"This Is a Turning Point": Mark Halperin on Trump's Growing GOP Problem

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**Michael Smerconish** (1:04)
Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast for Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:10)
21,927 have voted on today's poll question. I want to hear from 21,928.
That would be Mark Halpern. Curious as to how he answers this question. Is the Republican fight against Trump's $1.8 billion fund a one-off or a turning point? This is Mark Halpern. We're privileged to have him. He's here every Wednesday in the third hour of the program. How would you answer that question, Mark?

**Mark Halperin** (1:39)
Turning point.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:41)
Really?

**Mark Halperin** (1:42)
Yeah.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:43)
How come? I'm surprised.

**Mark Halperin** (1:46)
It's a confluence of factors.
Just how substantively and politically tone-deaf the senators thought this was, the rallying around people like Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn, the approach of the midterms, the fact that this was one of several things that the administration has done to make the lives of the senators and the House members uncomfortable. And a belief that the president is not doing enough to figure out how to end the war in Iran in a way that will keep Republicans from suffering at the polls in the fall. So I'm not saying it's a turning point that they'll never cooperate with the president again, but I think this is the first thing that's happened that has significantly lowered the bar required to be gotten over for John Thune and or the speaker to say, Sorry, we're not going to carry the president's water on this.

**Michael Smerconish** (2:47)
Well, how might it manifest itself? For example, Bill Poulty is very much in the news today as being the acting head of DNI, people questioning whether he's got the qualifications, especially because of how Congress cast the job description.
Could you see him not getting confirmed, for example, by a Republican Senate, imagining that it maintains a Republican Senate?

**Mark Halperin** (3:10)
He'll never be nominated.

**Michael Smerconish** (3:13)
You don't think it goes that far? He'll just act in a different position.

**Mark Halperin** (3:17)
Yeah, or they'll nominate somebody else to avoid the embarrassment of having to pull him down. He was not nominated, he was just named acting.
There's literally nothing I could think of that the president could have done immediately after the killing of his slush fund that would have caused more eye rolling among Senate Republicans and some House Republicans to say, this guy really doesn't give an F about what we think up here. Because no serious person on Capitol Hill, even if you want to assume the very best about Bill Pulte, and many of his own colleagues in the administration don't, and we've already heard from Republican senators, but just assume the best. Just assume he's a great guy, he's a talented guy, he's a patriotic guy, he's a guy who will really work hard in this job. He's got no experience, and assume that the accusations against him about being a hitman are all false. Assume all those things. He's got no experience in intelligence. So even just that alone makes people on the Hill, who are serious about intelligence, say the president just, again, doesn't give an F what we think about substance or politics.

**Michael Smerconish** (4:31)
So what does your spidey sense tell you as to why the president wants him in that role? I just had a conversation with Richard Clark. He served three American presidents continuously in the span of 10 years. DNI, at least on paper, it's supposed to be a very real job. Why would the president want to put him in there if for any other reason, you know, loyalty is not the chief criteria?

**Mark Halperin** (4:54)
Well, I think it's three things. Loyalty is the one that's most cited and probably the most important. Two is Poulty is a very smart guy. I've spent some time with him. He's a very smart guy. And he's very kind of a creative about politics and media and PR. And the president likes that. The president's constantly thinking, how can I get an edge?