Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on Trump's payout promises

Geoff Bennett:

President Trump is rallying Republicans in Nebraska tonight, while the White House has once again barred a media outlet from the press pool covering the president's travels.

Our Politics Monday duo is here to break down that and more, Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

So, Tam, in the closing stretch, the president is promising $5,000 dividends if Republicans hold Congress, $90 checks to Medicare enrollees, $500 rebates to some Obamacare customers. We should say the president has made promises of payouts in the past that haven't materialized.

But is this an acknowledgement that Republicans still haven't found a stronger answer on this affordability question?

Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

You know, the fascinating thing is, I'm not hearing a lot of Republican candidates talking about these checks for everyone that President Trump is talking about. They are more focused on the affordability issues that are much closer to home.

Republican candidates, Democratic candidates, everyone is hearing from people who are really upset about the price of gas, the price of groceries, the price of all the things. And a lot of the candidates, Republican candidates, are at this point acknowledging, yes, things are too expensive.

You have had Republican candidates standing in grocery stores talking about things being too expensive. They aren't really picking up the president's messaging on this. They are more in the mode of acknowledging pain.

Geoff Bennett:

Over to you, Amy, in Nevada tonight. The president is planning campaign stops in 10 states this month, not just traditional battlegrounds, but in some surprisingly competitive red states. What can you take away from his travel schedule in terms of where Republicans are most concerned?

Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

Yes, his travel schedule matches the spending that Republican candidates and the especially the Republican committees, campaign committees, and their super PACs are spending.

Just this last week, we have seen that the Republicans' main super PAC has basically triaged two states that, earlier this year, earlier this cycle, Geoff, I would have said would have been just close right to the very end, Georgia and North Carolina. They're taking money out of those purple states and putting them into dark red states like Kansas and continuing to spend very heavily to save a seat in Texas.

We're also hearing, when I talk to my House sources, they're also seeing Republicans now having to spend money in states that the president was carrying by 10 points or more. So what we have seen really since the end of the summer is a real deterioration in the political environment.

And what that means now is, Democrats are competing in the kinds of districts and states that not so long ago looked basically impenetrable for Democrats. Now, look, Democrats aren't going to win all of those, but if you're Republicans right now, your main priority is to try to defend as many of those Trump seats as you can.

And they're still playing offense, Republicans still playing offense, particularly in one blue state, and that's Michigan. But other than that, most of their spending is defense.

Geoff Bennett:

And, Tam, as the president hits the road, a question about presidential press coverage. A federal judge restored the White House access of CNN, Politico, and MS NOW after the president banned them. But the White House is still keeping CNN and Politico off of Air Force One.

And the major news organizations have responded with a blackout when one of the affected outlets would otherwise be in the pool, but they haven't issued a blanket blackout of Trump coverage. Why take that limited approach? And does it let the White House off the hook?

Tamara Keith:

Yes, I mean, I think that there is a really challenging balance that all serious independent news organizations are facing right now, which is, do you provide coverage of the president, which serves the public, which puts scrutiny on the president, as all presidents should have scrutiny, or do you boycott or step back?

I think that ultimately news organizations are not filling the slots of Politico and CNN, but they aren't doing a blanket boycott because they do feel that obligation to provide coverage. Now, that does in a way allow the White House to continue doing this, to continue punishing news organizations.

But it tipped -- the scales are tipped in favor of the public's right to know and the ability of organizations who are there on the plane or in the Oval Office to ask difficult questions, to ask the important news-of-the-day questions.

But it's really tough. And it is -- the White House is leaning on a not final judicial ruling that said that there's a distinction between the White House grounds and then these more private spaces like Air Force One or the Oval Office. It's not clear ultimately that the law will be on their side when this is all done being appealed, but legal processes take a really long time, and the White House is exerting its power in the meantime.

Geoff Bennett:

And, Amy, as we inch closer toward the midterms, the polls underestimated President Trump in three presidential elections.

They were more accurate in the midterms. As we head into the midterms and poll after poll shows Democrats with a better-than-average shot of taking potentially both houses, how do we know those polls are accurate?

Amy Walter:

Right.

Well, the short answer is, you should take every single poll and understand that they do have a margin of error. So the accuracy is just within a certain band. But I do think that, for Republicans, their one hope here is that it's not that the polls are rigged or that there's something wrong with the polls, but that it is simply difficult to capture the kinds of voters right now that Republicans really need to turn out in order to be able to hold their own in this midterm election.

And that is disappointed, disaffected Republican voters. Those people are less likely to answer questions from pollsters. They're probably difficult to reach. But what Republicans have to hope is that, even though they're not getting picked up in the polls, because, quite frankly, they're not feeling great about things right now, they do ultimately show up to vote.

The other thing that we know is that the campaigns themselves, the Republican campaigns, they're spending millions of dollars on TV ads, but they're also spending millions of dollars to target and turn out those same voters.

So, if we wake up on Election Day and -- the day after the election, I'm sorry, and we find out that Republicans, they ended up holding the Senate and not losing as many seats as predicted in the House, it will be because, remember, as I said earlier, all of the fighting is happening on Republican turf.

And so those Republicans, even though they aren't feeling great about the economy, they're not feeling great necessarily about the way that the president's handling his job, they do feel -- they did feel an obligation to show up and vote, mostly because they didn't want Democrats to get in charge, not because they were sending a vote of approval necessarily to Republicans.

Geoff Bennett:

Amy Walter and Tamara Keith, thanks, as always.

Tamara Keith:

You're welcome.