Joy Reid: Republicans ‘Cannot Escape the Allegations Against the President of the United States’

‘Let’s not forget that Donald Trump faces a lawsuit from one of the women who he called a liar; so this is going to be adjudicated in part’

RICH LOWRY: --how the House majority the last several years has almost been ungovernable, it's a stupendous achievement that they passed this so quickly and so relatively easily in the House. And it is a good bill. If you put a gun to head to Democratic economists they would admit reforming the corporate tax code is good for the economy. And on the individual side it's not so much a typical Republican tax cut. There aren't big cuts at the top rate. And the Senate change this week I think was very important, big increase in the child tax credit. That is a huge benefit to middle class families.

ANDREA MITCHELL: A lot of this is going to depend on how people think about the president himself. So I want to share with all of you something that NBC News observed a 12-person focus group this week in Wilmington, North Carolina led by Peter Hart, the Democratic partner in our NBC News Wall Street Journal poll organized for Emory University. And this group consisted of seven Clinton voters and five Trump voters. Peter asked the voters just how they feel about the president one year after his election. Watch.

JAMES, CLINTON VOTER: He comes out and calls your names and these types of things. I mean, what are we in the third grade again? Come on.

MELISSA, TRUMP VOTER: To me it's like firing out these tweets, it's just childish a lot of times.

ANNE, TRUMP VOTER: When he's away, he's great being a president. He's the showman. But at home he's kind of like two-- I can't imagine how they let him build a country club let alone be in one because we don't behave that way.

ANDREA MITCHELL: It's very clear from these conversations that many of these people say they would still support him, Amy, but support him for reelection. But they are not happy about Twitter.

AMY WALTER: They are not happy about Twitter. And he's not up for reelection in 2018.

JOY REID: Good point.

AMY WALTER: His Republican colleagues are. And they don't want to have to be able to defend this. A lot of these people may show up for Donald Trump. Are they going to show up in a 2018 mid-term election if they're feeling frustrated about the fact that things aren't happening on the legislative front.

ANDREA MITCHELL: And how are we still talking about the Clintons? After Kirsten Gillibrand came out with the New York Times and said that at this stage she looking back would not have supported Bill Clinton staying in office after impeachment and Lewinsky. Philippe Reines who is, of course, the long-time advisor to Hillary Clinton sent a warning shot across saying on Twitter, "Ken Starr spent $70 million on a consensual blank for Sunday morning television. Senate voted to keep POTUS WJC but not enough for you, Senator Gillibrand, over 20 years you took the Clinton's endorsements, money and seat. Hypocrite. Interesting strategy for 2020 primaries. Best of luck."

RICH LOWRY: Well, she is a cutting edge on this I think, Gillibrand. Because what Republicans learned in 2016, you no longer had to defend George W. Bush. You could actually attack him, as Trump proved. And I think you'll see the same thing playing out in Democrats in 2020. You can disagree with the Clinton sand you can even throw Bill Clinton under the bus for his appalling personal conduct.

ANDREA MITCHELL: But does the president having jumped all over Al Franken bring up his own past to the point where people are going to re-ask themselves, "How about the credibility of those women? More than a dozen women accusing him?"

ROBERT COSTA: It's going to haunt Republicans in the coming year because you have Leader McConnell and other senators saying, including Mulvaney in your interview, they say the women are credible in the Roy Moore situation. Does that mean the women are not credible when it comes to President Trump? These are questions Republicans are going to have to answer.

JOY REID: And let's not forget that Donald Trump faces a lawsuit from one of the women who he called a liar. So this is going to be adjudicated in part, his credibility versus hers. And look, the bottom line is Republicans have now decided to migrate to the position that we believe women, that we are going to believe women when they make accusations. Well, Donald Trump has more than a dozen women. Well over a dozen women who have accused him of behavior that he also bragged about in that Access Hollywood tape. They cannot escape the allegations against the president of the United States. And we should discuss it. And, the world, we talked about Clarence Thomas earlier. He's still sitting right there on the Supreme Court.

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