Page 2 - Doug Brinkly News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Video off of a visit to victims and families of the victims. and i think that -- i also wonder what is it like for people who are coming of age right now. do they think this is normal, that this is how presidents behave. because it isn't how presidents behave. and as you just mentioned, we can think of any president, whether you liked them or not, at different points, where they brought the country together when we had a crisis. >> i was talking to doug during the break. doug, we -- last night we played, you know, a collection of ronald reagan talking about the challenger, bill clinton talking...

Tuesday evening? i mean is that even a possibility? would speaker pelosi literally turn the president away from the capital? >> he might try to do an outdoor event by the capitol, for all we know. he's going to do something. donald trump i doubt is going to just try to read text off a teleprompter from the oval office and big networks to cover this. but i guess he'll try to use it to rally the american people to say, hey, this is the first "state of the union" delivered in ohio or, you know, arizona or something hike that. i think in movement donald trump has his best chance right now not just...

His wish, he has the mantle of it. >> there's no doubt about it, he is taking a lot of water here. and his poll numbers are steadily declining. he's clearly being blamed for this. he needs an off-ramp here that he can walk without being called a quitter by his base. and i think they're frantically searching for it. but by the same token i think that there is some -- there is some toll on the institution of washington itself, of congress itself. i'm sure democrats are beginning to get a little bit uneasy as well because every night the news is led with stories like the one doug spoke of. everyo...

To use the platform of the "state of the union" to spend an hour repeating the same argument he's made at other national addresses now trying to make the case for why he has shut the government down and why he is fighting for the wall. so as doug mentioned, you can come back when this is over. and she's using this as a bit of leverage to try and force the president's hand. >> doug, the president calling pelosi's decision on the "state of the union" a, quote, great block on the incredible country that we love. is this the great block, or is that the fact that 800,000 federal workers not getting...

Shutdown. and it comes at a time when pelosi is the new sheriff in town. she's asserting, you know, her primacy and the institution's primacy and so it's kind of a caustic mix. >> doug, how unprecedented is this? is there anything in american history to compare it to? >> well, look, the original "state of the union" used to always be a hand written message all the way up to woodrow wilson in 1913. wilson started a tradition of it. it's really fdr who called it the "state of the union," and it goes from being an afternoon event to a tv extravaganza. the big thing trump is using are his viewers....