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2020 a vision for Joe Biden? The impact of fake news on real life could
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Internet; Joe Biden; Media; Meetings; Middle East; Military; Pizzeria;
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TODD: We`ll have more MTP Daily just ahead, but here`s Hampton Pearson with another good news report.
HAMPTON PEARSON, REPORTER, CNBC: Hey, Chuck, great looking lights on the tree, by the way. Stocks ending the day with gains. The Dow rising by 35 points. To close at another record. The S&P up by seven. The Nasdaq climbing by 24.
A tough session for Chipotle, one of the company`s CEOs saying he`s, quote, nervous about achieving the earnings guidance provided in October. Shares slid more than 7 percent today. And U.S. trade gap widened sharply in October, growing nearly 18 percent, $42.6 billion, a four-month high. It was the biggest one-month increase since March of 2015. That`s it from CNBC, first in business worldwide.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TODD: Welcome back. So, where does the culture wars in America stand? Are we just getting started, or are they about to end? As Bob Dylan might say, the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind. Right now, it is blowing all over the place, from voters, from Trump, and his cabinet picks.
In North Carolina, folks seemed to sent a clear message that voters simply don`t want the headache of big social fights. The backlash against the so- called bathroom bill cost an incumbent republican governor, Pat McCrory, his job despite very good economic numbers.
But Trump Tower is picking a cabinet that has culture war conservatives like Mike Huckabee. Trump has picked Ben Carson, born again Christian to run HUD. Senator Jeff Sessions, who is pro-life, anti-marijuana, voted to ban same-sex marriage. This is AG at the nation`s top cop.
What`s Sessions gonna do by the way on some hot bath and social issues like the fact that 29 states have legalized recreational or medicinal marijuana in this country now. What`s he gonna do about same sex benefits for federal employees? That`s a Donald Trump decision perhaps.
And if you`re looking for clues from Trump, you might want to keep looking, because Trump himself is a bit of a conflict, a contradiction, when it comes to various social issues. He says he`s fine with gay marriage as the law of the land, but is promising to appoint staunchly conservative justices.
Trump took five different positions on abortion in three days at one time as a candidate. At a single day back in April, Trump said he was against the North Carolina bathroom bill when he woke up, then he said he supported it before he went to bed. But if you`re Trump, you can`t be wishy-washy when you run the country, or appoint supreme court justices, or sign laws that You`re A.G. must enforce.
So, how`s he gonna govern? What do voters want? Where are we? Once we look at the polls, maybe we`ll find a clue there. Gallup says 60 percent of the country supports legalizing marijuana. Quinnipiac says 67 percent agree with the supreme court decision establishing a woman`s right to an abortion. And Gallup says 68 percent say gay marriage should remain legal.
I`m joined by Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne and the National Review`s David French. David, let me start with you. What do you read? What do you take out of North Carolina? That on one hand, they sent republicans to Washington, but they fired a republican governor, essentially, it appears, over one issue, a social issue. How do you take, what do you read from that?
DAVID FRENCH, STAFF WRITER, SENIOR FELLOW AT THE NATIONAL REVIEW: I take the same thing from that I`ve taken from a lot of disputes. I feel like the public when it`s looking at these culture war issues, unless you`re dealing with the bases of both parties, kind of looks at who do they think is picking on whom. Who is being the bully in the situation?
And I think that the media frankly did a really good job of portraying the North Carolina governor as the bully here. And there was brave dissidents standing up against him. When you cast in that dynamic, it puts him in a public relations hole that he couldn`t really dig out of.
But in other situations, there`s been some very fascinating analysis that says essentially a lot of the Obama`s administration overreach on some of these culture war issues, alienated working class voters who said the Obama administration seemed more focused on the culture war than it does on jobs. So it was a mixed bag, I think.
TODD: E.J., same question to you. How do you read North Carolina?
E.J. DIONNE, COLUMNIST, WASHINGTON POST: I think Governor McCrory got in trouble for that, but also for voting rights issues, the whole Moral Mondays movement down there, Reverend Barber`s movement, I think, mobilized a lot of people to actually vote and participate.
TODD: Remember, they voted Trump, Burr, Cooper.
DIONNE: Yes.
TODD: Okay. Those voters, Two Rs and a D. There are a chunk of voters that clearly did that or you wouldn`t have the result.
DIONNE: That`s right. I think it was a lot of issues at the state level, the bathroom bill being one of them.
TODD: Right.
DIONNE: But the problem with Trump as you suggested in your opener, he`s been all over the lot on many of these issues. But Trump seems to be ready to delegate his views on these issues to his constituencies.
And he had 81 percent of the vote from white evangelicals, the best share a presidential candidate has gotten in a long time. And he gave a very strong anti-abortion pitch in one of the debates that I think.
TODD: Right.
DIONNE: . he`s made implicit and explicit promises to them. So whether he`s comfortable with the position or not, whether he really cares about the position or not, I think that`s the direction he`s going to move in, in a broadly social conservative direction, but not on gay marriage, it looks like.
TODD: David, what you said -- E.J.`s take on that -- I go back and forth. I think he is going to respond to the election results, be thinking about 2020 and think, well, I can`t disappoint evangelicals, because they were more supportive of me than perhaps they should have been given my mixed message that I sent to them.
FRENCH: Yeah, I don`t think he cares one bit about the classic culture war issues. I really don`t. I don`t think he cares all that much about abortion one way or another. I think he`s more than happy to use these issues to get what he wants.
And I think he`s more than happy to use the evangelical vote to get what he wants. I think he`s paying the evangelical voter back right now. And I don`t have a problem with many of his cabinet picks either. I think he`s put some outstanding picks out there.
But when the going gets tough on these issues, if these issues are flaring up and his approval rating is low, that`s where as a social conservative I would be concerned about his level of conviction, because I don`t think he has any level of conviction on this.
And if these issues are seen as an impediment to him or albatross around his neck, I would look for him to jettison his commitment quickly.
DIONNE: I agree with David by the way. I don`t think he feels any of this stuff, and he doesn`t really care passionately about these issues. But I think he knows where his political base is, and the people who will stick with him. The definition of a base or the people who are with you.
TODD: That`s right.
DIONNE: . when you`re wrong.
TODD: That`s right.
DIONNE: . and I think these people are more likely to be with him than others in the electorate.
TODD: I`m curious at one thing that`s gonna come in a conflict for sort of conservative like yourself David French, and that is the issue of marijuana, right? It`s going to be states` rights and morality. Jeff Sessions has made his position on marijuana very clear. Let me play a bite.
(START VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SESSIONS, JUNIOR U.S. SENATOR FROM ALABAMA: We need grown-ups in charge in Washington to say marijuana is not the kind of thing that ought to be legalized, that it`s, in fact, a very real danger.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: As we all know, the federal government can just simply decide to enforce federal law and all of what these states have done, essentially, most of it can be nullified. David, what`s your -- what do you expect -- do you expect a fight between social conservatives and libertarians on this one?
FRENCH: You know, honestly, I`ve been running around social conservative circles for years and years and years, and marijuana is about number 100 on the list.
(LAUGHTER)
FRENCH: . that the base really cares about. You know, my view is leave it to the states. I don`t think this is going to be a flash point in the conservative movement, because it`s not been a flash point in the conservative movement. There are many things that people care about far more than this.
I think leaving it to the states. In fact, if you`re going to talk about cultural issues more broadly, if you want to ratchet back culture war issues and ratchet back some of the culture war rhetoric, increased emphasis on federalism I think is the way to go. Let California be California, and let Tennessee where I am, be Tennessee.
DIONNE: But what we`ve seen, Chuck, is that conservatives enforce states` rights except when they`re not. You`ve seen that at the local level where when cities do something that conservative governments don`t like, they take the authority away from the cities.
What you`re setting up here is if Trump doesn`t actually doesn`t care about marijuana, but Sessions goes on the offensive against these states, Trump is either going to have to break with his attorney general or you`re going to have a conservative breaking with states` rights.
TODD: Obviously, the Supreme Court pick is going to potentially buy a lot of time for Trump, assuming he goes in a social conservative route. Do you expect him to get this right, David, as far as social conservatives are concerned?
FRENCH: Oh, I think the first one. I think, you know, he`s going to be replacing Scalia, the pressure on him to go off his list, which his list is good, is going to be overwhelming. If he goes off-list with his first pick, that`s going to scare an awful lot of people, and he would see immediate erosion in his base.
So I think this first pick is the easy pick. The hard pick is if he has another one, and what is his approval rating then, what`s the temperature of the country at the time? That`s gonna be the hard pick.
TODD: All right. David French, E.J. Dionne, fascinating discussion from both of you. I want to re-create this discussion every few months. You guys are very, very interesting on this topic in particular. Thank you both. Appreciate it.
Up ahead in The Lid, Trump steps up to the bully pulpit. We`ll look at what`s behind the Boeing backlash.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TODD: Welcome back. Tonight I`m obsessed with the democratization of media. Not all of it, giving America a voice and liberating the flow of information from three networks and a handful of newspapers, all of whom for years were run by people who look and thought the exact same way is not a bad thing. It`s a fantastic thing.
What I`m talking about is a plague of fake news. That virus came very close to taking lives this week as we were talking about that dangerous incident at the comet ping-pong pizza restaurant here in Washington. It`s hardly the first time fake news has gained currency.
The pamphleteer James Callender famously spread rumors about John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. And those old enough to walk through airports in the `70s can remember all the crazy Lyndon LaRouche followers spreading malicious non-sense about the queen of England.
The more that news organizations debunk the sex slave story at the time, the more it inspired new fake news and new followers that comment. Fake news is a virus that changes and replicates as it adapts to survive.
There`s no easy answer to this fake news plague, no quick fix, but politicians could start by not re-tweeting lies and conspiracy theories because it feels good. And by realizing that when they relentlessly bash the press, they nearly soften the ground for false news to spread like a contagion.
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(START VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: Well, there you go, Donald Trump took his bully pulpit sky high today. This time it`s aircraft manufacturing company Boeing. Trump went after the company in an early-morning tweet, saying, Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order. Exclamation point.
Well, Boeing responded saying in part, we are currently under contract for $170 million to help determine the capabilities of these complex military aircraft that serves the unique requirements of the president of the United States.
Trump`s numbers on Air Force One don`t appear to match the current arrangement between Boeing and the Department of Defense, but Trump`s words do have an impact. After that tweet went out, Boeing`s stock dropped 1.6 percent.
By closing time, it had leveled off, but the message Trump sent seemed clear. So with that, panel is back with me for The Lid. Cornell Belcher, Susan Page, Ramesh Ponnuru. Ramesh, did you expect a republican president to be so aggressive against corporate America? Carrier, carrier, you know, capitulated, now Boeing. This is the power of the bully pulpit.
RAMESH PONNURU, COLUMNIST AND SENIOR EDITOR FOR NATIONAL REVIEW MAGAZINE: It is a new power of the bully pulpit. I think if a democratic president were getting involved with these individual companies, micromanaging them, calling them out on an individual basis, republicans in congress would be apoplectic.
TODD: What would you be saying?
(LAUGHTER)
TODD: Would you be apoplectic?
PONNURU: I`m saying they ought to be now as well. This is not the appropriate role for the president or the president-elect to be playing.
TODD: I wonder, Susan, how much. It was interesting that Kevin McCarthy to me yesterday, who has been very much capitulating the Trump on a lot of things more so than Paul Ryan, but the number two in the house said, hey, we`re not going to be for this 35 percent tariff business.
Does this Boeing thing, will that give stiffen the backbone of other sort of more private sector conservative republicans?
SUSAN PAGE, JOURNALIST AND CURRENT WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF FOR USA TODAY: Maybe or maybe it will make some business leaders really nervous about getting crosswise with the president for fear that he could be critical of them in a tweet and cost them stock prices. I mean, this is like different territory. Have we ever had a president in the past 50 years engage in behavior like this?
TODD: We`ve had industries, right? Presidents had gotten involved in industries. Obama in auto, Kennedy in steel. Certainly, George W. Bush did it with steel. Hey, Teddy Roosevelt held up on a pedestal for being tough on corporate America.
: Well, you know.
PAGE: But not intervening with individual companies.
(CROSSTALK)
PAGE: . with the federal government.
CORNELL BELCHER, PRESIDENT OF BRILLIANT CORNERS RESEARCH AND STRATEGIES: Let me tell you what our republicans and friends have said. He`s a socialist. They would call him out as a flat-out socialist. But at the same time, I think it`s interesting.
It has to make Wall Street folks and some of the republican establishment nervous, because he is interfering it with the markets and republicans are not supposed to be for free markets, right?
And clearly, he`s interfering in a way that doesn`t make the markets so free. But at the same time, Chuck, if you think about his base, if you think about the voters that voted for him, and think about the people who have been hurt by the free market economy, this makes a lot of political sense for him, although, I think there`s going to be conflict with the republican establishment here.
TODD: You know, this strikes me as sort of the way Trump actually built this real estate empire, which is, he doesn`t worry about the long-term consequences of the debt of the deal. It`s short-term gain. And right now politically, this is short-term gain. And it`s good gain for him.
PONNURU: Well, short-term gains have added up.
TODD: Bashing China. That`s right.
PONNURU: He did actually, you know, win the presidency with the strategy that people didn`t think was going to work.
TODD: Mocked him.
PONNURU: . and so I`m sure this is giving him confidence in every single thing that he`s doing. But the problem here isn`t that it`s anti-business, the problem is that it`s a disagree of interference. A kind of unhealthy connection between the government and industry that I think is not good for the long run economic well-being of this country.
PAGE: And as one more sign, he`s not a conservative republican, he`s a populist when it comes to these issues. This is a populist.
TODD: He`s a nationalist.
BELCHER: I think nationalist more than populist. Because, and frankly, this is the sort of thing that you all would have called Barack Obama socialist on, right? So I think you can go farther than this. When you interfere with the free markets, you know, republicans aren`t supposed to be against this. It will be interesting on how he gets along with members of congress.
TODD: This presents some uncertainty in corporate America, which they have said they don`t like.
BELCHER: And they supported him, right?
TODD: Did they?
BELCHER: They certainly supported the republican party.
TODD: Name a CEO in the fortune 100, though, that was supportive of Trump that wasn`t one?
BELCHER: That`s fair.
PAGE: They would have supported any other nominee much more than.
(LAUGHTER)
TODD: Let me move to Joe Biden yesterday. Was he joking or was he not? I`m still sort of trying to figure that out. Should we play the Biden sound real quick? I think we have it. Let`s play it. We don`t have the bite of Biden with reporters, but it was, I think some people say it wasn`t serious, but part of me thinks, boy, there is a.
PAGE: There was a germ of truth. The question was jocular. The question wasn`t a serious question. He answered in a way that made people think, is he serious? And, you know, I don`t think he was serious exactly, but I think there is a germ of truth in the idea that he`s sorry he didn`t run this time. He would like to be president. If he could run in four years, I bet he would.
BELCHER: I think that if Biden would throw his hat in, you would be surprised at how many people would be supportive of him. This is someone who has stood beside the president and someone.
TODD: Would you have said that two years ago?
BELCHER: I would have. I would have. Because Joe Biden is really liked. We`ve talked a lot about politics, but in the end, Chuck, people tend to vote for people they like. He is someone who would start off a lot more better position in the general public than Hillary Clinton did.
PAGE: And right now there`s sentiment among democrats that, gosh, he should have run.
TODD: He`s the one guy that could have somehow kept the party from fracturing the way he did. He could have played frankly both identity politics and blue collar politics. He could have straddled that.
PAGE: Yeah, but you know what? For four years, democrats surely are gonna want to move on to a new generation, surely get past their leaders who are in their 70s.
BELCHER: I agree with you.
TODD: Is that right?
BELCHER: . but who isn`t?
PAGE: Gillibrand.
TODD: Do you think republicans in `93 were saying that and ended up with Bob Dole in `96? Trump say that a lot of people thought Bob Dole`s days were done.
PAGE: How did it work out for them?
(LAUGHTER)
PONNURU: If they`re up against a Donald Trump that`s running for re- election, that does somewhat neutralize the age issue, I would think.
BELCHER: But I also think that, you know, there is a warren sort of segment of the party, sort of that populist sort of left-wing grassroots who they want for the candidate and I don`t know Joe Biden is their candidate.
TODD: It could mean we`re all curious now if he`s going to somehow find ways to get to Iowa.
BELCHER: The election has started already.
TODD: Oh, don`t laugh. Of course it has. I`m waiting for -- I think I saw where Jason Kander, who didn`t even win, is somehow going to Iowa.
(LAUGHTER)
TODD: So everybody will be going to Iowa in the next month. Anyway, Cornell, Susan, Ramesh, thank you, as always. We`ll have a little more MTP Daily right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TODD: Finally, in case you missed it, democrats are getting just a little bit desperate these days when it comes to senate seats. Louisiana as it normally now does is holding its senate runoff election on Saturday. The president-elect, Donald Trump, is traveling to the state to support the republican candidate, John Kennedy. No relation to the Kennedy family, by the way, on the democratic side.
Meanwhile, the democratic candidate, Foster Campbell, who is trailing in the race just put out a press release today attacking Kennedy as a one-time liberal democrat and saying this about Donald Trump`s visit. By the way, it is true, Kennedy used to be a democrat.
Foster Campbell, I`m glad the president-elect is bringing attention to Louisiana and I look forward to working with him on the things he agrees with me on like term limits and rebuilding our roads, bridges, and ports.
You get that. That`s a democrat not just saying nice things about Donald Trump, but hugging him in hopes of picking up republican votes. My, how things have changed in just over a month. That`s all we have for tonight. We`ll be back tomorrow with a lot more MTP Daily. But Chris Matthews picks up our coverage right now.
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