In his opening monologue on Friday’s broadcast “2Way Tonight,” Mark Halperin responded to politicos who dislike that he doesn’t use his platform to attack President Donald Trump. “You need to ask yourself the fundamental question,” Halperin said to critics, “how does the person who you think is literally the worst person in America to be president, how did he win twice, including the popular vote the second time?” “How did the worst person you could imagine being president become president after he was president for four years, out of office for four years, and showed everyone in America what he’s about?” Halperin asked critics. “All the things you don’t like about Donald Trump on vivid display for eight years, and then the country chose him. I ask you to look not into your own heart necessarily, but look into the heart of your fellow Americans and look at the lunch today, go watch it on C-SPAN, and look at the lack of coverage of the lunch. That can go a long way to trying to allow you to understand why Donald Trump continues to be the choice of many of your fellow countrymen and women. Not as popular as he was before, but still our president.”

MARK HALPERIN: Good evening, everybody. Thank you for being part of the two-way community and our final planned show of the week. Although if the war starts back up tonight, perhaps come back on. I don’t think the war is going to start tonight. It’s a rare Friday night that I don’t think the war is going to start. Although I do think the war has already started because there’s more action today, more live fire, more kinetic activity. But the Secretary of State says that’s just incidental contact. Incidental contact. Thank you for being here. The war in Iran will be a big topic of discussion for us. The Virginia Supreme Court’s decision on redistricting, a big blow to the Democrats, a big victory for Republicans, will be a topic for us. The Dow up again, another record high, along with the unemployment numbers, employment numbers, you could also call them. You could say happy days are here again. A lot of signs the economy is booming. But at the same time, the war is a giant overhang. Not all of us are invested in the stock market, but many of us are. We’ll also talk about the ceasefire, three-day ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and a prisoner transfer. Is this the glide path to some sort of peace deal? We need to get Doug some tech support. That’s another question on my mind. Hopefully not. More Spencer Pratt videos. Some of you love the Spencer Pratt videos, as do I. Maybe we’ll look at those. The UFO files are out. Some of you wish the whole hour were on the UFO files. I don’t know much about it. As I’ve told you before, I don’t really care if Oswald acted alone. I just don’t have a lot of curiosity about certain things. We’ll just show you the President’s comments on the UFO files. Then what might be our lead story under different circumstances, because it’s interesting and important. A pretty tart exchange between the current Secretary of Transportation and the spouse of his predecessor, Chastain Buttigieg, denouncing the Duffeys today for an announcement that the Duffeys made. All that and more here on Two Way Tonight. Two great guests from different parts of the country, different parties, different experiences, and yet both willing to give the two-way community an hour of their time on a Friday night to talk through some of these things. One more story. Since 2015, I’ve been so interested in the tens of millions of Americans who support Donald Trump and why they support him, because he’s an unorthodox person to be president. We’ve had military leaders and elected officials be president. He was neither. He was a rowdy TV star and a real estate developer and a marketing genius, but he became president. As you hear me say all the time, I studied really hard in 2015 and 2016. Why is this man doing so well? What does it say about the national mood? What does it say about the so many? Two things happened today that have that top of mind for me. It’s a topic of-I said I wasn’t curious about the UFOs. Boy, am I curious about this. I continue to hear from scores of people, no exaggeration, every week, who say they don’t understand how anyone could support Donald Trump, and they don’t like the fact that I don’t come on here and denounce Donald Trump every night. Not my job. They’re Bill Kristol has told me this is it. The Atlantic Magazine has told me this is it. Heather Cox Richardson has told me this is it. MAGA extremists might support the president, but they’re 15 percent of the country. Donald Trump’s approval rating is going to be down to 15 percent. He’s politically done because people have now wised up to what a horrible person he is. I respond to those messages, but it’s very difficult for me because I just want to say he won the popular vote, and I get why you don’t like him. Many of the things you don’t like about him, people who would vote for him again don’t like about him either. I say there’s so many ways for me to explain to you why tens of millions of people would rather Donald Trump be president than Kamala Harris. Today at lunchtime, we got a more vivid reminder and more vivid explanation. The president held lunch at the White House today in honor of Mother’s Day. And he had a number of members of his administration there amongst the guests. There’s a reason not to like Donald Trump. He set up the rose garden, the paved over rose garden. He set it up to be like Mar-a-Lago with the tables and the umbrellas. I don’t know. When Charles O. Finley introduced orange baseballs to the Major League, I was fine with that. Designated hitter, fine with that. But I just don’t like the rose garden paved over and the Mar-a-Lago tables. I just don’t like that. But anyway, a beautiful event for Gold Star Moms and Angel Moms. The president had there some of these Angel Moms-some of you don’t know what Angel Moms are, which is part of the problem-whose loved ones, often children, were killed by people in the country illegally. I’ve been talking to people about this issue for a decade now, over a decade. Lakin Riley is probably the most famous now at this point. In part, she’s famous because Joe Biden didn’t call her family and wouldn’t say her name. My point is, if Barack Obama had an event with mothers of veterans and mothers whose beautiful children were killed by people here in the country illegally, it would be the lead story on everything. There’d be long soundbites played in the dominant media. I’ve been monitoring, and I’ll monitor all through the news cycle, this event being ignored by most people. Now, I will say, does Donald Trump have the bedside manner of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or even George W. Bush? Even Joe Biden? No, he doesn’t. He said things at this lunch that no normal person would say to these moms. He pulled them at one point. He’s got this wall that he built in the White House, pictures of presidents, including the one of the auto pen for Joe Biden. He said, some call it the walk of presidents and some call it the wall of presidents. Let’s take a poll. He had them raise their hand, and he had judged it to be a virtual tie. That was probably not a consonant, resonant, what’s the word I’m looking for, consistent with the tone of the event that I probably would have had. Then he said to many of the moms he’s known for a decade, he said to one of them, does the passage of time help you deal with the grieving that you have? She said no. Then he asked another one, and she said no. He said, they used to say the passage of time heals all wounds. Well, not anymore. Again, I may not be capturing this right, but my point is, was it a lovely, solemn, uplifting event based on the president’s presentation? Not to everyone’s taste, but he hosted these women at the White House around Mother’s Day. These women who have lost loved ones in battle or loved ones to people in the country illegally, whose lives have been turned upside down. He has a personal connection to them, and he hosted them at this beautiful event, except for the paving of the Rose Garden, at the White House. Does it make up for their loss? No, but it shows them that the country cares about them, the president of the United States cares about them. This event will get no coverage almost anywhere. I actually haven’t seen very much coverage of it in conservative media. I know many people in MAGA look at the president’s elevation, particularly because all presidents are going to honor Gold Star moms, but the elevation of the Angel Moms, they’re going to say, well, great. At least gas prices may be high and may not like David Sachs or somebody else, but the president stayed true to his commitment to celebrating these moms. Again, I just say to those of you who say to me literally every day, how could anyone support this man? They want to live in an America where the individual wrongs are righted as much as possible, and where president says we need to take care of people who are American citizens and not tolerate the killing of American citizens by people in the country illegally, and then they get to stay in many cases in the country. That issue alone, I know from over a decade of experience, that issue alone bonds many of you to Donald Trump. What so pains me as someone who went to the country to understand each other, the founding principles of two-way and the programs that I host, extending the presumption to all peace, love, and understanding, listening to alternative points of view under the kind of conversations and circumstances we have, if you can’t understand why that lunch event is so resonant and why the failure of the media to cover it is so resonant, you need to pay closer attention. You need to ask yourself the fundamental question I ask all of you who have the Heather Cox Richardson attitude about Donald Trump. How does the person who you think is literally the worst person in America to be president, how did he win twice, including the popular vote the second time? You have to ask yourself that. He didn’t steal the election. He was running against perfectly credible candidates. So how did the worst person you could imagine being president become president after he was president for four years, out of office for four years, and showed everyone in America what he’s about? All the things you don’t like about Donald Trump on vivid display for eight years, and then the country chose him. So I ask you to look not into your own heart necessarily, but look into the heart of your fellow Americans and look at the lunch today, go watch it on C-SPAN, and look at the lack of coverage of the lunch. That can go a long way to trying to allow you to understand why Donald Trump continues to be the choice of many of your fellow countrymen and women. Not as popular as he was before, but still our president.

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