and hard boiled detective fiction. there s only one thing worse than being an american book tour and that s not being asked to do with america. because it s like it s it s. there s a lot of adrenaline and it s a performance. in new york he makes an appearance at a small but well stocked book store that specializes in crime novels the mysterious bookshop. unlike his colleagues doesn t care much for standard readings he prefers to talk about his latest books. over the years i ve learned a little awful lot about this period and you know you read about one concentration camp or another or the holocaust and i became aware of the existence of this place in the former yugoslavia which was called just the end of the church wasn t just on the death count it was a murder and cruelty and killing cap. and that the cruelties that were practice they were on speak well i m not going to give into details but they put this way it was so bad that your original s.s. detachment who d been sent. back to berlin and said look can we leave this place it was so bad even the s.s. didn t want to be there bags how bad it was. there s a kind of a train parked in this field it was the death train rather like the sort of train arrived men women and children were taken off this train and they were they went on this little ferry across a river and on this island there were all these people waiting to murder them with axes and. and beheading has become a kind of a phenomenon that we ve become we ve become very familiar with in in the newspapers of late. these yugoslavian roman catholic priests who were principally responsible for getting. nazi war criminals out. and there was nobody worse than these people i think they probably killed. between eighty and one hundred thousand people on this little island roman catholic priests anyway that was the other thing why i want to write about the yugoslavs and the croats because it s common as soon it was the germans who. killed people and we forget the roles played by some of the other races in europe like like the crow and. there have been in auschwitz because i mean there s no scene in there s not really a scene in the book which is said. if there had been i would have got not yet well no i don t think there will be actually because i feel i would feel probably uncomfortable writing about it because i feel that. it was something that was so awful i think you know to try and describe it i don t think unless you ve been there you kind of earned the right probably to write about it if you ve been there but i think you haven t really really earned the right to write about it if you haven t been there. and i had to sort it was difficult because when i wrote from zagreb i had to go to this place this awful concentration camp. in bosnia called years and verge and. i felt i had to get permission from the people who had died there so i sort of stood in the sounds melodramatic but that s how it felt or stood in the cattle the the wagons transported the people on the train. the train is there so you can actually stand in these cattle cars and feel what it must have been like so i felt i had to sort of you know pray almost to the people and say look if i m right about this i promise i will not you know says trivialize this and i promise i will be your. sorry. ok. professor now frank is get over you so you may want to. know why the phone camera. now you see what you re about the qualities of thank you. for this you know it is ok thank you so much. for. paris august nine hundred forty four the city s new german commander general details from cultists has earned his respect by leveling service to poll with the so-called col c. took on. hitler demanded that paris suffer the same fate. but fun call to ignore what his order is by then he had decided that hitler was insane. some reports say that hitler phoned the general in a rage and screamed is paris burning. menotti writes about the battles between resistance fighters and german troops in the final days of the occupation. hundreds were killed in the fighting. uncultured surrendered his troops on august twenty fifth. later that day general shoulder gold arrived in paris as the leader of the provisional government of the french republic. the german up. of the french capital . local residents celebrated. they also started punishing alleged. french women who had fashioned with german soldiers but publicly humiliated this was the beginning of a partial rewriting of the history of the war but the nazi refuses to accept this interpretation. it s scapegoat politics so many things happened it s time to come clean. in any case war has always been waged on the bodies of women. when you conquer a country you rape the women. in order to liberate the country you shave the heads of women. or may not have slept with germans. such uncivilized things didn t happen in the upper echelons. so. it was a way to deal with the horror of the war. create a morally superior version of the past the. crime novels because they represent my dark view of the world the war and the period of collaboration are perfectly suited for crime novels. that. there s more the pressure increased bit by bit more success means more pressure and you grow into it and buxom it up to the office and i m glad that my first novel babylon berlin wasn t immediately a huge success i m going to have otherwise i would have had to keep chasing that success and even under bush going to cross did that his whole life because of the tin drum. it was kind of tragic. luckily i didn t suffer the same fate though i ll never win a nobel prize. this is. the one of the earliest forms of writing ever oh this is about five thousand years b.c. . and these little marks on it were written by. an architect and these things used to these to put them in little holes in the bill in the building that they d made it was a description of who the architect was and it was like a little autobiography or a little. like a little brass plaque on a wall. that s right. you know i think it s good to have a really early writing in front of you when when you re doing this because it just reminds you that really. it s the anything if you that will maybe last. half. so much money and. i m going out. my character meeting me would be a pretty horrific experience he d almost certainly hate me. because every and his life you know he would have had a good life for me this is the ambivalent relationship rices have with their characters because they knew in their bones inside themselves they knew their character would hate them. and mine would certainly hate me. instead as a father said i don t ask you ask yourself what would i have done back then and but you don t have an answer with your life you can come close to announce that through the novels through the situations that your characters get themselves into through their actions and development and make long. the untaught you ll probably never find an onsite and. this is a maybe so not necessary. but it s good if some readers think about it it s all on his own and ask themselves the same questions that we do to them you know what would i have done back then i said it and i was going left well i don t leave the best way to understand writers is through their books make this meeting was very nice but the book reveals all that let s see the evil. where they come from. why are they depicted in human form. and why do they have when. the angel chronicles. fifteen units d.w. . they make a commitment. they find solutions. they inspire or. africa follows. stories of both people making a difference shaping their nation playing and their continent w. s new multimedia series for africa electability dot com africa on the move. g.w. churns diversity. where the world of science is at home in many languages. on top of that i ve been going there you know. let s ask our innovations magazine for in asia the us for every week and always looking to the future fund d w dot com science and research for asia. play live.
it was about the velocity of the year and the events. lock him up! alternative facts. no. russia did not help me. yeah. that s him. mr. rosenstein is your testimony today that you believe bob mueller is a person of high integrity. is that right? yes. and i think that bob mueller ended up at number one with us because he s already indicted or put out for former trump campaign officials one, a form other national security adviser and he heads into 2018 with the fate of the presidency in his hands. just been told we ve had cameras on us while having this conversation the whole time. thanks very much for joining us. good night. this sunday looking back at 2017 and ahead to 2018. president trump. did he keep his promises? i will be the greatest jobs president that god has ever created. the tax relief will be concentrated on the working and middle class. i will be president for all america. we ll look at promises made, promises kept and promises broken. plus, the 2018 political landscape. democrats aimed to take back congress. you can smell a wave coming. our republican friends better look out. but republicans hope to hang on to power. very optimistic about 2018. also, 2020. potential candidates are already visiting early primary and caucus states, and dreaming of challenging the president. i may very well do that. i m being as honest as i can. where do you stand? are you likely to run? this is not what i m doing. how many democrats will jump in? and will any republicans primary president trump? and the ways the president has influenced culture, from the words we use, to race. very fine people on both sides. welcome to new year s eve sunday. it s meet the press. announcer: for nbc news in washington, the longest running show in television history, this is meet the press with chuck todd. good sunday morning and a happy new year s eve to everyone. almost from the moment he put his left hand on the bible at his inauguration, president trump signaled to the country that his presidency would be different. different in ways that would thrill millions and different in ways that would appall millions more. it began with a jarring comment about the state of the country. this american carnage stops right here and stops right now. within a day, press secretary sean spicer lectured white house reporters, arguing implausibly that more people witnessed donald trump s inauguration than president obama s and a day latereer op meet the press, the president s counsel kellyanne conway oefrd this explanation. sean spicer our press secretary gave alternative facts. that inauguration weekend kicked off a year of friction between the white house and press. between the president s supporters and detractors, between liberals and conservatives helping feed an uneasy sense we as a country are more divided than we ve been for decades if not longer. over the next hour we ll look back at the past year and ahead to the next. our panel this new year s eve morning, charlie cook and patti kaye, showed beyond 1700 days will begin appearing on pbs starting tuesday and rich lauer. editor of the national review. start things off looking at some of the promisals made by candidate donald trump and talk about whether he s been able to make good on them or not. let s watch. dornld j. trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states. $1 trillion in infrastructure investment. the tax relief will be concentrated on the working and middle class. i will be the greatest jobs president that god has ever created. repealing and replacing obamacare. a disaster. save medicare, medicaid and social security without cuts. have to do it. i pledge to every citizen of our land that i will be president for all americans. we will build a great, great wall [ cheers ] and mexico mexico. mexico. mexico will pay for the wall. all right, guys. what s been the single most important promise he made and the single most important promise he s kept? rich, start with you, because i think the wall is probably the single most important promise connected to him as a candidate. yes. his signature promise and the most flagrantly unrealizable promise. the idea mexico would pay for this wall. let alone build the wall. but the other country paying for it. immigration is a success story for him. he doesn t have a wall, but reestablishing a certain baseline of enforcement it sent an important message and you have illegal border crossings down to i think the lowest level since 1971. kind of surprised he doesn t boast about that more. what s the most important one he s kept? the most important one i think that he s kept is that he would be the president for the people who voted for him, and he would carry on the culture wars in their favor. carry on talking in ways that white working class voters felt neglected before, they feel they have somebody who is their president. they don t have to be p.r. ac. more. can say things he e they wanted to say for years and president trump emboldened them to do rights and values. for me the single biggest change with the president, we are not seeing america leading the world through principle. america hasn t always got it right but has some sort of principle and high-moral standing. rich, you re nodding a lot there. the basic structure, a center-right realism. you see what the actual policy is even on north korea. rhetorically he s been aggressive, it s a status quo of policy. ve cautious in asia and more emphasis on ideals. the crusade, president bush fought for those but important against our adversaries and in favor of our interests. seem, get tough on china and then goes to china. they re pals and you re going, what? you soo e that disconnect with his rhetoric around north korea as well. he talked about fire and fury. and that made a lot of people very nervous, that he was on the bring of taking some type of action, and he didn t. we won t really know what the trump doctrine is until we see how north korea plays out. will he take some type of limited military action? based on my conversations with senior officials, his military options are very few and very far between. so it doesn t look like that s likely. i do think, though, chuck, we re seeing a retreat from multi-nationalism. he did pull out of tpp. pulled out of paris. that s the beginning, at least, of a shift. a legacy there. that national security policy, that report that was referred to released just before christmas in. when i read it, it actually did provide some coherence to what through the past year looked like complete random ricocheting around, and i couldn t tell whether, is this thing actually more coherent than i thought, or is there just a heck of a speak writer onboard? i tend to think the latter. let me ask you this. i feel like that the issue we don t cover enough in foreign policy is, how close are we to war? a hot war? whether we re involved or not? a hot war that involves iran and say, saudi arabia? it feels it a tinderbox between those two? described to me like this. we have in yemen iranian proxies fighting saudi regulars. we have in syria, saudis proxies fighting iranian regulars. we are one step away. pi the yemeni houthi rebel, that s a hot area in the world. and one foreign policy that seems to congeal with our domestic politics and it s russia. the best of russia from this year. i have nothing to do with russia, folks. okay? why would there be any contacts between the campaign? i can t think of a bigger lie. russia is a ruse. i have nothing to do with russia there is no connection. you ve got russia. if the president puts russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that s a russian connection. we have no dealings in russia. no projects in russia. we have nothing to do with russia. this conversation s never happened. there s no collusion between me and my campaign and the russians. we have been going on this russia trump hoax for the better part of a year now, with no evidence of anything. there is absolutely no collusion. that has been proven. rich lowry, he s not getting the benefit of doubt on all this, seems to me, for one big reason. he seems to want nothing more than to cozy up to vladimir putin. if he were willing to be tough on vladimir putin? just say meddles in the election was an outrage, won t stand for it and it will never happen again on my watch. he won t say it. it s a bit of a mystery. my theory, can t prove, considers the russian story a personal affront that undermines his victory. it s a psychological reaction rather than a deeper conspiracy he s trying to hide. one of the things so striking. look at his tweets. he s lashed out at just about everyone on twitter including china, who he says needs to wshg with north korea and yet never harsh words for russia. never convened a meeting with his national security team to address that issue. people are hungry for that and he begrudginglypproved more sanctions. people around him time and again seem to forget meetings they had with russians. why the secrecy? why have these meetings and then have to reveal them later? why say things that possibly were true at the time and happens too often to seem like just coincidence. final word? nobody wants to think they won illegitimately. you want to believe i won on my merits. but i think rich is right. why can t he just say, you know, they were meddling. i don t think it had an impact on the outcome of the election, but we need to make sure this never happens again. that s pretty painless. what s wrong with that? you re doing something donald trump s never done before. be humble. when we come back, a look ahead to the year that starts tomorrow. it s an even numbered year. you know what that means? elections. are we looking at a democratic wave or can republicans somehow maintain their hold on congress and, of course, that means on all of the power that comes with it. how do you chase what you love with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis? do what i did. ask your doctor about humira. it s proven to help relieve pain and protect joints from further irreversible damage in many adults. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira has been clinically studied for over 20 years. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you ve been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you ve had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don t start humira if you have an infection. ready for a new chapter? talk to your rheumatologist about humira. this is humira at work. or a little internet machine? it makes you wonder: shouldn t we get our phones and internet from the same company? that s why xfinity mobile comes with your internet. you get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. so all you pay for is data. see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile.com. welcome back, if there s one thing you can count on in politics, it s the party that loses the seat looks to be no exception. president trump s record low approval r5i9ings to close the year giving democrats a hope they can win the 24 seats needed to take back the house and the party s unexpected upset win in alabama this month means democrats only need to net two seats to achieve a longer goal of taking back the senate. in 2005, you could smell a wave coming. the results last night smell exactly the same way. our republicans friends better look out. we think we ll produce results. results we ll be able to talk to the american people about in the fall of 2018 and in 2020 as well. can you win back the house this year? the door is certainly open for us. suggesting a wave election is coming your way that your majority is at risk. what do you make of that? blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, is what i say about that stuff. i think we re going to win the senate and house. i feel very optimistic about 2018. we re going to do the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. let s talk about that in 2018. welcome. got to love 1350ekspeaker ryan. this is my wife s work and the he s blah, blah, blahhing over it! quickly do this. senate makeup after doug jones, essentially 51-49. talk about the democrats, blah, blah, blaye, house, 231-93. charlie cook you do this for a living. you saw the 11-point advantage at the nbc news/ wall street journal poll 50-39 suggesting the wave is building. the question, how big, and will it crest at the right time and right moment for democrats? this is what waves look like when you re standing on a beach looking out. we ve seen this before. you see it from afar. wow! look at thanks can t tell precisely how tall it is but you can tell it s a big one. you know, could things change? you know, if we had a couple more quarters. three more quarters of. economic growth. could it dissipate? i guess it could, but i don t think it will. we re looking at the senate. it s now plausible that democrats could take the senate back. i think it s not likely, but it s plausible in the house. if you had to bet today i think you d bet the house would turn. one of the reasons, why, rich, doesn t look like it will shift. look at the demographic breakdowns on the generic ballot. among millennials, nearly a 50-point advantage for democrats. among women, 20 points. independents, 12 points. senior s essentially a base boa, the democrats, and among white voters only down two. that s why it doesn t look like a couple of good economic quarters change things. that s the best republicans could have going for them. robust growth to take the edge off this. my fear, that this isn t a conditions-based reaction. it s not an agenda-based reaction so much. it is a profound personal reaction to trump himself. and there is no way to change that. the white house says the opposite. they say that that candidates are knocking down their doors to get in the door with president trump and he s eager to by the way, there probably are some candidates knocking on their doors for endorsement. they just are not their door is not being answered. exactly right. look at ed gillespie. he tried to walk a fine line and it backfired. the white house saying, embrace trump. we saw that doesn t always work. obviously, roy moore deeply flawed candidate in his own right, but he did run based on a trump playbook. i spoke with a democratic strategist who says we re looking at the tidal wave. wait. don t you run the risk of overplaying your hand? going into 2018 with that type of thinking? that s the concern. the economy is a big unknown nap could i think shift the outlook. what s interesting is that you look historically and the there s a very clear pattern. all but three mid-term elections since the civil war, but we re now seeing a more explosiveness. i mean, the last six midterm electio elections, either the house senate or both flippeds. that s hasn t happened in 100 years. yeah, yeah. no. i mean so it s it s people are voting. it s not more parliamentary but it s more biparty and we re seeing big, big explosive results, and that s got to be scary for republicans. and the challenge for the democrats, though, is on the senate side, at least, red state democrats. you could argue, how they handle red state america in order to win the majority will say everything. put up the senate map here. these are just democratic seats that are in states in 2018 up where president trump carried that state, and you can see montana, not a surprise. floridas, ohios, wisconsins and mish is in there. here s how a few red state democrats we ve talked to in the last year have been walking the line of trump. take a listen. one thing that we don t have and you see that out in public polling and when i m out and chose, north dakota, missouri, west virginia. they took some heart from that, but have very different populations. they don t have 30% african-american makeup in those states and know that. they have to be more careful how they run and can t expect to run up against a roy moore again. it s not going to happen and claire mccaskill told me many times. donald trump is above water in my state, approval ratings parallel to mine and won my state. i cannot totally isolate myself from him but is not going to go there and actually sign up. sheriff brown is interesting. he has. not out. but a democrat that will try and work with the president. i m curious. if impeachment becomes part of the conversation in the fall, i assume it s thesedemocrats that most nervous about that? i think you re right. this is so implausible. if democrats won every single senate race next year, every one, they would still need ten republicans to vote for impeachment. that s not going to happen. so just shut up. they re not helping themselves. these democrats hate the conversation. they really don t want those up onhinted at the republican side. the reason they have a longer shot. look at the senate map. this is a rosy scenario of senate targets for democrats, and i throw in a texas and a nebraska on there. texas for demographic reasons, but thrown in nebraska because of what steve bannon promised, rich lor lowry. primary republicans like a dead fisherman in nebraska. little bannon versus the gop comp pew lation and talk about it on the other side. right now a season of war against a gop establishment. i think what steve bannon is trying to do is completely inappropriate. because they think you re a pack of morons. you need good candidates to win senate races. mitch mcconnell in this permanent political class is the most corrupt and incompetent group of individuals in this country! what he s a specialist in is nominating people who lose. i like mr. bannon. he s a friend of mine, but mr. bannon came on very late. you know that. look, steve bannon isn t, he right now is the face of that sort of anti-establishment crowd, but before there was a steve bannon there was still an anti-establishment crowd that cost them, put it up here, at least five senate seats. now blame i guess bannon for the sixth. right? three in 2010, colorado, nevada, and 2012, two, indiana, missouri and of course, roy moore. bannon, when he cost them another state? mississippi, for instance, i could put up there. i hope alabama was a blow to steve bannon s theory you can run any loathsome kook and win a general election. it s not a new phenomenal, began before steve ban and in part because of republicans against, they re not the blue blazers tie types anymore. they are the anti-establishment party, which involves oftentimes not just rejecting the establishment s judgment about candidates but rejecting conventional norms. this is important. mk connell and ryan are no more in touch with the base of the party than trump with the establishment? right. and who did president trump speak to after the roy moore loss? he spoke to steve bannon that week. so he still sees him as a touchstone to his base. and to your point. does bannon take a look at that race and say hey it was the candidate? no. we need to work harder. we ll emboldened, energized and know what to do in the next race. the challenge, obviously divides resources and messaging and continues to van internal war. go back to 2008 when barack obama won. this so radicalized the conservative republicans despised him so much it effectively radicalized a large element of the republican party, led to the tea party movement and the election of donald trump, but it led to a nomination or this attraction of these exotic candidates that are just more exotic than can win general elections. and i think republicans are paying a price. if i were democrats i would worry about the loathing that they have for president trump, whether it radicalizes an element of the democratic party and we start seeing that happen in coming years. well that s scuactually a nice segue. the left subject, the list of candidates running for president. easier tore make the list not jun the next debate. once we re done with 2018, it is 20/20 vision time. a look ahead to the many, many, many democrats who may decide to run for president and a handful of republicans as well. i wanted to know who i am and where i came from. i did my ancestrydna and i couldn t wait to get my pie chart. the most shocking result was that i m 26% native american. i had no idea. just to know this is what i m made of, this is where my ancestors came from. and i absolutely want to know more about my native american heritage. it s opened up a whole new world for me. discover the story only your dna can tell. order your kit now at ancestrydna.com. my business was going nowhere. so i built this kickin new website with godaddy. building a website in under an hour is easy! 68% of people. .who have built their website using gocentral, did it in. .under an hour, and you can too. type in your business or idea. pick your favourite design. personalize it with beautiful images. and.you re done! and now business is booming. harriet, it s a double stitch not a cross stitch! build a better website - in under an hour. free to try. no credit card required. gocentral from godaddy. this is no different. many democrats and perhaps a handful of republicans are viewing a run as a real possibility. one sign someone is considering a run at this stage, they write a book. seen as a sign the author is serious about becoming a candidate. so far, we have seen books from senator bernie sanders of vermts. former vice president joe biden. senator elizabeth warren of massachusetts. and senator corey booker of new jersey. those are the democrats. now you have senator john kasich and senator flake. all republicans. and get on a list to run for president, say you re not going to run. take a look. where should we be about that? 50/50, 80/20? are you likely to run? no. this is not what i m doing. other people make lists. i m not running for president. sure, i just might that is not on my radar screen. i don t know what i m going to do tomorrow. if a year from now i m ready and no one has moved in i think can do it, then i may very well. obviously, the most significant person in that list to say, yes, i m thinking about it is the former vice president. he decided to say, hey, i m sending a message to national doan others, i want in. it was probably joe biden, right. the concern for democrats, the two white guys, most likely to run, you d have to give a reasonable shot at giving the nomination to joe biden, bernie sanders. they re going to be 78 and 79 on inauguration day of 2021. that s problem for the democrats. go through the whole list. problems with all of the candidates, but two you know, old, white guys is that where the party needs to position itself? and chris, before you chime in, we put this together. all the travels in the early states. another way to let us know you re thinking of running for president. show up in iowa. sanders, mark zuckerberg. talk about that in a minute. and cotton, iowa trips. new hampshire, kasich, biden, sanders and o malley. so common denominators. book tourish but biden and sanders among the busiest ones. absolutely. and a surprised bien walked up to the line of running during the last election cycle. the one person not on the list, kirsten gillibrand. not doing a lot of traveling but putting a marker down for herself around the issue of sexual harassment. one she has obviously championed in the part but is really i think out front on that issue, taking the lead in terms calling for al franken to resign, angering a lot of folks in her own party saying former president bill clinton should have resigned and eyeing a potential run seriously. charlie in that vein, is it gillibra gillibrand? has she had the break out 17 to carve out the space? who else had breakout, to start carving out looks they re doing more than i want in. they re carving out space. gillibrand, asterisk. people up for election in 2018 have to be more discreet. pamela harris in california. that she s poised to do that. the way i ve sort of looked at it. i have a list of like 25 people here and the thing is, some of these i think are laughable, but you know what? three years ago today, donald trump was. and bernie sanders was, too. i m being a lot more humbled than i used to be, but the way i m looking at it is, there will be at least one woman. yep. there will be at least one. and when you say one woman, multiple women that one. you mean one in the final talking about the final four. there will be a woman. there will be an african-american. there will be one white guy, and then there s an at-large. some of these, like charris to e one of these. look for categories because of powerful constituencies within the party that will gravitate behind just a bigger point. we can all do this on paper, but the lesson from the last two people elected president, donald trump and barack obama, is a personalities, they matter so much. both in their own way completely dominated the media. figures of fascination support others couldn t get enough of. crowd size really adds up. actually, a great segue. my 13-year-old, literally, said to me, hey, dad, you know that dwayne johnson s thinking about running for ped. i said, why do you say that? he said so on ellen. i went, he did? here s the evidence. would you run? i mean would you, seriously, would you run? i m seriously considering it. yes. okay. look, i ve actually been following him for the last six months on instagram and social media. this guy is very good at his own public relations. very good. see, hear many about a sick fan who many a kid. the rock is there with a ticket. somebody in this space will break out. is 2it a cuban? is it a rock? somebody s messing around with it. live an era to run for the president of the united states you need to be a celebrity and have a television following and instagram following and be able to reach we ll through charisma and through your backgrounds, from having been on television screens for years and years, donald trump s way of doing it, then somebody like the rock has a chance. donald trump may have been an exception. i don t know. three years ago there are presidents rolling in their graves. yes. and as they should. what i don t get, though, kristen. actually, i think when you try to do the other party does something and you try to do what that party does, it always fails. try to do the exact opposite. where is the boring who is the least charismatic boring, lowest crowd guy or gal out there? because i have a theory that that s the person we ll turn to next. i think whoever can give president trump a real run for his money has to be his counterpoint. no doubt about that. what does that look like? does that mean that the person is unifying, though? is that sort of the aspect people are looking for? one thing in addition to all of the charismatic all of those things you laid out, i think the person needs to come off as being authentic. even if a little boring. charlie? go ahead. i would say ralph northam, doug jones, go down the list. the good democratic candidates this year were boring guys. yeah. no offense. to your point, our friend mark shields has a theory that say you re in a subway car and it stops between stations. the lights go out. panic. chaos. then a reassuring voice, a firm, reassuring voice comes on to make you feel comfortable. things are under control. and will people be looking for someone that that would be reassuring, calm a good bedside manner? that sort of thing. the rock played tooth fairy! boring, boring never in presidential politics. could be opposite. george w. bush on toughness. barack obama emphasis on thoughtfulness. not boring, though. let me close with this. we all think trump will get a primary challenge for the sport of it. question, who could be the most effective primary challenger to a trump? rich, start with you. this is national review may cover a lot of this. it s hard to see how this would work unless trump totally craters. otherwise, you ll get some sort of symbolic challenge from someone like john cakasich, 25% 30%. this juncture, he wouldn t even win ohio. what about a ben sasse? mitt romney? the two names that come up. mitt romney, the better chance. done it before. more name recognition but a tough poll. somebody s going to do it just for the coverage. jeff flake ro be interesting. president trump runs, he will be the nominee. the question, if he doesn t, it s pence versus the field. free for all. when we come back, oh, how the political world has changed in just one pleyear. well, thomas, you ve got prediabetes. but with more exercise and a change in diet, it can be reversed. but i ve tried exercising, and it just makes me hungry for bacon. i love bacon, too. and who really likes to exercise? not me. me neither. nobody! [both laughing] mmm! so we re good? what? oh, you still have prediabetes. big time. which means everyone has access to our real reviews that we actually verify. and we can also verify that what goes down, [ splash, toilet flush ] doesn t always come back up. find a great plumber at angie s list. join today for free. we are back. data download time. what kind of year has 2017 been? look at our new nbc news/ wall street journal poll, end of the year, answers are mixed. ahead of president trump s inauguration january, 37% of americans felt the country was going in the right direction. 52% felt on the wrong track. an inprovement at that time from the months before the 2016 election. but in our year-end poll, 29% now say right direction. an eight-point drop from january. while 63% say wrong track. that s up 11 points. no surprise, how you view the year depends a lot on who you are. republicans thought it was a pretty good year. for example, 79% say 2017 was the best year for the united states, above average or average. only 20% thought it was the worse year or below average. independents, evenly split. hardly any democrat thought it was a good year. have a majority saw 2017 as worst year for the country or below average. majority of men thought good, women thought, bad. a similar breakdown across racial demographics. a slip majority of white americans. 52%, thought this year was the best, above average or average. majorities of hispanics and african-americans thought the worst year or below average. finally, what did americans view as the most significant events of 2017? events like, the mass shooting in las vegas, and natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires were on folks minds the most. third on the list, president trump s inauguration followed by terrorist attacks, the tax plan in congress and sexual harassment revelations and, of course, the #metoo movement. when we come back, words that came into being, and new words that gain new meaning in 2017. president trump s impact on american culture is next. remember our special night? abdominal pain. .and diarrhea. but it s my anniversary. aw. sorry. we ve got other plans. your recurring, unpredictable abdominal pain and diarrhea. .may be irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhea, or ibs-d. you ve tried over-the-counter treatments and lifestyle changes, but ibs-d can be really frustrating. talk to your doctor about viberzi,. .a different way to treat ibs-d. viberzi is a prescription medication you take every day that helps proactively manage. .both abdominal pain and diarrhea at the same time. so you stay ahead of your symptoms. viberzi can cause new or worsening abdominal pain. do not take viberzi if you have no gallbladder, have pancreas or severe liver problems, problems with alcohol abuse, long-lasting or severe constipation, or a bowel or gallbladder blockage. pancreatitis may occur and can lead to hospitalization and death. if you are taking viberzi,. .you should not take medicines that cause constipation. the most common side effects of viberzi. .include constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain. stay ahead of ibs-d with viberzi. off the field right now? out! he s fired. he s fired! and had you some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people. on both sides. now, are we going to take down his statue? you know what? it s fine. you are changing history. you re changing culture. was sheriff joe convicted for doing his job? i ll make a prediction. i think he s going to be just fine. okay? you know what s interesting, kristin. especially the first one. many times when he dabbles into sort of culture wars it s at a moment of political weakness for him. he did the nfl ref, embarrassed to endorse luther strange at a time he knew that candidate would get in that runoff and it wasn t about luther strange about him and the nfl? right. a great way to energize his base to rally supporters around him. it was similar during charlottesville when he made those remarks, by the way, enraged some people within his own administration. you re seeing a backlash at polls. you saw that with how energized african-american voters were to come oubt t in 2018. i think the white house knows they have a problem with diversity and need more diversity, particularly to senior staff. just reported on ohm rosesa leaving for example, only african-american senior staffer he had in the west wing. i think possibly a focus fwh the new year. would have guessed beginning of the year, unorthodox president stoking controversies with unorthodox agenda. instead orthodox republican agenda, doesn t have anything for the signature trump voter but still unorthodox president and stoking controversies is what his voters are getting. weird backlash, not from voters per se but corporate america and nfl is part of this. struggled with how to handle this. don t know how, especially nfl has struggled with it. they sort of don t approve of the behavior. but meeting with ceo recently who said the tax bill will probably save about $350 million. so they re torn. good things, less regulation, laxer enforcement, things they like. but they don t like the tone and where this is going. really torn. and watch out for customers, shareholders, brand and all of that. when the president says something, why we ve had advisory councils disbanded, corporate leaders feel then the can t be aligned with the positions. some is strategic but lot of it, he enjoys stirring the pot, everyone freaking out. remote control goes and watches on his 90 inch tv screen and enjoys every minute of it. as he said to me, it s trump show and it s been sold out for years. i think that s part of the job he wanted, head of state and pot stirrer. and all this other stuff, gosh do i have to do this too? i think 2017, times person of the year, feminism is word of the year, understatement to say culturally i think many people think that women are speaking out more because of the election of donald trump but here s highlight of the year. hollywood titan harvey weinstein fired from his own company. kevin spacey. louis c.k. matt lauer. sexual harassment has no place in any workplace, let alone united states congress. in midst of cultural revolution. one revelation or two? john conyers is icon in our country, however congressman conyers should resign. he s not going to be pressured by nancy pelosi or anyone else to step down. in the coming weeks, i will be resigning as member of the united states senate. the president has firsthand knowledge of what he did and didn t do. he can speak directly to those and he has and addressed them. i don t have anything further to add. i think everyone should be held accountable, starting from the president of the united states. quite the moment this has been. and politics is struggling with it more than any other sector. and happening really fast. snowballing effect. sexual harassment doesn t seem to be tolerated. concern among women that there will be backlash, revolution eat its own. but everyone agrees if we can make safer workplaces and bring men on board in that, don t feel victimized or objects of revenge, we ll be better off. number of women running for office is stratospheric levels. week before franken allegations, you said there s going to be some that wonder is that resignation worthy, do you throw him out? but ultimately that s what happens in moments of revolutions, not sure moments but larger things. bizarre speech he gave. if he s innocent, owes it to himself and voters who gave him the seat to stay and fight. doesn t surprise me there s been back and forth. but initial new york times story, harvey weinstein is single bhoeft influential piece of journalism that instantly changed this country. not bill o reilly, the fox firings, canaries in the coal mine. it s what requires death penalty and standard has gotten slim on what ends a career. but i think this is going to provide a lot of opportunities for women, younger men who behave themselves, this is a society changing event, set of circumstances. november 2018, i think when we re looking at new faces of congress, going to see what house bank scandal did in 1992, wiped out people on both sides of the aisle. this moment on women and sexual assault may wipe out 50 members left and right. i think that s right and i think they re bracing for the possibility. lot of people both sides of the aisle think this is going to be year of the woman had it comes to 2018. democrats have tried to seize the moral high ground on this, stress tried to because it s complicated. and white house knows it has work to do. lot of the president s accusers came forward, didn t feel like heard during the campaign and they are now. white house is infuriated. say the voters have had their say. new words from merriam webster. troll as verb. dog whistle. surprised hadn t been there before, and alt-right. what does that say about america? wow, you know, i m 64 years old and sitting here whole world is changing and i m just sort of astonished by it all. one thing i m going to tell viewers to do you have to start trolling people charlie. it s really a lot of fun. when charlie starts trolling stu rothenburg, we ll know the world has changed. that s all for today. thanks to our viewers for being part of the broadcast. we take your critiques seriously. continue to send them in. on behalf of everyone at msnbc, wish everybody a safe, happy, healthy, politically less stressful year. be back next week. if it s sunday, it s meet the press. nooooooo! yes! amazing speed, coverage and control. all with an xfi gateway. pepsoriasis does that. it was tough getting out there on stage. i wanted to be clear. i wanted it to last. so i kept on fighting. i found something that worked. and keeps on working. now? they see me. see me. see if cosentyx could make a difference for you- cosentyx is proven to help people with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. .find clear skin that can last. don t use if you re allergic to cosentyx. before starting cosentyx, you should be checked for tuberculosis. an increased risk of infections and lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms. or if you have received a vaccine or plan to. if you have inflammatory bowel disease, tell your doctor if symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reactions may occur. never give up. see me. see me. clear skin can last. don t hold back. .ask your dermatologist if cosentyx can help you find clear skin that lasts. you ve got to get in i know what a bath is smile honey this thing is like. first kid ready here we go by their second kid, every parent is an expert and. .more likely to choose luvs, than first time parents. live, learn and get luvs they appear out of nowhere. my secret visitors. hallucinations and delusions. the unknown parts of living with parkinson s. what plots they unfold, but only in my mind. over 50% of people with parkinson s will experience hallucinations or delusions during the course of their disease. if your loved one is experiencing these symptoms, talk to your parkinson s specialist. there are treatment options that can help. my visitors should be the ones i want to see.