Donald Trump has basically lived his life flouting rules, norms, institutions, sometimes skirting laws and has made that a business practice.
David Axelrod
The Public Record
David Axelrod is a prominent Democratic political consultant and strategist, best known for his role as the chief strategist for Barack Obama's presidential campaigns in 2008 and 2012. Born on February 22, 1955, in New York City, Axelrod has played a significant role in shaping modern political communication and campaign strategies. He served as a senior advisor to President Obama during his administration, focusing on messaging and public relations. Axelrod is also a co-founder of the consulting firm AKPD Message and Media.
The President has the ability to make a difference here. I agree with Senator Murphy, his rhetoric at the end of that session at the White House today was very discouraging.
Yes, I think that -- I think that it would. I think it would be a risky move for him with his base.
These kids are just overwhelming. These kids are so inspiring, so impressive. And they are just asking us to suspend our cynicism, to throw off the political shackles that campaign contributions and threats from the NRA represent, and…
You would have certainly removed at least on a temporary basis Mr. Porter from that job, handling the most sensitive documents that the U.S. government has, and you would have looked more deeply into these charges.
If no one said to him, whether it was Kelly or anyone else -- if no one said to him going into this scrum, Mr. President, if you don't do anything else, you have to express some solicitude for these women, you have to speak to their…
This has been a fiasco, and what is interesting to me, Anderson, is that the story leaked out --
The fact of the matter is that Porter couldn't get clearance in the White House for 13 months.
The fact that there was a hold on his clearance for 13 months meant that people who needed to clear him had really deep concerns.
What Rand Paul is doing is pulling the cover off of all of this. And it's embarrassing to his colleagues. And he knows it's embarrassing. And he wants to embarrass them. And what his real message is this is Washington politics as usual.
And for Donald Trump who is going to change Washington, this seems very much like the same old game. And Rand Paul is calling him on it.
It's a slog. And you really need to think about whether you want to put yourself through that.
I think that in his head, he's running. I listen to him in that interview and I see a guy who's thinking, he's going to be running for president of the United States in 2020.
He would be 82 years old at the end of his term if he ran for president.
There's got to be a great deal of trepidation about the prospect of this President sitting down in front of those prosecutors.
I think the goal is to politicize the entire discussion so that it looks like a political tug-of-war and not a legitimate investigation.
He overruled his own FBI director, director of National Intelligence and the Justice Department and took the advice of Director Hannity on this.
The fact is the memo was designed to try and discredit the whole probe to put pressure on all those involved in the probe.
I have believe that there are many members of that Congress who were deeply disturbed about this but feel compelled for political reasons to at least remain silent.
When you have the president's own appointee as director of the FBI, when you have his Justice Department and when you have his director of national intelligence all urging the president not to release this memo, then it's more than a…
It might be to make the case that Rosenstein should be removed because one way to limit this investigation would be to remove him and put someone else in charge of that investigation.
I think the circus thing, I think it's an important thing to remember. Because I do think that part of the strategy of the White House is to try and turn the entire discussion into a partisan circus.
In a democracy party wins the White House, they have a right to make policy subject to the approval of a Congress. You may not like the policies they make, but that's our system.





