politicking on larry king the twenty eight hundred midterms are now behind us the democratic party has recaptured the house of representatives republicans retain the senate a deeply divided nation now has a deeply divided congress what does this mean for the immediate future of the country and the next two years of it from presidency will stop there with read dickens former white house assistant press secretary secretary under president george w. bush co-founder of maroon boards and e.q. jane and he joins us in studio in washington. what's your read on the shape of the american political system right this minute i think the big story is that the democrats now have the gavel and i think the trump team in general is woefully underprepared so for get president trump's performance of the press conference i think the team doesn't have the depth of the experience

to understand what's coming their way with a wave of subpoenas i look at it like a pac twelve team playing alabama they may have a few exciting players that are fun to watch but they don't have the depth to handle what's about to come their way so you're going to they're going to be trying to govern run for reelection and deal with investigations a lot of my friends in the in the clinton white house and the bush white house a lot of my colleagues stuck around for the second term they said every morning they would get document request and document preservation and request and it's a real grind every single morning trying to do your drive while you're getting investigated so that's the big story and does not the house now control a lot of the investigations they do that's the big story is that the truck white house is going to be getting a new document request every day for investigations it's not fun to deal with but i think a subplot of what happened is the seven governors races that the democrats flipped . broke obama lost over a thousand. state house level seats were lost under barack obama primarily because

republicans one controlled some of the governor says this last night the republicans lost seven key republican. governors' races that's going to hurt when it comes to grassroots organizing and getting ready for twenty twenty. the resignation of jeff sessions surprising no not surprising at all i think it was a long time coming right or wrong i don't think anyone was surprised i think as with most topics with president donald trump the constitutional questions are what are interesting now you have a acting attorney general does an acting attorney general have the authority to oversee a special court prosecutor i don't i don't personally know the answer to that but there's always constitutional questions when you're dealing with president trump. trump says he won the what do you make of his press covers his response to the election i think it's typical he's a promoter he's a showman i think i think what he's trying to say if you're trying to take what

he's saying seriously but not literally is that clinton lost sixty something seats and george w. bush got a thumping barack obama got a shellacking right they were both very humble about it and trump lost twenty five twenty seven twenty eight seats and actually over performed on the senate side so i think what he's trying to convey to his base is that we over perform for a first term president that's not an unfair point i think the way he conveyed that in the press conference makes him sound delusional i thought he. said we won it was you know we basically he made it sound like we won we won you know we had a fantastic night and it wasn't a fantastic night as you'll see when the subpoenas start rolling in but i do think another subplot a story an underlying story that's not getting talked about because there are so many breathtaking things that the media likes to cover breathlessly is that voters showed once again they do not care what the polls say they don't give a damn what the experts say voters have proven once again that in spite of all the

late night comedy all the condit sending lectures of how they should vote voters don't care in fact frank wants you know him well said that he think there's a hidden trump vote of a few percentage points of people who mislead pollsters and or don't talk to pollsters and david axelrod president obama's advisors that it's debatable whether you can poll accurately anymore or whether you can poll at all and here's why all of the races were supposed to be close turned out to be blowouts the senate was a pretty big surprise that the republicans are going to pick up three four five seats so i think one of the subplots of this election is that polling is becoming pretty pointless but they did say florida governor's would be very close focus and it would be very close texas would be close they were right yeah but that but that would that didn't take a pollster to tell you that those those were those are. states where you would expect that. but well i guess what i'm saying is there were several people that were observing last night and i agree that trying to handicap anything involving

trump is a fool's errand. it isn't his strength rural of course once again over performed with with eggs herbs and white rural voters who do show up to vote so that's interesting one thing that i noticed is that you know the trump base and supporters love to chant lock her up lock her up about hillary which was a silly that was silly legally but it might not be bad political advice because i think when i see elizabeth warren joe biden and nancy pelosi i were the democrats would lock them in a retirement center because i would make i would cancel the i would cancel the primary and make bay to the nominee he was he was very impressive is going to ask about him i think so i think first of all voters have proven they don't care about experience barack obama had no experience donald trump had no experience voters don't care about that the democrats have always loved cult of personality as bill clinton barack obama were cool they played the saxophone them krauts have always

love cult of personality i it sounds like i'm joking but i'm not i think they should double down if they want to be donald trump i think they should double down on a young energetic visionary he's already in the government but if you may if you spend the next two years with nancy pelosi elizabeth warren and joe biden speaking only half the democratic party i promise you you're going to get with another four years of donald trump beta will get into the primaries will you not i think he should because experience is not a qualification in war he was also a texas man he almost beat cruz he did texas you know you can look at it one of two ways larry. if you say well this young progressive liberal guy almost beat ted cruz in texas that is one way to look at it the other way to look at it is i can't believe ted cruz won in this with all the trump circus of the women's movement with all the things going on in the culture in the right now and ted cruz is probably one of the most unlikable politicians and unlikable humans i've ever

known i can't believe you want so you can kind of look at it one way or the other where is the country go in the next two years do we get any advances once obamacare is set yeah i think i think you and i talked about this a few years ago actually heading into you and i had a conversation with this heading into the obama run the election when people like to conflate different topics when you're having a conversation with people about the country you'll be talking about campaign political campaign the game of politics and the next thing you know someone will be arguing and they're talking about policy or philosophy i think you have to separate out governing from campaigning i think on the pure political handicapping side donald trump has created so much white noise that nobody listens to anything in the knows what to believe in so he's actually going to be i think he could be tough to beat in the reelection when it comes to governing i don't think the trumpet ministration likes to govern governing is not sexy governing is hard george w.

bush actually said after he lost those six midterms he said well we got a thumping he said and i've been around politics a long time he said and now nancy pelosi is in charge and i want to meet with her friday morning we're going to work the george w. bush actually they actually enjoyed governing the question for the next two years is who's going to run the country while this campaigning reelection circus is going on do you expect. might they sit down on restructuring the country with regard to roads and buildings infrastructure yes so there's a few things that i think there's several things that present republicans have proven they can work on together. infrastructure for scription drug prices there's quite a few major policy issues where there's enough agreement and middle ground that you could get some real results for the american people here's the problem. president trump has proven that he's not capable of doing what bill clinton barack obama and george w. bush did which is you can be investigating me over here on one side and then the

next two hours later i'm going to sit down with you in a meeting and talk about policy the term administration has proven they can't walk and chew gum at the same time so if the democrats are investing investigating the trump white house and they're getting everything they're subpoenaing dumb donald trump's personal cell phone as taxes everything else he's not going to have the emotional intelligence to sit down and also have a policy conversation and then supposedly and he'll say you're investigating me so we're not going to talk about policy well that's not a very grown up way it requires acting like a great you have to behave like a grown up to govern and he doesn't usually behave like a grown up is palosi issue in to be the speaker i don't know how to democrat internal caucus i don't know how to handicap internal caucus issues for the democratic party i just don't know i think she probably will be the speaker because she's really effective. you know how many votes she lost as speaker none she gets her votes and so as the speaker of the house she is very effective but for

the democrat party i don't know that she's the face that you want of the party but one thing obvious trump is the republican party. if it wasn't before if it wasn't the case before it is now because the people who won are the people who trump helped and the people who lost of the people he said in the press however there was one of the most childish things i've ever seen the president said he said he read off the list of people who didn't want him campaigning with him and said sorry you lost sorry you lost badly he read the names of people who didn't want his help that lost and then he read the list of people who got his help and want but what people are missing they're so distracted by the the circus of the truck press conference of what they're missing is the substance the substance of that is the republican party is going to be molded more in the image of trump than it ever has before because the people who won their races they did it with trump's help so don't think he won't hold that over their head you you and i both know that all right. is it

safe to assume you up pessimistic about the next two years. so. jon meacham presidential historian because mitch. he's he said joseph ellis who wrote founding brother said this i think i agree with the sentiment that people like to say when they see this circus that's going on in the democrat party there but it really doesn't mean anything to be a democrat or republican or constitutionally and when people see this circus going on they say we're better than this this is not who we are as a country but when you go back and you study history decade by decade generation by generation all the way back to the fathers meacham said last night this is exactly who we are our country was founded it was messy we founded on the idea of equality even though we didn't we didn't give everyone equal rights our country's always been messy it's still messy and so it's not that i'm not optimistic i think that it's just more this is how we operate as a power of a sense more the same oh i see who's the next attorney general. that's right you

know i think the bigger question is until we have an attorney general what authority does this acting attorney general have. that's going to be interesting because there's a lot remember there's a lot of people in the truck camp who want them who still want to get rid of the special special prosecutor do you think that is coming down soon do you think it will be finished i think i think muller did a really wise thing that's not surprising he's a pretty wise man and i think he saw me the mess that comey made by opening his mouth before the election i think he stayed off the radar during the final stretch of the midterms i wouldn't be surprised if if in the beginning of the holidays you get something because i don't think muller wants to go on the sunday morning shows and talk about this i think he wants to turn in his report and probably go to tahiti. always great has great been here thanks for having me read dickens he's the best more politicking after the break.

rush and i say. you know world of big partisan lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks.

aeroflot russian airlines. which you are not an institution when you are not a government. you'll force is your voice belongs to you and it was a stress in your voice sent people accept to do seems they wouldn't accept was a situation we used it would if this is a difference or two between palin diplomacy in zero official diplomacy.

there's no in build around prick here in rwanda no weiss's terrorist. bad memories. twenty four years ago this country song a real look into the world. after the genocide there and all the women in rwanda one man. killed a women to fix what the men had broken. while go back to paula taking an all star political panel joins me now bill richardson former u.s. ambassador to the united nations former democratic governor of new mexico also

served as secretary of energy in the administration of bill clinton he's in boston and in washington our friend bob livingston former republican now. imber of congress from louisiana author of the book the windmill season try arms unless an american politics first an individual question for each of you bill is the north korean deal at an impasse it is that an impasse but i think we have to be patient i think the administration. give in to the north koreans don't give them a summit until they take some serious steps to denuclearize which they haven't done so be patient keep the go sheeting be tough bob an individual question for you what do you make of jeff sessions were tiring his attorney general well i guess the last thing i can say is that it was unexpected it was it's been expected i think

people have known it was coming i didn't know it was going to come as quickly as it did. but the attorney general was a close supporter of president trump's when he got elected but i think the president was disappointed in is recusal and since then he's paid most attention to the thirteen immigration issues and not on a lot of the issues that the president would have liked him to attend to and so this was not unexpected ok now for both who will sell would build your take on the elections well it was not a good. tuesday night for republicans and the president the biggest plus for me larry for the democrats is that we no longer are a bi coastal party just strong in the west and strong in the northeast we picked up seats and in states like texas oklahoma we can pick the midwest governorships that

we didn't have before that are key for twenty twenty for the presidential race michigan we picked up wisconsin we have been as pennsylvania so it was a good night in the heartland where we had lost a lot so yes we won the house of representatives that's a big deal yes we lost some seats in the senate but we picked up governorships and state legislatures so i think it was a very good day for the democrats bob your read. well i think the governor's probably right with respect to the house but remember this was an off year election and by all and expectations it could have been disastrous for republicans that we kept hearing that there was going to be a blue wave well it wasn't a blue wave we picked up by last count that i have about three seats in the senate we held on to texas to florida to georgia. and ohio in the

governorship so i think that even though we lost about thirty two seats plus or minus my expectation going into it was going to be between twenty and thirty so i don't think it was a bad night at all in fact i would say that i think that it was probably a very good night for donald trump most of the people that he supported on the campaign trail as he campaigned around the nation harder than any of his predecessors republican or democrat most of them won and so i think it's it was a draw it wasn't a blue wave ok where bill does the country go from here. well look when congress and livingston and i were in the house together different parties we generally used to work things out and i'm not optimistic larry i just saw the president's press conference i just feel that he doesn't recognize that he had

a bad day and he doesn't want to work together he's threatening invest that if he's investigated he's he's not going to work with democrats so i'm a little disappointed i'm a little down because i think there's an opportunity to work together on issues like rebuilding our infrastructure our electric grid bridges roads that's a plus for both parties to show that they can work together but i think the house is going to continue the investigations that that is the role of the house of representatives oversight and that seems to have soured the president so i'm not very optimistic. bob our earlier guests read told us we didn't consent republican by the way that trump likes to campaign and he likes to have rallies but he doesn't like to govern he don't like make good statement that he doesn't want to work with the house if they're going to investigate him. colette childish how do

you react bob i don't really agree i mean this has been the most besieged president and in my lifetime. the press has been unified with the democrat party to constantly resist and impede and to fight him at every juncture certain key leaders in the house of representatives as i have said to meet every republican you can find it just jump on him and get in their face and and kick them when they're down and their primary enemy and i mean enemy has been donald trump because he beat their chosen candidate hillary clinton so look this guy does fight back he's a counter-puncher and but they've been punching him for two years i think that bill is right i think that there are opportunities to work together on not only every structure but the drug better economic epidemic on immigration and other things and

i think that both parties have an opportunity to move the country forward but if we're going to keep this investigation stuff going on. and all they're going to try to do is bringing down with impeachment or go our impeach cavanagh which was which was a fraud on the american people then i think we're in for bad times and i don't think that that's in the best interest of either party i think the democrats can. reach out to the president and get him to cooperate or they can fighting and he'll fight back you to guys serve in congress to get this war we went on you were very friendly with each other what's going on now in america still do you see any any light at the end that a tunnel toward a friendship. well i think as you mentioned bob livingston was known to be somebody you could work with he was a key member he was chairman of the appropriations committee you know so we worked

with him but i have to be pessimistic right now i've never seen the country so divided on issues i've never seen the congress so dysfunctional and partisan i don't know what it is larry i think it's the the effort to raise money go on cable t.v. they shorten the days when you're in the congress when bob and i were there we you know our families would get together we'd get the go each other they don't do that anymore not even the senate either now look i don't want to be a pessimist i think there's an opportunity twenty twentieth's coming the president's going to want to get reelected we're going to want to elect a democratic president so we have to produce something the last two years of produced in my judgment very little other than a tax bill and maybe some other smaller bills but i think bob is right prescription drugs the drug crisis infrastructure would be huge of they came together maybe

a little more bipartisanship on foreign policy and i wish the president would become a free trader again and not fight everybody china europe russia everybody and find a way that foreign policy wise maybe there's bipartisanship but then chill there bob do you see a light at the tunnel yeah because i think bill richardson and i have just shown that we can get along and they can do if they put their minds to it i get tired of the hardliners on the right or the left who say it's my way or the highway and i want hundred percent of everything and the other guy can't have anything that's not compromise and that's not intended by the constitution bill and i got along at a different time it was a different era and he's right. the twenty four hour news service twitter instagram. e-mail in all of the fun raising that goes on

take their time away from what they're supposed to be doing as opposed to be legislating on behalf of the united states of america supposed to be examining the issues of the day and hearing from witnesses and learning about the the problems of the country and frankly they've been diverted into too many other areas they've got to find a way to come back and yes get their families together get to know one another spend more time with each other if they know each other they trust one another if they trust one another they can work out a deal do you agree that the those things will effect the change because it wasn't that long ago that you two were together. i think bob's absolutely right the incessant effort to raise money to get on cable t.v. to go around the country bashing each other and then i think the divisions on the issues increased dramatically and so what i also

heard a lot was the fact that you know we used to go on foreign policy. partisanship stopped at the water's edge we always seem to work things out together all of that is gone because they're such an effort to get reelected get majorities to to hit each other so i'm not that optimistic you know but how do you recall in that how do you get that back. it's a function of leadership larry and i think that there's been a dearth of leadership both sides and the leaders have to understand that they have to get along and the only way that they can get along is to make sure that the troops. and we have to tone down the rhetoric that comes from the white house. but if we can reach a religious nation that the rhetoric gets in the way of substance and substance is needed to find solutions for the country then we have to come together look we've

been gone for two hundred forty years we've had good times and bad times if they have been tough politics going back to jefferson's time. but we can get over this and i'm just optimistic that we can i don't think the world's coming apart i happen to see a silver lining in this election i think you've got some good democrats elected i think you've got some good republicans who who are old and and they just have to learn to work together thank you both very much bob livingston and bill richardson two outstanding americans thank you both thank you very much thanks very much larry and thank you the viewers for joining the on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politics the hash tag that's all for this edition of politicking.

you know world's big partners movie lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the

hawks. aeroflot russian and lights. both the republicans and democrats claim victory in the wake of the midterm elections but it seems the election settled little if anything now there is a dueling investigation warfare gridlock on steroids is this what the voters voted for. joining me every thursday

on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics spoke this less i'm show business i'll see you then. protests across the u.s. president trump forces as attorney general jeff sessions who initially. nation now standing against his removal. thing i like about most of the people that donald trump appointed why are you protesting now. because i'm a. white woman in texas for. betraying feminist values off to costing them votes in favor of the state's republican plan that. i'm very tired of being castigated as some sort of raise.