The Factor Rundown
Chris Wallace
Want KILLING REAGAN Free?
Comments
|
Trump vs. the Media
Chris began Friday's show with the feud between President Trump and the some media outlets, which he again attacked with gusto Friday at the CPAC conference. Bernie Goldberg analyzed the escalating battle. "This isn't Donald Trump shooting from the lip," he said, "this is a coordinated, calculated war on the media. The goal is to try and bring them down, to delegitimize them, and try to take away what little credibility they have left. Steve Bannon and Donald Trump want to bring what they call the 'fake media' down before the media brings them down." Goldberg criticized the president for demanding that the media no longer use anonymous sources when reporting stories. "Donald Trump says reporters should not be able to use any sources without attaching names to them, but if that were the case we would not know what was going on in the White House during Watergate. Some reporters would like to see Donald Trump destroyed, but bias is not 'fake news.' Donald Trump will have to realize that all news he doesn't like is not fake."
|
|
|
Media Leaks & The White House
Some news outlets have reported that Trump campaign operatives were in touch with Russian intelligence agents, an accusation the White House calls ludicrous. Chris pursued that story and FBI leaks with Democratic strategist Mustafa Tameez and Trump supporter Ed Martin. "The White House chief of staff went to the head of the FBI," Tameez claimed, "and asked the FBI to give the administration cover. When the president's chief of staff talks to the head of the FBI about an ongoing investigation, that is an incredible breach." But Martin argued that Chief of Staff Reince Priebus did absolutely nothing wrong. "Priebus was told by the number two guy at the FBI that these accusations were nonsense. Reince asked if the FBI could say that publicly, but they said they could not. However, they said Reince could say it and he did. The FBI should fire the people who leaked the story about Reince's call."
|
|
|
Jorge Ramos on Trump's Immigration Plan
Chris invited Univison anchor Jorge Ramos to evaluate Donald Trump's promises and policies regarding deportation. "I have absolutely no problem with deporting criminals and terrorists," he declared, "but the problems is that Donald Trump is criminalizing immigrants in this country who are not criminals or terrorists. They come here because they want to work and they don't want to get into trouble with the police. Last week the government deported people who had not been in trouble with the law." Chris reminded Ramos, "Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly says there will not be mass deportations and President Trump talks about deporting rapists and violent criminals." Ramos concluded by affirming that the vast majority of Mexicans have a negative impression of President Trump.
|
|
|
Trump's Plan to Defeat ISIS
Foreign policy specialists Ric Grenell and David Tafuri scrutinized President Trump's vow to destroy ISIS. "We don't have very good timely intelligence," Grenell lamented, "and we have to solve that problem by having intelligence officers on the ground. We've had a lot of bombing and drone strikes without timely intelligence, and to me that's the missing piece. One thing about President Trump is that he puts forth a credible threat of military action." Tafuri contended that the war against ISIS was growing more effective during the Obama administration. "President Trump has a point in that the U.S. government was slow to respond to ISIS and slow to have a military campaign. But it's going pretty well and ISIS will be out of Iraq soon. The real struggle will be how to pacify Iraq after ISIS will be pushed out and how to push ISIS out of Syria. President Trump makes a mistake if he aligns himself with Russia."
|
|
|
Repealing and Replacing ObamaCare
Chris welcomed one of the architects of ObamaCare, Ezekiel Emanuel, who disputed Donald Trump's frequent claims that the Affordable Care Act is a complete disaster. "It needs reform and it needs bolstering," Emanuel conceded, "and we need to make the exchanges more stable. If you go beneath the rhetoric that it's a 'disaster,' President Trump has said some important things and he has done some material things to stabilize the exchanges and to reassure the insurance companies. He could come to a bipartisan plan to actually repair it, that is the way to go." Emanuel urged Democrats and Republicans to work in tandem to repair the existing law. "The Republicans don't like the mandate so maybe we can go to a 'skinnier' package that everyone would get. That could be a compromise and it takes two to tango."
|
|
|
Democrats in Turmoil?
The Democratic Party is about to name a new DNC chair who will likely move the party even farther to the left. Chris analyzed the party's divisions with political reporters Caitlin Huey-Burns and Bob Cusack. "This is shaping up to be a fight," Huey-Burns said, "between the Obama wing of the party and the Bernie Sanders more progressive wing of the party. After the election people were hoping the DNC race would identify the heart and soul of the Democratic Party, but in recent months the more liberal base has been rising up through the grass roots. The new DNC chair will really have to play catch-up to the party's base." Cusack implied that Democrats are at risk of damaging their brand. "The party is definitely moving left, the Bernie Sanders wing is getting more powerful. Trump won the 'blue wall' of manufacturing states, so the problem for Democrats is how they win rural voters with a new leader like Keith Ellison or Tom Perez?"
|
|
|
Trump to Address Congress
Returning for a second segment, Caitlin Huey-Burns and Bob Cusack looked ahead to Tuesday and President Trump's first speech to a joint session of Congress. "This will be great theater and it will be surreal," Cusack said, "especially for a lot of Democrats who are still getting over the election. The president has to unify his party because his agenda in Congress is languishing. So part of his message could be, 'Get going!' He has to lead this party." Huey-Burns predicted that President Trump will urge his fellow Republicans to get to work on health care. "Democrats are rising to the defense of the health care law, knowing that Republicans are working on repeal. It will be interesting to see what directive Donald Trump gives them during this speech and what they took away from this week's recess. This will be a speech aimed at his supporters, reminding them of the things he has done that have been successful."
|
|
|
|
|
|
