EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Dick Durbin: “The Crown Prince Has His Fingerprints All Over This”; U.S. Needs to “Expel the Saudi Ambassador from the United States”
ALSO: Former White House Comms Director Anthony Scaramucci’s First Interview on Book Tour: Gen. John Kelly “Hurt the Morale Inside” the White House, “He’s Hurt the President”
NEW: NBC News/WSJ Poll Shows Democrats Hold Nine-Point Advantage for Midterm Elections
OCTOBER 21, 2018 – In an exclusive interview this morning on Meet the Press, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told moderator Chuck Todd that the Saudi government’s explanation of the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi is not credible: “You do not do something of this magnitude without having clearance from the top.” He added, “I think it’ll be very problematic for our relationship going forward.” Sen. Tillis said that it looks like the crown prince ordered the killing and “there has to be a consequence for it” and those “who committed this horrible act” must be held “accountable.”
On President Trump’s suggestion that he might propose a middle class tax cut before the midterm elections, Sen. Tillis said, “I think that there is a way to rationalize that this tax cut will pay for itself through sustained economic growth. If we don’t make the numbers, it won’t. But if we do, and we’re already seeing it early into this cycle, then I do believe that we create the net incremental revenue. It’s not going to be enough to come anywhere close to retiring our $21 trillion in debt. That’s where we’re going to have to look at tough choices.” Watch the full interview.
Senate Minority Whip Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also joined the broadcast in an exclusive interview, telling Todd that “the only person on earth outside of the Saudi kingdom who appears to accept it [the Saudi government’s explanation] is President Donald Trump.” He added that “the crown prince has his fingerprints all over this and the fact that he is heading up the investigation makes it totally incredible.” Durbin also said that the United States needs to “expel the Saudi Ambassador from the United States until there is a completion of a third party investigation.”
On the Senate Democrats’ handling of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and its impact on the midterm races, Sen. Durbin said, “We were dealt cards, in the Senate Judiciary Committee, we never anticipated. The fact that there’d be a letter coming forward from Dr. Ford, which eventually became public, which led to a hearing, which we had not even planned. All of those things were unforeseen. This was not some strategy that was laid out. It unfolded this way. We did the best we could under the circumstances. I still believe that we did the right thing in voting against Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.” Watch the full interview.
Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci joined the show in his first interview to promote his new book, “Trump, the Blue-Collar President.” On Gen. John Kelly, Scaramucci said “there was a better way to fire me. But he was trying to make a spectacle out of it…he got the spectacle that he wanted.” He added President Trump “needs a chief of staff that really likes him and gets his personality.”
Scaramucci also said that Gen. John Kelly has “hurt the morale inside the place [White House]. And he’s hurt the president, and he has hissy fits. You know, he left last week after the report that he had with Ambassador Bolton. That’s his personality.” Scaramucci told Todd that he now feels “vindicated” because he believes Gen. Kelly is “demonstrating his personality now the way he really is.” Watch the full interview.
New NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll numbers debuted on this morning’s broadcast showing that two weeks before the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats hold a nine-point lead among likely voters over Republicans in congressional preference. Read more.
CBN News’ David Brody, The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan, The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and NBC News’ Katy Tur joined the broadcast’s roundtable for insight and analysis on the week in politics.
Read the full transcript of this morning’s Meet the Press, and follow the show on Twitter and on Facebook for the latest.
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