With low approval ratings, Trump continues to pursue agenda

HARI SREENIVASAN:

Michael Flynn pleaded guilty. The Senate passed the biggest tax bill in decades. And President Trump has his first legislative victory. Then the president launched a tweet that sent shock waves using language that suggested he knew Flynn had lied to the FBI before he fired Director James Comey. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Jeff Greenfield is here to try to make sense of it all. I don't know if you can or anybody can – but you've been saying this for a while. Is there a common thread?

JEFF GREENFIELD:

Yeah. It's like the best of days and the worst of days. So you've got a historically unpopular president. Latest numbers are down to 33% in Gallup – never seen that at this point. And the rule is hat if we have a President that is this unpopular, his agenda has to die. Right? Well he's on the verge of getting the biggest tax change in a generation. The Senate just confirmed his Ninth Court of Appeals nomination – that's three times more than Obama had got – the whole federal judiciary, the whole federal bench has been radically redefined. We've just seen a complete reversal likely on net neutrality which will affect how the internet works, the environment, financial regulations. All of this is happening in part because his base is big enough to tell the Republicans you've got to stick with this guy. And so the normal political rules over and over again just keep being rendered, to use an old word, inoperative.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

You know in the Flynn matter a lot of the analysis shows that this how a prosecutor gets closer and closer to his target is to try to get people who are closer and closer to the target to turn on him.

JEFF GREENFIELD:

It's clear that if they're moving toward an attempt to find that during the campaign, the Trump campaign was was playing footsie with Russia, that's collusion. And that's really serious because every intelligence agency that's weighed in says, in fact, Russia was trying to intervene. The question is, was Trump's campaign part of it? Suppose Miller comes up and said 'yes we got it. Here's the smoking gun, the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians.' Do you think that those who still are supporters of Trump whether his base or within the Congress will react to that? I think he has succeeded in telling his supporters it doesn't matter. I'm your guy. And until that changes, if it ever does, I'm not sure what a finding would even mean politically.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

Speaking of talking to his base everyday, one of the other narratives that he likes to talk about is that the mainstream media is corrupt and that the fix is in on this whole investigation. Two things that are true that he is running forward with – the ABC News report that actually sent shock waves through the stock market for a few hours that said that during the campaign he was in collusion mode. And then we also have the issue about individual inside the FBI that Robert Mueller took off the case for sending disparaging texts about Trump.

JEFF GREENFIELD:

It would seem to me that that would demonstrate Muellers determination not to let anti Trump people have anything to do with this. In the other media – Drudge Report – the big headline for a while was you know Trump hater in Mueller camp. Fox News will be all over this. The Brian Ross story is a really serious error. Not just because of what was said suggesting that somebody had told them that Trump had directed, during the campaign, some engagement with Russia. It's a huge difference. And to be blunt with you you know this is not Brian Ross's first experience reporting stuff in these situations that turned out not to be the case.

HARI SREENIVASAN:

Finally a small matter of government shutdown? How likely?

JEFF GREENFIELD:

I don't know if it's likely but I went and looked at something. Once again there's a political assumption. October 2013 the government shut down for 16 days partially and the majority of Americans blame the Republicans. What happens a year later? Massive Republican gains in the Senate, in governorships, and in legislatures across the country. When people assert with conviction – this will lead to that politically – that's when I say, hold it. We learn from history is caution. We don't know.