Cliff Schecter SLAMS Former Bush Advisor On MSNBC

Will the Saddam Hussein verdict affect the elections? Cliff Schecter battles former Bush advisor Brad Blakeman over the Republican's failures with the war in Iraq.

Follow Cliff Schecter on Twitter @cliffschecter

**transcript generated by third-party transcription software, please excuse any typos**

and msnbc keeps you up to the minute celebration in the streets of baghdad now people rejoicing after the former iraqi dictator was sentenced today to death by hanging a trembling saddam hussein reacted to the verdict in defiance hussein was convicted for a village massacre nearly 25 years ago the white house says president bush will make a statement later this afternoon on the verdict and we're going to bring it to you live as soon as it happens and here at home democrats and republicans have their sights on a congressional majority and several key races remain virtual ties still at this hour joining us from washington dc is brad blakeman former deputy assistant to the president bush and also joining us from washington d.c democratic strategist cliff schachter cliff let me start with you sure because you know saddam hussein has now been sentenced to death will this give republicans a boost a sign of progress in the war no i don't think so i don't think this will affect the election at all unless we find out ted haggard was uh was secretly visiting saddam hussein too as far as i see look the republican party still has cut and run from protecting our troops uh they're not giving our troops body armor they're not they have no plan for us to win in iraq we had over 100 troops killed last month 16 different intelligence agencies say that it's made us more dangerous uh in the world you know there are more terrorists in the world now and i still would like to ask brad at the end of everything where's osama so the truth be told this is this will do nothing uh this is they they set this up so they'd have a nice pr point let me bring in brad what do you think let me let me answer cliff where's osama osama's on the run he can't do any more damage to the united states because he doesn't have the infrastructure and quite frankly you know that if you're president yeah if you're president bill clinton would have had the opportunity which he had to take him out we wouldn't be talking about your president even trying to take bill clinton it's difficult to even answer your questions your president had him cornered at tora bora and did nothing your president didn't respond to the coal attack your president said my pet goat for five minutes let's stay focused

magazine 65 of americans disapprove of the way that president bush is handling the war in iraq only 31 percent approve of his handling given that is any news out of iraq you know reminding them of bad news for the republicans rita absolutely this is good news because it validates what president bush has said all along and that is we're going to take them to justice and he has saddam's fate is at the end of a noose he's no longer able he's no longer able to threaten torture and kill his own people or threaten the rest of the world this validates what president bush has said

and there was a seven year difference between world trade center one and two because the democrats made us you guys the truth of the matter is what brad doesn't want to say 16 intelligence agencies which are frankly a lot smarter than he is and a lot smarter than president bush have said that this has created more terrorism it's a nice try brad the truth of the matter is you know that's baloney you failed to capture osama bin laden will you give the administration credit that they got this guy tried and there's democracy we saw it working in in iraq there's not democracy in america what about the trial the trial is great but iraq is blowing up around us over a hundred american troops died the the the democrats give the republicans the local government i'm gonna finish brad good try the local government there said they're not gonna even keep track of casualties who are dying anymore because so many are dying brad's obviously gotten into ted haggard's personal stash because i don't know where he's getting his information from but it's certainly not coming from a place you have an unholy relationship with hagar you keep bringing him up that's because you guys have more sex scandals and you have actual accomplishments

for having sex with them let's talk about some of the rights

let me talk about some of the tight races here so we're going to go through a few of them in tennessee republican bob corker is ahead this is pretty incredible in the latest mason dixon tennessee papers poll we just saw this 12 why is harold ford jr well known well like why is he slipping is that for me that's for you chloe oh it's easy it's because brad and his friends love to race bait they get up and they pretend that they actually care about all people and ken mellon goes