from washington, the mclaughlin group. the american original. for over three decades, the sharpest minds, best sources, hardest talk. issue one, mr. modi comes to washington. >> it is an extraordinary pleasure to welcome prime minister modi to the white house for the first time. it is critical for us to continue to deepen and broaden the existing partnership and friendship that already exists. >> i'm happy that we are meeting here just a few days after the indian and u.s. mission reached around the same time. after the india, we are meeting

here. this happy coincidence captures the potential of our relationship. >> newly elected indian prime men minister, narendra modi. in new york, modi met with fortune 500 ceo's and courted investors with his ambitious program to modernize india's economy. india is a democracy the size of western europe with a population over 1 billion, 250 million. it has figured in washington's asian rate game since the presidency of george w. bush. in 2001, president bush lifted sanctions imposed by the u.s. on india. after that country secretly developed and tested a nuclear bomb in 1998. lifting the sanction set the stage for president bush's policy of pursuing a strategic relationship between india and the u.s. to counter china's

growing influence. alongside a standing army of over 1.3 million soldiers, india has around 100 nuclear weapons. last month, india displayed a technological powers by sending a satellite to mars. president obama wants india to play a prime role in his asian pivot. for his part, mr. modi seems receptive. under the foreign policy, he calls, quote, look east, link west. modi affirmed that the u.s. and india forbilled add genuine, strategic alliance. >> i have a one word answer, yes. and with great confidence, i say yes. >> question. how much progress was made in india, u.s. relations this week? pat buchanan. >> considerable. mr. modi was on our watch list for virtually having been a war criminal when it was believed

he had been indifferent to a massacre of muslims. >> how many years ago? >> that was in 2002, i think. i think he has been on that list. >> that was 12 years ago. >> he's been off it now. there is a budding relationship. where the chinese navy is. the chinese control parts of the territory they took 50 years ago. he is a democracy. we are no threat to india. and we can offer him something and he can offer us something. but you can't exaggerate this strategic relationship. this is not a military alliance. we have far more important strategic relationships with russia and with china and with countries like iran than we do with india. >> don't forget the brick nations. what are they? >> brazil, india, china, and south africa. >> what's the relationship of russia to india? >> a cold war ally and this is one of the problems with this indian relationship.

the pakistanis are really paranoid about india. it's their central concern. and this meeting here, my guess is, is probably caused some problems up in pindi. >> eleanor. >> india is a peaceful nuclear power and an emerging economic power house, it will be. business in this country loves india and they are looking to open more markets. there's tension over india wanting to get around the patent protection. they want to make low cost, generic drugs, which is a good position morally and ethically, but it would cut into the bottom line of american corporations. that's an issue of tension. and climate change. i think this was a nice meeting of the minds between president obama and the prime minister and you know, they went to the ml king memorial together. you got the feeling there was a foundation layed there for a much warmer relationship. but in terms of climate, india is giving nothing.

they basically say they deal with it for 30 years. that the u.s. polluted the atmosphere and we got away with it. now it's their turn. but you got to start talking and i think with what this president did, was lay down a basis for a good future for the next president. he is going to hand over a good relationship to hillary. >> the chemistry between the two men was fantastic. the chemistry. >> that's right. >> do you want to -- >> you're right. eleanor is right about that. the chemistry was noticeably different than previous prime ministers and presidents. it was a good sign and it's clear the president now is looking towards his legacy and with india, with modi trying to do his massive economic reforms. there's an opportunity there. i also think it comes into the security context of trying to buffer against china, which is making big steps into the indian ocean and real potential. the devil is in the details and we will wait to see what happens. >> mort, india borders china.

its navy has access to open waters through the indian ocean and it a nuclear power. a strategic alliance with india is far better than nonaligned to india. >> for sure. india is a power. they are going to be, i think, exploding in terms of their economy under the leadership of this man. i suspect they are going to have an increased, shall we say, military capability, but that's not the issue. political and economic strength that will be much more tilted on our side and will be a very good counter balance to whatever china may want to do. it's a plus, plus, it seems to me. for them and for us. >> the united states committedded to go to war for india, if we get in a fight as they did 50 years ago. the job has strategic partnership. you can sell weapons to them and the rest of it. as for nato-type alliance. it will be insane. >> i don't think that's what is involved. i think we can give them a

certain kind of, indirect support at a lot of levels. >> they are a friend, but a problematic friend, but we don't want them in the enemy camp, that's for sure. >> last month modi visited japan and chinese leader went to india to meet with modi. both countries offered packages. modi is playing them off against each other. >> sure he is. but look, the chinese are sitting there and occupying indian territory. it wasn't so long ago, very recently, they had squirmishes up there. we don't want to be on one side or the other if they get involved in a clash. >> don't you have a feeling this is a power house that is being -- >> no, i don't. >> you don't? >> china is a powerful, serious nation. a rising super power. i think militarily, russia is far more impressive. >> who has the higher population? >> india. >> let me finish. go ahead, mort. >> i would say india is

certainly far behind india in the capitalistic pursuit. they are on the march. >> india is gorgeous. gorgeous. >> it's a beautiful country. >> no, i don't mean in that way. gorgeous from the point of view of where it is now and where i think it will be. >> there is absolutely nothing but gains for us, okay, as india is going to become a much stronger country. both economically and militarily. and we will not going to get involved in a war, i hope, and i don't think they want to get involved in a war. nevertheless, there are very good counter balance of the chinese influence in the region. >> will you sum this up? >> there's divided opinion in what happens next. but there is a big opportunity because india is a democracy. i think china has real issues. we're going to talk about that later. india is a real opportunity on the economic level, and modi presents a new face. margaret thatcher in a way of india. >> do you think it was a

natural meeting of minds? >> i think in their own ways it was. mr. modi is an economic reform the president, but there's an opportunity. >> there's a commonality of interest undenially. i wouldn't get too very close to them, but we have no real frictions between us and a lot of things in common. >> i'm talking about the two leaders getting together. we have seen all kinds of relationships between leaders. this seems to be authentic. seems to be they like each other and they like each other's company. >> you put too great of accent on personalities, john, rather than national interests. >> i don't at all. >> in india, they look at modi as their barack obama, because when he was elected similar to the excitement -- exactly. when obama was elected. >> he under estimates the importance of personality and the meeting of minds that can take place as a result of a connection that is made socially between the two people. >> john -- >> he under estimates it. >> obama -- >> no.

>> obama doesn't anymore. >> no. i don't think he does anymore. >> also, he is meeting him on the intellectual level. both on mars together, you know. >> and modi remembers he was on the watch list to @ united the united states for ten years. >> big deal, that's 12 years ago. >> india is about to have state level elections, and then i think you'll see the big push of the reforms and how much of this is transitioning into reality. >> he has the same problem with expectations that obama had. the expectations for him are enormously high. >> issue two, tremendous restraint. >> president obama praised the secret service last week. after the arrest of 42-year- old, iraq war veteran, omar j. gonzalez, for climbing the fence at the white house and sprinting into the executive mansion. this week the house oversight committee took a different

perspective. on the secret service, when they grilled its director, julie pearson. about the security breech. despite the security lapses which allowed intruder gonzalez armed with a knife to reach deep inside the white house through the thresholds of the green room, the secret service nevertheless issued a press release praising his handling of the intrusion as exhibiting quote, tremendous restraint and discipline, unquote. and there's more tremendous restraint. three days before gonzalez's fence jumping incursion, the secret service let an armed security guard with prior criminal convictions for assault board an elevator with president obama. the man, a contract employee at the centers for disease control proceeded to take pictures in the elevator and did not obey when told to desist. the secret service did not realize the man had a loaded weapon with him in the elevator

until later. collectively, these failings prompted director pearson to resign wednesday, but questions persist as the secret service lost its edge in the three decades since the assassination attempt against president ronald reagan? the man ultimately in charge of the secret service is homeland security secretary, jet johnson. house oversight chairman has called for a special congressional probe of the secret service's management. >> question, has the length of time eroded the secret service's sense of risk? do you think, eleanor clift. >> well, i think it's possible that some complacency has set in and i think if you're patrolling the white house and for it's been penetrated now. if you are ever over there, it's like an armed camp. i mean, as a reporter, you have to go through several check points. it's not easy to get into.

i think agents sit in guard houses and walk around the perimeter, you know, probably their attention wanders sometimes and that is unacceptable. so, i think the secret service as a whole. i mean, everybody i've ever dealt with is very professional. there are a few people that are not doing their job. i think it's a question of management and i think it's a question of resources. they don't have enough money. and julia pearson, i think she was installed in that job because it was thought that she could merely because of her gender, change that sort of frat boy, devil-may-care attitude that had infected the service particularly on overseas trips. but you know, she apparently comes out of the same bureaucratic attitude and she failed. i give her a lot of credited for resigning as quickly as she did. >> how many presidents were assassinated? >> four have been

assassinated. kennedy, garfield, mckinley, and listen. harry -- mckinley and kennedy and garfield and lincoln. but john, look. >> how many all together, four? four out of how many presidents? >> 43. ronald reagan was shot. the harry truman attempted to assassinate him. teddy roosevelt took a bullet, but he was out of the oval office. gerald ford was fired at twice. look. the secret service and i had the fortune to have their protection. they are outstanding people. they have a tremendous reputation. they put their lives on the line for you. but something has happened when someone jumps over the fence, pushes over the gal at the door of the white house, which isn't locked, and running around the east room and stopped by a secret service guy who was leaving the building. >> something is wrong? >> something is terribly, terribly wrong and there's

other incidents that seven shots were fired at the white house and they didn't tell the president. >> how come they gave you secret service protection? >> because jimmy carter -- they thought i was a national treasure at that particular time, john. [ laughter ] >> have you put that in your column? why don't you sign yourself instead of buchanan, a national treasure. >> the greatest guys you will ever run into. >> what are the brits saying about this? >> i don't know that the brits are covering it that much. from my own perspective, i did some protection. it's difficult. clearly, the secret service is the highest level of difficulty. >> tennis players. but much lower level. the point of protection is, it's immensely difficult. the elevator example, that's something -- >> the elevator -- >> actually, sometimes you're not going to be able to avoid. there's a lot of trust on the

hosting government. >> look, if it's somebody you don't know. they had the elevator clear, my sister could have gotten on, they knew her, but if they didn't know somebody, wait for the next elevator. >> mort, what are your impressions? >> clearly there's a breakdown on some level. you can't imagine that this is going to happen, several incidents that have really undermined the general confidence of this critical agency. they need different leadership and they are going to get it and they will have to review a lot of their procedures because this really, we came this close to a major disaster in this country. >> what about gonzalez, could the secret service have used legal force? >> no. first of all, the first family wasn't there. so i think the agents guard goes down somewhat. he is a mentally disturbed gentleman and i think he had been hanging around the white house to some extent. >> letting him get inside the white house was a complete

failure of security that could have had horrific consequences if he were wearing a suicide bomber's vest. >> what you should have done is had the snipers on the roof, have rubber bullets. take him down with those, which wouldn't kill him. they would knock him down. >> quick comment from you about joe clancy. do you know joe? >> no, but bill clancy was ahead of my details. >> the first family has a comfort level with him because he was the head of the detail for their first two years in the white house. and so he is their personal selection. he also is there when the salahi's made their way into the state dinner. >> what former secret service worker, man, was protecting the kennedy's and he was -- >> clint hill. he wrote a book, right?

>> he did a movie in which he was that secret service agent. >> what's the book called? >> i don't know. >> he wrote a book. his name is clint hill. for those interested in this issue. it's a moving book about how he almost made it to where he could have used his own body to protect kennedy. it was after the first world war, but before the second. issue 3, hong kong heat. >> supporters call it the umbrella revolution. tens and thousands of prodemocracy protesters, mostly students, have jammed the streets of hong kong around the clock, deploying umbrellas to protect against rain, sun, and when the police spray tear gas and pepper spray. ordinary citizens are lending their support, calling for hong kong's chief executive and also his top politician to resign. how did hong kong get to this point? a decision by beijing.

china's seat of government, for the powerful office of hong kong's chief executive. hong kong has long enjoyed a special status as comparedded to mainland china. ever since the british returned their former colony to china in 1997, 17 years ago. china back then agreed to a quote, unquote, one country, two systems policy that has allowed hong kong a flourishing financial hub of china with 7.1 million residents an independent judiciary and press freedoms that are currently forbidden on the mainland. but, after china's current president took control in 2013, last year, restrictions have been tightened. including on public decent and the use of social media. allowing hong kong residents to choose their own candidates now push beijing in a problem. it is unclear how long the

communist party will tolerate revolt, especially because of a potential into other parts of china. on the other hand, the legacy and memory of 1989, square, when china violently cracked down on an earlier general generation -- repeat would cause not only chaos and death, but also condemnation from the west. >> what is ping going to do? >> i think he's going to have them have a bit of a leash until they tick off enough people in hong kong. when push comes to shove, he will do it. this man is not going to back down. >> eleanor. >> i think he's going to try to wait out the protesters, just like the capitalist in new york waited out the wall street, the antiwall street crowd. hong kong is the economic engine for china. it's their new york. if he does a severe crackdown that would only, i think, cause

protest to spread on the mainland. >> i think he doesn't give up. the broader issue in china is separation between poor rural locations. i think in the future, as china's export motto becomes difficult, they will have problems. >> i think you'll have a real clash between an educated well to do population and a much less, shall we say, successful population. he will have to find a way to reconcile those two. >> the u.s. and hong kong. >> 1,400 u.s. berms are situated in hong kong. u.s. companies enjoy the city's business environment, legal system, low taxation. solid infrastructure and over 60,000 u.s. residents live in hong kong. last year, u.s. private service trade totaled $64 billion. u.s. exports to hong kong totaled $51 billion.

while imports from hong kong to the u.s. totaled $13 billion. a $39 billion trade surplus. china's communist party accused the west of abetting the protest. the party's main newspaper claims that the activist in the streets of hong kong have support from quote, unquote, antichina forces in the uk, in the u.s., and call them a quote, gang of people with western democracy. unquote. secretary of state, john kerry, met with china's prime minister on wednesday and said this. >> and as china knows, we support universal suffer raj age in hong kong. we believe in a high degree of govern by law and we have high hopes that the hong kong

authorities will exercise restraint and respect and the protester's right to express their views briefly. >> foreign minister wang had this response. >> hong kong internal affairs, all countries should respect china's sovereignty. >> question. why are chinese authorities blaming the unrest on american meddling? i ask you. >> they don't want to address their own internal difficulties in terms of the absence of democracy and the rule of law and i think it's appropriate and right that the united states is making -- secretary kerry deserves credit for doing that. because the chinese government's engagement with the united states, cyber espionage, bullying their neighbors, vietnam, philippines, and they aim to bring to the world in terms of politics deserves to be confronted internally. >> what's the broader aim? >> of china or the united states? >> china. >> be the world's next super

power and continue with the domination. >> not yet, but it's getting there. >> ping has been talking to vladimir putin, who believes not wrongly, that the united states is national endowment for democracy, all these agencies, democracy agencies to subvert their governments. that's what happened in serbia. that's what happened in georgia, he told ping, and you'll watch these ngo's are going to be more and more an issue. >> ngo is a nongovernmental organization, correct? >> right. >> why didn't you do it that way? >> because they are called ngo's. using this jargon -- >> that's what the jargon that is being used -- >> we don't need that. >> china has promised a hong kong universal suffrage. that's part of the deal. i thought what secretary kerry

said was right. the onion, which is the newspaper, it headline was obama to hong kong, another issue we're not going to pay attention to. and the president is really not gotten involved in this and blaming internal unrest on outside agitators has a long history. it goes back to the civil rights episodes in the south here. >> beijing uses power to break up the protesters. what should president obama do? >> he's not going to do anything in the way of using force or anything like that. that's outside of the boundary. >> hit him in the pocketbook? >> in one form or another. there will be a major opportunity to use that as a platform in which to go after the chinese for the kind of state they have developed. >> could jack lieu declare china to be a currency manipulator? >> i don't think that's what is involved here. >> john, you want to bring the markets down crashing, you get into an economic sanctions war with china. >> you don't pick a fight with

your banker, i don't think. >> which is the stronger market? hong kong or wall street? >> oh no, wall street is still the strongest market. >> hong kong is 3% of china's economy. >> which is the stronger city? hong kong or new york? >> i would take new york as well. there's no city in the world. >> what do you think? >> new york. >> united states will remain -- >> and you are a brit. >> i'm a u.s. citizen. i don't like this teasing because of my accent. we are a country of immigrants. >> predictions, pat. >> ebola virus contained here, but it explodes in west africa. >> eleanor. >> half a dozen republican led states will accept medicaid under obama care after the november election. >> tom. >> in the november elections, it's going to be 52-48 for the republicans taking the senate. >> mort. >> the housing market is going to continue to weaken and this is going to create a wider

impact on the already weak economy. >> if isis makes good on its threat to slaughter the families of american troops here in their homes in the united states, the pressure on president obama to launch an all out attack will be unbearable. it will trigger a full scale american assault on isis and its sponsors in the middle east. bye bye.

next on kqed news room, the ebola virus hits the u.s. what the bay area is doing to prepare. yes means yes, what happens next? now that governor brown has signed a landmark bill to address sexual assaults on college campuses. plus soup minus the shark. a year after california implemented a ban on shark fin sales how have chinese restaurants and diners adapted. >> my family is perfectly fine not to have shark fin on the menu.