Msnbc

As Aca Fight Intensifies, Gop Hears From 'freaked Out' Constituents

... after unruly Democratic town halls helped stoke public outrage over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans now appear keen to avoid the kind of dust-ups capable of racking up millions of views on You Tube and ending up in a 2018 campaign commercial. Only a handful of GOP lawmakers have held or are planning to host in-person town hall meetings open to all comers – the sort of large-scale events that helped feed the original Obamacare backlash in the summer of 2009. The Post’s article noted a related anecdote: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N. C.) hosted a discussion with constituents yesterday via Facebook, with lots of questions about health care. While Tillis’s office “had advertised a 30-minute event, the senator ultimately appeared on camera for 11 minutes, answering eight questions read to him by a staff member.”. The North Carolina Republican assured attendees ...

New Details From Investigation Cast Cloud Over Trump Inauguration

... Roger Stone. The inclusion of Page is of particular interest. Just last week, incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters, “Carter Page is an individual whom the president-elect does not know.” According to Trump, that wasn’t true: last year, during an interview with the Washington Post, Trump singled out Page as one of only a handful of people who were advising him on matters of foreign policy. TPM’s Josh Marshall summarized the landscape nicely: “Just to state this clearly, that means that on the eve of Trump’s inauguration, the nation’s top law enforcement and intelligence agencies are pursuing a counter-intelligence probe of contacts and payments between key members of his campaign and Russia. We have not been here before.”. Several members of Team Trump, including the president-elect himself, have said there were no contacts between the campaign and Russia before Election Day. We don’t yet know whether those claims were true. As for the timing of this news, ...

They’re Screwing This Up!’ Msnbc Knocks Parade, Trump Family As The New ‘romanovs

... many of the acts in this long parade, which is still unspooling, are going to be without daylight as they come down.”. The cable network had alluded to it throughout the afternoon, but there was no official reason given until Williams revealed that Inauguration organizer Tom Barrack blamed the delay and “many empty bleachers” and “lunch [running] late and then they could not get bussed down in time.”. Seconds later, co-host Rachel Maddow blurted out: “This is — they're screwing this up, man.”. < < < Please support MRC's News Busters team with a tax-deductible contribution today. > > >. When the First Family walked from the White House to the parade viewing stand, Matthews seized the spotlight by comparing the Trumps to the royal family who ran Russia from the 1600 s until their execution at the onset of the Bolshevik Revolution. MATTHEWS: Why do I think of the Romanovs? There’s an aspect here. [ROBINSON LAUGHS] I mean, this extended family, they're all attractive, of course, and just we're getting ...

Team Trump Touts The 'diversity' Of His Mostly White, Male Cabinet

... 01/19/17 12:58 PM. By Steve Benen. In 1992, then-Gov. Bill Clinton came up with a memorable phrase: the Democrat promised voters he’d create a cabinet that “looked like America.” The point, of course, was to assure the public that when it came to policymaking, the Clinton administration would place a high priority on diversity. It’s a goal Donald Trump doesn’t appear to share. The Republican president-elect finally wrapped up his cabinet selections yesterday, tapping former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue (R) to lead the Department of Agriculture – and like most other members of the Trump cabinet, Perdue is a wealthy, older, white man. This post was Trump’s last choice to pick a Hispanic American for his team, which means the new presidential cabinet will be the first without a Hispanic member in three decades. During the campaign, Trump was asked if his cabinet will include ...

Trump World Tries To Explain Away Broad Unpopularity

... endorse Trump’s widely disliked agenda, will be on the ballot next year, and it’s safe to assume they’ll be far less cavalier about Americans’ attitudes. But just as notable is the fact that Trump World’s attitudes towards polls may carry alarming consequences. Vox’s Dylan Matthews had a good piece on this the other day. [O]ne of the most important checks on the president, on any politician, is public opinion. While it may not always feel true, political scientists broadly agree that presidents have historically been quite responsive to public opinion…. Public opinion is a valuable constraint on the president’s freedom of action. […]. [I]f Trump does dismiss these numbers, that means he’s ignoring one of the only things that can hold him back. Instead of taking polls as indicators – imperfect indicators, but still – that something is going wrong and he might want to pivot for his own good, he might not consider them at all. It’s a recipe for trouble: Americans will soon be led by a president who’s convinced he enjoys broad public support, though the backing exists largely in his imagination. A leader who’s ...

As Power Shifts, Trump's Team Remains Unprepared To Govern

... of 690 executive-branch positions. What’s more, let’s also not forget that some of the people Team Trump have asked to stick around for a while have reportedly said no , which means those offices will be literally empty at 12:01 p.m. (ET) this today. Christopher Lu, the Deputy Secretary of Labor and the former executive director of the Obama-Biden transition, talked to Rachel about this on the show last night, and he noted how unusual it is for an incoming administration, 24 hours before the inauguration, to reach out to current officials, pleading with them to stay. It’s evidence of a team that’s woefully unprepared. Asked if he’s worried about the Trump administration’s preparedness, Lu said, “ Of course.”. I can appreciate why this seems crazy, but the fact remains that Donald Trump and his aides knew they had a responsibility to find ...

The Literary Dividing Line Between Trump And Obama

... about, but yesterday, we were reminded of one dissimilarity that was especially striking. The New York Times sat down last week with the outgoing president to focus on Obama’s love of books. Not since Lincoln has there been a president as fundamentally shaped – in his life, convictions and outlook on the world – by reading and writing as Barack Obama. Last Friday, seven days before his departure from the White House, Mr. Obama sat down in the Oval Office and talked about the indispensable role that books have played during his presidency and throughout his life – from his peripatetic and sometimes lonely boyhood, when “these worlds that were portable” provided companionship, to his youth when they helped him to figure out who he was, what he thought and what was important. During his eight years in the White House – in a noisy era of information overload, extreme partisanship and knee-jerk reactions – books were a sustaining source of ideas and inspiration, and gave him a renewed appreciation for the complexities and ambiguities of the human condition. The transcript of the interview is worth ...

Msnbc Opens Inauguration Coverage....by Touting Obama; He’s ‘elevated The Office

... analyst Steve Schmidt swooned. Prior to the Obama fawning, Hardball host Chris Matthews saw GOP donor Sheldon Adelson appear on the screen arriving at the Inauguration and audibly groaned. There's Sheldon — I think — Adelson. And they are, one of the by the way, disturbing to some, they are some of the financiers of this — of this inaugural event today. They are putting their money behind it and they’re going to have frightening influence over this president in terms of Middle East policy. We already see it with the talk about moving the Embassy and Jared Kushner. I mean, I think the big fear most people have is not that Trump will be trump but that he'll outsource some of these frighteningly important decisions to people who really didn’t get elected by anybody to anything. Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript from MSNBC’s 2017 Presidential Inauguration coverage. MSNBC’s 2017 Presidential Inauguration. January 20, 2017. MATTHEWS: There's Sheldon — I think — Adelson. RACHEL MADDOW: Adelson and his wife. MATTHEWS: And they are, one of the by the way, disturbing to some, they are some of the financiers of ...