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tv   MSNBC Live With Richard Lui  MSNBC  December 1, 2018 12:00pm-1:01pm PST

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you read this note. i wish you well. i wish your family well. your success now is our country's success. i am rooting hard for you. good luck. george. that is a wrap for me this hour. i'm alex witt. my colleague richard lui is picking up on that. thank you, alex. we're honoring the legacy of george h.w. bush. his passing comes several monies after the pacing of his wife, first lady barbara bush. he was not short on achievements. he was one of the youngest aviator to serve in naval history, a congressman, ambassador, vice president all prior to taking to the white house and oval office.
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his presidency saw the fall of the berlin wall, the collapse of soviet union and he famously launched operation desert storm along with coalition forces to drive saddam hussein and the iraqi government out of kuwait. flags are flying at half staff outside the white house and u.s. capitol building. i want to bring in garrett haake who is in houston and tammy leitner is in the george h.w. bush museum. garrett, let's start with you. this is the town of george h.w. bush. >> that's right, richard. this has been his hometown off and on since 1993 where he returned after losing the white house in that bid against bill clinton in 1992. this will be where he comes back
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to after the first part of the state funeral ceremonies begin in earnest this week. we're getting details about what that will entail. the president's remains will arrive at the capitol monday evening. members of the public will be invited to see the former president lie in state until wednesday morning. that's when the state funeral will take place, wednesday during the day. president trump has said he will attend, along with first lady melania trump. then things will move back down here to texas for a final funeral mass at st. martin's church here, the family's long-time church here in the houston area before things will head out to college station, where the president will be buried beside his long-time wife barbara bush who passed away this spring. >> tammy, you are at college station right now.
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you're at the h.w. bush library. what was the tone there? i know you've been speaking with many of the folks coming through today. >> reporter: yes. people are somber. they're coming here to remember him. people have been leaned up since early this morning. this is set, the museum and library, on 90 acres. i'm told this is the most photographed room in the entire museum. people can come and sit behind a replica of his des. -- desk. the photos take you through decades of his life. in the second drawer of his desk, he kept his baseball glove from when he was in college. if you come over here, this is where he kept the phone to the pentagon. he was one of the only presidents, i was told, to use what's called a partner desk, so
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someone could sit on one side while he was on the other side. steve and aaron, you've lived here for 15 years. you said even though president bush didn't live here full time, he was really a part of the community. how was that? >> he would come into town whenever there was a major event in our community, whether it was a sporting event. he'd be out at outback steak house. the kids were working out of the student relation center and working out on the elliptical and president bush would walk up and work out right next to them. it's not like a&m was a small school in the 90s but it's grown exponentially and our community is so much better and richer because of president bush. >> why did you come out today?
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today of all days, it's an important day. why did you want to come out here today? >> today is a day of remembrance for one of the greatest men to walk this earth. i'm just here to show my respect and remember good ol' '41. >> thank you. i appreciate it. as garrett mentioned, president bush will be laid to rest here. there is a spot about 200 yards from the library where barbara bush was buried seven months ago. normally people can go and pay their respects but right now it is closed off in preparation for his burial. >> the very latest for us there in texas. thank you both so much. we're also learning this hour more about president bush's final moments. a "new york times" articles "where are we going, george bush's final days," it gives us insight into his state of mind in an interview with one of his closest friends. the author of that article joins us, peter baker.
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i know it's a very busy day but give us what you heard about those final moments for george h.w. bush. >> right. well, president bush had been fading the last few days. he hadn't been getting out of bed and hadn't been eating that much. and then peter baker went to visit him and president bush game more alert and said "we're are we going, bake?" and baker said "we're going to heaven." and president bush said "that's where i want to go." and in a conversation with his
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son george bush, he said i love you, dad, and president h.w. bush said, "i love you, too." >> he's always been an athletic man. he wou he would show up at the hospital in the last few years, even after barbara bush passed away last spring, he had to go to the hospital pretty soon afterwards, people thought this might be that moment. he's always been a fighter. as secretary baker told me, this time he was ready. this time he knew he wasn't going to -- he gave instructions to his medical team not to bring him to the hospital. he didn't want to do that again. he wanted to die in his own bed. >> peter, as has been said,
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these were close friends, best friends. it goes in your piece when you describe what secretary baker, that he was massaging the former president's hands and feet. >> yeah. he's a close friend, extraordinary friendship in politics, you don't see a president and secretary of state the way they were. they were partners on the tennis courts at the houston country club way back when they were young men. in fact, their partnership in politics predates secretary baker ever becoming involved. jim baker's first wife passed away when he was 40 and george bush's good friend enticed him to come into politics as a way of dealing with his grief. they spent a lot of time over the next two decades ascending to the heights of american pow erp apower and running the world and it was a critical moment at the end of the cold war and the war in
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iraq. >> as you said in the final lines in your article, you said "there was no prolonged period of labored breathing. at 10:10 p.m., the former president was gone. if those things could be sweet, secretary baker says it was sweet." peter baker, thank you so much, chief white house correspondent over there at the "new york times." always a pleasure to have you fill us in, especially in moments like this. thank you, peter. >> thank you. appreciate it. >> for more now, i'd like to turn to andy card and former chief of staff under george w. bush and michael beschloss. you worked with him. it's not been easy times for you. you watched him struggle at times. yesterday at 10 p.m., what was the moment. >> it was and i didn't know that
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until i woke up this morning and looked at my phone and knew that something had happened. i felt a great sadness wash over me. i knew that many other people in this country, some of whom were fortunate as i was, secretary card certainly was, to get to know him on an intimate level. and mamerica lost a true hero. obviously we lost a former president but we also lost possibly the most decent man to ever assume the office of the presidency and certainly one of the best human beings i've ever had the privilege getting to know. >> reporter: what's your perspective now that we are thinking -- there's many notes to be looked at, the last world war ii president. >> well, george h.w. bush defined the noble public servant and he was a man of great character and a true citizen, not just of the united states but a citizen of the world. i found him to be a phenomenal
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role model. his life is a life that we should all aspire to live. i'm not talking about the wealth or the success or the political success. i'm talking about how we cared for other people. he is about as loving a person as i've ever met. he didn't even remember his enemies were his enemies. he would make friends out of former enemies. people had to remind you, they're your enemy. and he said that was then, now is this. witness the relationship between president bush and present. present kind of considered himself as a son of george bush. and george bush considered him a son, too. and it was just a remarkable experience to witness him so many times find love and share it and make sure that we all could benefit as a result of it. so on so many levels. i think the greatest legacy that he left was actually the legacy of the students at the bush
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school. he cared deeply about creating that school. he didn't want it to be just a place where people would come and give speeches. he wanted it to be a school where students came to be trained to enter public service. and graduates are doing that. and they will continue to, i think, emulate the life that george h.w. bush lived as they serve. and that is a wonderful legacy and that's why the bush school was so important to the president and he was so committed to its success. i was privileged to be part of that effort on so many different front. it ju it's just a joy to see the students of the bush school living their lives the way george bush lived his. too few people today want to jump into the political arena. george h.w. bush did and he made it a better place because he did. >> for half a century. michael beschloss, you've chronicled all of our presidents.
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where does he fit in and what will he mean going forward? and as andy was telling us, look at the students moving forward that will want to serve. >> well, i think one thing, you know, it touches exactly on what andy said is that this was a man who had almost every virtue that you'd want to see in your own children, and one of them we so rarely see nowadays is modestly. this was an amazingly modest man. if you met him, he would be looking to set you at ease, not trying to impress you with his magnificence. and in history, you know, sometimes you want a certain president to do a certain thing at a certain moment in history. if we're rewinding the team from the period from 1989 to 199 3, you'd want a president capable of winding up the cold war on the bernie sande
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the best terms possible. that's what george bush did better than anyone at that i'm. >> he was the right person at the right time. being a cold war kid myself and having to live through all of that. >> for certain. you look at the decisions he made that were controversial at the time, most notably the pressure that was on him to dance on the wall when it fell between east and west berlin. he resisted that urge. he knew it could be a provocation to the soviets who were slowly becoming the russians. in behihindsight, everyone saidt was the right thing to do. he did do the right thing and the world and america are better off for it. >> all right, thank you. thank all three of you for your perspective on this important day. our other big story we are watching here on a busy "newsday," the g-20 summit in
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argentina. president trump is set to talk trade in just a few hours at a dinner with chinese president xi jinping. i am a family man.
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president trump today paying tribute to former president george h.w. bush while in argentina for the g-20 summit. take a listen. >> best wishes and he was a very fine man. i met him on numerous occasions. he was just a high quality man who truly loved hits family.
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he was very proud of his family, very much loved his family. so he was a terrific guy. he'll be missed and he led a full life and very exemplary life. >> let's go to white house correspondent geoff bennett who is traveling with the president and has more on today's developments. jeff. >> reporter: hey, richard. the thing that people should know about the g-20, it is the principal forum for world leaders trying to find common purpose on trade, climate change. it has really been the g-19 versus 1. this gathering just produced as what's known as a communique, a nonbinding joint agreement, and on this issue of climate change and we happen to know president trump is a climate change skeptic, you have 19 other countries reaffirming their commitment to the paris climate agreement while the u.s. is the only country reconfirming its
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commitment to withdraw from the paris climate agreement. we also learned the president met briefly, informally, with russian president vladimir putin at a dinner for world leaders. sarah sanders said "as is typical, president trump and first lady had a number of informal conversations." the president called off the conference this afternoon out of respect and deference of president bush. the thinking here is a trade war is good for no one. when you have the world's two biggest economies locked in a trade war, the ramifications are
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felt far beyond the borders of those particular countries. those a quick wrap of the news we're tracking here in buenos aires. >> geoff bennett in buenos aires for us live. let's bring in charlie savidge, natasha bertrand, staff writer for "the atlantic." natasha, you heard some of the headlines coming out of the g-20. that's just today. the shadow of what's happening not only here in the united states with the loss and the death of george h.w. bush, and president trump now reflecting on that very piece of news, on top of that the developments here of who he is meeting with there in buenos aires. there have been plenty of headlines. which of these do you think do stand out the most, these meetings, not official
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pull-asides, right, with the leader of russia and now xi jinping. >> i think it's really interesting that it seems like the president really could not help himself here but have this inform an conferring with the russian president. last year in hamburg the president had a similar informal conversation linked to adoption. it seems like this is not a moment when they would be having an inform an, heal, hey, how's weather conversation. there's certainly no media glare because reporters were not actually allowed in the event but in terms of the other headlines, you know, reforming the wto, excluding language of
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multi-lateralism from this communique, none of that is particularly surprising, right? just earlier last month in november when world leaders gathered to mark the -- president trump and president putin were not present for. >> it seems like things tend to cluster. i'll read a couple of developments within the last 24, 48 hours. you have russia we're learning today deploying more forces along the ukrainian border. we're hearing 70,000, 80,000, at least coming from reports of the leadership of ukraine. s secretary pompeo tweeting iran's nuclear proliferation is growing, perhaps a test is happening on top of that. we're also going to look at how
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the mueller headlines also seem to pile on during these trips, too. charlie? >> it's absolutely coming at an intense time. you mentioned the shadow cast over this by the death of president george h.w. bush, the man we think of as coining the notion of the new world order, multi-lateral diplomacy. here we have president trump in the midst of this maelstrom between the tariff crisis with china and the michael cohen revelations even as he's coming face to face with president putin again. it's a completely different scenario, a president equipped to talk on the world stage, eager to create ties internationally and smooth things over and a president who likes throwing bombs into the national order. it's a very interesting and fraught time. >> fraught time. i'm looking at six, seven trump foreign trips here and overshadowed or conflicted by shall we say mueller
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investigation developments. and we can go through them going back to may 2017, saudi arabia, jared kushner named as a person of interest by mueller. and it goes on and on and on and on and on. and because we have the developments just within this last week certainly with michael cohen on thursday, this makes it very difficult for a president trying to operate in a multi-lateral situation to the best efficiency i imagine. >> yeah, i think that's right. but not only that, what you see with president trump is that he has changed the way that america is perceived on the global stage. we used to be the world leader and now we're the global loner. he's off by himself, he's marching in a different direction. when it comes to the mueller investigation, real milestones. what we see in every one of these activities is the president trying to have private conversations with vladimir putin, where he comes back and
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changes the narrative of how he's responding to the mueller investigation and nobody knows what is going on in these conversations between the president and vladimir putin at the very same time when he is under investigation for his campaign's ties to russia during 2016. it's all very troubling. and the lack of transparency should worry everyone. >> charlie, how uncomfortable might that be? he's abroad and not seen as the most popular, shall we say. >> that's right. certainly european leaders are keeping their distance from him and rolling their eyes at him at the same time. on the other hand, the international stage is a very transactional one in which outlandish personalities like donald trump and others can give way to national interests. so they're going to have to deal with him and certainly in his meeting later today with the chinese president, whatever personalities differences and gravitas differences there may
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be, the south china sea military buildup, north korea and the tariff crisis will mean that they have to engage. >> quickly to you, natasha, when we watch these developments coming out of the ukraine, one has to ask does the president of russia -- is vladimir putin taking advantage of this difficulty, this odd-man out, if you will, in this environment? >> i think it makes trump more easy to exploit. the president sees him as someone who is already very vulnerable to flattery. i think if he were to seek him out and say, look, the rest of the world is ignoring you, but here's what i can give you, here's what i can do for you, i think trump would be very susceptible to that kind of flattery. people always say why don't we give the trump administration credit for what they've done with regard to arming the ukrainians. clearly none of that has worked.
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some of the policies are stronger than what the obama administration did but clearly trump 's rhetoric is very important here and vladimir putin still see as way he can attempt to influence the president of the united states and that i think is still a very big danger. >> i have to ask you, as wee se back home to developments, with michael cohen, what was mueller signaling to the president? >> what he's signaling is that this moscow tower development the president claimed was over before the presidential cam ppan really got into full swing, that he knows it was ongoing, that there was a business interest for trump personally throughout the election with the russians and that anyone who had said otherwise to mueller or to congress is facing real criminal jeopardy here. >> including his son. >> including his son-in-law and his son. >> thank you so much to my
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guests. appreciate it. when we come back, more on the death of former president george h.w. bush and a look at the friendship between him and his "saturday night live" impersonator dana carvey. alright, i brought in ensure max protein... ...to give you the protein you need with less of the sugar you don't. [grunting noise] i'll take that. 30 grams of protein and 1 gram of sugar. ensure max protein. in two great flavors.
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president bush is still on the hook. he want to say something. >> he's still here now? >> yeah. >> put him in. >> i'm watching you do your impression to me and i got to say, it's nothing like me. bears no resemblance. it's bad. it's bad. >> well, i'm sorry, mr. president. i think it's a fair impression. >> i don't see it. it's totally exaggerated. it's not me, those crazy hand gestures. the pointing thing, i don't do 'em. >> that's "saturday night live"'s dana carvey, whose impression of president bush launched him to superstardom. and born from the impression, an unlikely friendship. the two did charity events
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together, performed side by side at the 1992 white house correspondent dinners and traded letters over the years. dana carvey writes "it was an honor and privilege to spend time with george h.w. bush over all the years. what i remember is laughing." still ahead for you, lies and the russia investigation. special counsel robert mueller is considering new charges against the president's former campaign manager paul manafort after he breached his plea deal. here we go.
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welcome back. it's a tough week for associates of president trump and the russian investigation. prosecutors refusing to rule out new charges against manafort after he allegedly breached his plea agreement. this comes after michael cohen pleaded guilty thursday about lying to congress about trump's plans to build a trump moscow.
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ken dilanian, national security reporter and kcraig unger, investigative journalist. ken, watching the pictures of the president as he's in buenos aires and we're all trying to read into what he may be thinking, right, but what you do understand is that we have several headlines that could be swirling through his mind at the moment. and that is the question of will, in one case for paul manafort, for instance, will he face new charges based on what might happen this week? do you believe that might happen? >> it's very possible, richard. mueller's prosecutors on friday told the judge they were considering new charges against manafort as a result of the plea deal falling through and his failure to cooperate and his commission of crimes and lies. they've yet to spell out what those are. we expecting a court filing in a
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few weeks that will lay all that out. this was a hugely consequential week in the mueller investigation. it's got to have donald trump incredibly rattled. mueller certainly gained a lot of was in from manafort over the many meetings they had and he gained a new cooperator this week in michael cohen. late last night cohen's attorneys filed a document suggests he is cooperating with prosecutor in the southern district of new york, the new york attorney general's office and tax department. that could throw further investigations into the trump business world that has to have trump wondering what authorities are looking at, richard. >> jill, what do you make of the reporting there, notwithstanding what he said came out just overnight? >> it's been a wow week and it is all getting closer and closer to the president and russia.
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but i think one of the points ken made, which is we shouldn't just focus on the crimes that may involve the president and his campaign and russia, but the president is now under investigation for his possible business violations. and let's not forget his cfo, mr. whiesleberg, who is also cooperating. you have mr. cohen and weisleberg who know all the dirty little secrets of how he ran his business. that could lead to himself children and himself as well. there's a lot going on that makes me think trump is not going to be in a good mood for a very long time and that he could be possibly indicted and certainly once the republicans are out of the majority and the democrats take over we might be able to have public hearings so that we will all know what mueller knows and that we will know what is really going on.
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>> and part of the week's developments i think many of us will think of here, craig, is collusion back on the table? the answer to that might be yes based on before the focus was obstruction of justice potentially. >> absolutely. i think cohen's cooperation can be absolutely devastating. for one thing a lot of it's already been corroborated by dmitri peskov, described as vladimir putin's press secretary but he's much more than another sarah sanders. he's putin's right hand. you see how close the trump organization was to president putin. the other thing is look at what michael cohen may know. he's given over 70 hours of interviews to mueller. he goes back quite a way and if you look at trump in the late -- remember in the late 90s, he was $4 billion in debt. the russians came to his aid, the mysterious country called
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bay rock moved in to trump tower, there were a lot of allegations of money laundering in the trump sojo and sale of condos. all that may be on the table. >> 70-plus hours of discussions. one has to think it can't be just what we have learned from the mueller investigation. >> no, absolutely not, richard. this charge was essentially a place holder, a way to get michael cohen into court, establish his cooperation. he's facing sentencing. but those 70 hours were about a lot more than lying to congress you can bet. the kristopher steele dossier which lead out this alleged russia conspiracy to interfere in the election asserts that michael cohen was a key liaison between the russian government and trump campaign. and then he traveled to europe and met with russian officials in that endeavor. he has always denied that
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adamantly. but a lot of things in that dossier have proven out over time as this investigation has gone forward, and you can bet that prosecutors are grilling cohen about everything to do with any knowledge that he has about russian collusion and any other matters and potentially obstruction of justice as well. >> just to keep things clear and simple here, let's go back to manafort for a second here, jill. manafort's legal team is speaking with the president's legal team as well. >> they have been and probably still are. that was one of the reasons that there was tension between the manafort and the prosecutors and maybe one of the reasons that the deal fell apart. but i also want collusion, which of course is really conspiracy, there's no named crime called collusion. but the cooperation with the russians is not limited to the hacking and the social media damage that they did. it's also -- it could be related to personal profit by mr. trump,
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it could be the trump tower moscow was one of the acts of collusion as we are calling it, even though that's not the right word. so there's many more forms that the conspiracy could take between trump and russia that might explain why he changed his foreign policy, why he has been playing up to putin, why he has not been strong on either sanctions or on protecting the election going forward by making sure that they cannot hack into our election or use social media again. so i think that's something we need to keep in mind, that it's not just the hacking that is part of the investigation. >> and if it can be said, that's it in a nut shell after 560 days plus of this investigation so far. no doubt that means there's a lot ahead of us still. thank you all three, jill wine-banks. when we come back, a much
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like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky. >> president george h.w. bush there. as you might remember, there at the rnc. one of his famous sayings there, george h.w. bush most famously for a kinder gentler nation, while accepting the nomination for president in 1988. lawmakers are reflecting on his brand of conservatism. chuck schumer said he was a fine man, even when he opposed your views, you knew he was doing what he thought was best for america. majority leader mitch mcconnell saying this quote, george bush built his life on the premise that loving and serving america was simply a citizen's duty. he fulfilled that duty time and time again as completely as anyone could. his brand of conservatism was one of unity and inclusion, and
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ideology, some say is fading from today's conservative party. we are also watching what's happening coming out of the g20 meeting. this is video that we are just about to get in coming from buenos aires. and this is it, i believe, here that we just switched over to. president xi jinping of china and there you see president trump exactly sitting opposite of him, and i understand that we will be able to hear some words and let's listen in. >> a lot of people are looking forward to it. i know that president xi and myself are looking forward to and we have also established an incredible relationship. i want to thank the president for his nice, best wishes to the bush family on behalf of a man that we all respected and liked very much, president bush, and we very much appreciate that, mr. president. we will be going back. i will be going back to
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washington right after this, and will be spending three days of mourning and three days of celebrating a really great man's life. so we look forward to doing that, and he certainly deserves it. he really does. he's a respectful person. i spoke with jeb and george today, and we had great conversations and we discussed, actually, for quite some time their father, and how much they loved him and how much that he loved them. so we are now going to start our meeting. we'll be talking about a number of topics. one topic that we'll bring up is the fentanyl problem that we have in the united states, which is a tremendous problem. we ask the president to do something about that. i think he'll be able to. we'll be able to pretty much stop it right there. that will be to criminalize it
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in china would be a great thing. we'll be discussing trade, and i think at some point we are going to end up doing something which is great for china and great for the united states, and i look very much forward to the dinner. i look very much forward to the discussion and i'm sure discussions after. but the relationship is very special, the relationship that i have with president xi, and i think that is going to be a very primary reason why we'll probably end up getting something that will be good for china and good for the united states. so we very much appreciate it. >> we're listening to tape we just got in from moments ago. you can see president xi jinping translating what president trump said opposite the table. they are having a working meeting in the traditional formation. one side the united states, the other side the chinese
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delegation, and this coming into msnbc moments ago in a early evening hour as they're about to break bread and hopefully as the president is saying there, come to some agreements regarding trade. i'd like to bring in chris lou. he served as white house cabinet secretary. also as deputy secretary of labor. now senior fellow at the university of virginia miller center which studies the presidency. former republican strategist and editor and writer for a house united. chris, as we're watching this, the preparations that are undertaken by any white house before you sit down to have a meal are great, and with so much at risk, as we are remembering a great president, president george h.w. bush, an individual who was an ambassador to china, who understood this country quite well, there is also the reflection of how to handle what might be a trade cold war,
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president h.w. bush saying the end of the cold war for the united states of america. what might be going on right now? what is at risk, you believe, as they do sit at the table right now? of course trade is the one i did mention right now. >> there's a lot at risk right now. this ultimately is probably the most consequential meeting that the president will do during his time at the g20. the trade tensions have ratcheted up, having an effect both on businesses and consumer, and as you correctly pointed out, a lot of what is happening now has already been scripted out, potentially negotiated between the parties. unfortunately at this point, both sides have really kind of dug in, and this is really going to be imperative upon the president to build on his relationship with president xi to see if they can cut some kind of deal. i think most people are not particularly optimistic about it. but i think as you pointed out, this speaks more broadly to the contrast between president trump and president bush. president bush understood the value of free trade.
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he negotiated nafta. he understood the value of alliances like nato, of multilateral organizations, like the united nations. he believed that the u.s. should have a robust foreign policy. you have seen a significant retreat over the past two years under president bush. >> when you see these side by sides, the line is right down the table. you're wondering if you had to sit there, and you're thinking, okay, who has more to lose here. who has more to lose, and therefore i understand the stance i will take. there's both an economic, if you will, issue in front of them. there's also a political issue, the china economy is slowing. the united states economy seems to be doing well. >> well and i think obviously the pressure is on president trump to perform well on this, so one thing that i think that a lot of people have a little bit of a problem with, when he's delling with any foreign leader, he focuses too much on their personal relationship, if he thinks they like him personally,
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and they could go golfing together. i think that hurts his credibility. here we are mourning and celebrating the life of somebody who did know china very well, and was successful with china with george h.w. bush, and we have a president under fire in his own country whose presidency in doubt when he can even stay in office, and you know, that's not lost on the people sitting around that table, and that affects everything, every conversation, every decision, and how much faith they have in anything that trump and his team does. so i think that the united states in general is in a precarious position when he sits at these tables or representatives are sitting doing any kind of negotiating because of the peril he's in due to his own actions and so what this does politically to him at home while he may be looking presidential and trying to sound presidential in these situations, we all know better, so it's a little bit of theater going on here, but it's kind of
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like there's the elephant in the room that you can't quite ignore. >> when you think about this, chris, too, as we are looking at h.w. bush, and if he were to be ambassador of multilateralism, that this president, certainly critics don't believe that president trump is, but potentially when you look at bilateralism in the way he has been able to go one on one which he has clearly stated in speeches and interviews, this is the thing he says he does well. >> well, exactly as sherry said, you know, president trump thinks he can cut better deals by going one on one with leaders, building on his personal relationships. that's not proven really to be the case so far. and as we've seen, it's important to have a strong relationship with our nato allies, our neighbors on the northern and southern borders and understanding who our friends are, and who our friends are not. president george bush negotiated an arms control agreement with the soviet union, but he
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understood that the soviets were not our friends. he understand the importance of a multilateral trade agreement like nafta, and he negotiated to his strongest for the united states, but understood that trailed must occur within countries and across borders in order to ensure everyone's prosperity. so there's a very stark contrast between these two men, not only in terms of their policies, their approaches and as importantly, the tone that they set. >> concern on tone is that it won't be good coming out of this. i'll read a cnbc headline saying explosion is possible here, and it could hit the stock market. if that does happen, we're looking at fortune 500, silicone valley saying to a business president that quote unquote, hey, this is not working well for us, quickly, please, sherry. >> i think then his credibility goes down, and i think you'll see everybody turning on him, people on the fence that want to support him for economic
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purposes, i think they will turn rather quickly. obviously he'll find somebody else to blame, but this is somebody who ran for office saying that he was a good businessman, that he was in fact a genius, that he knew how to do this, so when you have some of the top business leaders in the country that will turn on him and say i don't think that's the case, i think we're going to have a very different narrative, and i think we know how trump will respond to that. >> his business, the trump organization, maybe a couple people all said, not certainly parallel to the fortune 500 businesses that most are familiar with. chris, cheri jacobus, if we have anymore video we'll get straight to that. i'm richard lui at nbc headquarters, our coverage will continue as we remember the life and legacy of george h.w. bush. i don't need to make anymore

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