[John King, Cnn Anchor:] Welcome back. It's Friday. Many of us stake stock of the work week as we headed into the weekend. Here are some highlights of President Trump as he looks back at this Monday through Friday. The head of the Boy Scouts apologized to scouts and their parents because the president used some salty language in a speech at the Annual Scouts Jamboree in launching some political attacks. The Whitewater Special Counsel Ken Starr, spoke for many conservative when he asked the president to, quote, please cut it out. Meaning, please respect the rule of law and stop attacking the attorney general. On Capitol Hill, Republican after Republican also staged an intervention of sorts. Warning the president he was wrong if he believes he can easily replace his attorney general.
[Sen. Ben Sasse , Nebraska:] If you're thinking of making a recess appointment to push out the attorney general, forget about it. The presidency isn't a bull and this country isn't a China shop.
[King:] Interesting choice of words there. The Pentagon pushed back also against the president's Twitter announcement banning transgender individuals from serving in the military. And today in the Wall Street Journal, this from Reagan era wordsmith Peggy Noonan. "He's whiney, weepy, and self-pitying", Noonan writes at the president. More of her take in a moment. But just trying to sum up the week, you mentioned it, it was mentioned by several earlier. This was an interesting week. We may look back at this week in terms of Republicans being more open in their criticism, John Cornyn said the president should get together with Jeff Sessions and work it out like men. You can imply what they meant there. And Lindsey Graham going public and saying the president is weak. What do we make of this week and is it just a lot of little interesting pieces of drama, or does it mean something?
[Karoun Demirjian, The Washington Post:] It's not just little interesting pieces when it happen was concentrated. That's the thing. You can take each one of these things and say, OK, the thing that happened this week, maybe if they get past it. But the fact that it's it struck a nerve this both political, policy related, personal for a lot of these Republicans. And the fact that it'll happened within a few days of each other means that you're really seeing a break. And the fact that it happened the same week where the health care policy bill falls apart. This doesn't seem like it's good of a bet anymore as it seemed to a lot of these members of the
[Gop. Michael Shear, The New York Times:] Look, I think he question is, is it kind of an ultimate break or does the ideological
[Molly Ball, The Atlantic:] Well, and the other thing that happened this week was that, you know, the president spoke at the Boy Scout thing and then the next day he had a campaign rally in Ohio. And he's just announcing doing another one next week. And so I think there's a sense that he's sort of checking out. There's a sense that he's going and doing the one thing that brings him joy. Which is be in a big crowd of people who love him. And the rest of the Republican Party is sort of realizing it's time to go it alone. It's time to just try to just shut out the noise, pretend he's not there. Let him do his thing which is travel around the country saying stuff. And when it comes to something like tax reform or all the other things on the agenda, they just have to do it themselves.
[Demirjian:] I think the other things to keep in mind, though, is that we have to take are we talking about the Republicans as like a body in Congress or as the party? Are we talking about the margins? But I think one lesson of this week was, it doesn't really matter where the body of Republicans are if you have enough of people on the margins that won't play ball. That was a lesson of health care in the Senate. If you have people like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, and maybe a few others who just lost their patient as this point, it doesn't matter where the rest of the party is, because they can jam everything else up.
[Sara Murray, Cnn White House Correspondent:] And I think it's not a question to see how big that group is. I mean, you know, Ben Sasse, God, I love him. He gave those quotes, and so with Lindsey Graham, but these are two people how have voted with the president on his priorities and had not shown any indication that they're going to split with what the president wants, despite getting the tongue lashing now and again. Now maybe that'll be different when we see how the president deals with the Russia sanctions bill and maybe if it'll be different when we get to tax reform. But, as of right now I mean, John McCain was out there alone. There was no one else who was going to you know, we knew that Collins, we knew that Murkowski weren't getting onboard with this. But there was no show of course alongside John McCain. It was one man who went out there and decided to take the political bullet on that.
[Shear:] And I'm still not convinced that the base, you know, that 30- whatever percent. I'm still not sure that even a week like this does
[King:] But they love him.
[Shear:] Yes. You're right and so
[King:] But they love him. But they it's just interesting. Again, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford sent a memo around the military saying, the president goes on Twitter, and says we're banning transgender individuals from serving in the military. Now the Pentagon has no idea what he means. They have no idea they have no specifics of what he means because he blindsided them. And so you have the top general in the United States military sending a memo saying, "There will be no modifications to the current policy until the president's direction have been received by the secretary of defense and the secretary has issued implementation guidance. In the meantime, we continue to treat all of our personnel with respect." The ban is just a stunning realization example of the dysfunction in government when the top general has to say, well, the president tweeted something but we have no idea what he means. And so stand by, stand down. Keep everything normal. But that's nuts.
[Shear:] And says it publicly. I mean, you know, there might be times in the past when generals and presidents had to sort of go back and forth privately in disagreement. Like to do it publicly is pretty amazing.
[Ball:] Well, and that's because they don't really have
[King:] And the president's on his way up to Long Island for an event. That's where Anthony Scaramucci is from. David Nakamura of the Washington Post just tweeted out a picture. I believe we have it, Anthony Scaramucci on the plane with reporters here. Reince Priebus, the chief of staff is also on that plane. Wish I was. That would be an interesting place to be. A fly on the wall in disguise as an Air Force steward as you can make your way back and forth through the cabin. One last point on this, again, Peggy Noonan, not a fan of this president. Although after his big speech in Poland, she was somewhat complementary of him. I heard what she writes in the Wall Street Journal today. "He's whiney, weepy, and self-pitying. He throws himself sobbing on the body of politics. He's a drama queen. Half of the president's tweets show utter weakness. They are plaintive, shrill little cries usually just after dawn. Meanwhile, the whole world is watching, a world that contains predators. How could they not be seeing this weakness, confusion and chaos and thinking it's a good time to cause some trouble?" That in the Wall Street Journal this morning. Again, it's one editorial voice. A constant critic of the president but that traditionally that's a friendly place for a Republican president.
[Ball:] I would not call her a constant critic. I think she actually gave him a lot more of a chance than a lot of other sort of establishment conservatives. She wasn't out there with George Will and Charles Krauthammer saying, by no means can we attack this person. She's actually being quite open to the one version of Trump, the populist version of Trump and the idea of that. But what she's finding and what a lot of people who wanted to believe in that fantasy version of Trump are finding is that the reality doesn't live up to that.
[King:] It's amazing. Everybody, sit tight. Next, the moment Republican lawmakers have been waiting for seven years and they, well, I think they blew it. We look back at how we got to this point in the health care debate excuse me. And what might happen next.