It was a sluggish response, almost a White House in slow motion. Americans expect not only to see their president on the scene, but a firm hand on the tiller. That wasn't there. There was nobody in charge.

I was in the Nixon White House during Watergate, and we pretended that we were all about business as usual. And we had a president who was talking to the portraits. It was not business as usual, but you have to say it.

Life in Slow Motion

If you don't believe what the president believes or more generally what the White House believes, you're not going to get a second look and that narrows the pool to a very small number of people,

She has to get out from under the cocoon of the White House and the president.

I think the president has raised the stakes for himself. He has raised the stakes for his presidency, so that if there are more explosions in the next few months ... his approval ratings will suffer some more.