>> from washington, "the mclaughlin group," the american original. for over three decades, the sharpest minds, best sources, ardest talk. john: issue one -- hillary's emails. hillary clinton: i did not email any classified material to anyone on my email. there is no classified material. so i'm certainly well aware of the classification requirements and did not send classified material. john: hillary clinton may be adamant but the inspector general for the state department

and the inspector general for the intelligence community disagrees. last week the i.g. for the intelligence community advised congress that emails sent by hillary clinton on her private email server contained information that should have een classified secret. s-e-c-r-e-t, all caps. a cample of 40 of mrs. clinton's 30,000 emails showed that four had classified information. that's 10% of the sample. hundreds of the emails may contain secrets. mishandling government secrets is a criminal offense with a penalty of up to one year in prison. last friday the justice department confirmed to reporters that it had been asked by the two in thors general to op a criminal probe boo --

into the matter. four hours later the justice department began backpedaling saying instead that it had only been asked to prove potential mishandling of classified information. whether or not to open a criminal probe is up to attorney general lore rhetta lynch, who's only been on the job for three months. she must decide to open a probe that could either eexonerate the likely dwactic presidential nominee or cripple clinton's chances. a third alternative. lynch could recuse herselfs from making a decision. in 1999 then-president bill clinton pointed lynch attorney for the eastern division of new york. a position she held until tapped by president obama to replace eric holder. if you were loretta lynch how

would you handle this? pat: i'd turn it over to the deputy attorney general and sort of semirecuse myself. hillary rodham clinton is suffering now the death of a thousand cuts. they found out there were classified documents on four out of 40 emails and there are tens of thousands more. she got rid of 55,000 emails. they're asking now that she give up the server. her poll numbers are sinking like a stone. her negatives are something like 10 or 15 points higher than her positivings and her truth worthiness is something like a 20-point gap people believe test -- she's not trustworthy and then the potential of this thing blowing up down the road. i'm telling you, i think joe biden aught to start warming up in the bullpen. john: really?

pat: i think he ought to take a look at this eleanor: if the democratic party needs a savior, joe biden is there. there's nothing eminent. i think this whole email controversy has been blown up out of proportion. loretta lynch is a straight arrow attorney general. i highly doubt that she would recuse herself. this isn't a criminal investigation of hill rhode island clinton. it's look -- hillary clinton. it's looking at the state department security system and anytime the word "email" appears for hillary clinton, it's not good for her. controversy always comes with the clinton but they've got enormous support in the country. she's the most commanding non-incumbent we've seen in a presidential race for some time. let's remember that bill clinton was elected and re-elected two times with truths numbers that weren't that great. remember slick willy and all

that. hillary clinton has a lot of other attributes. we're not in the compare and contrast part of the campaign yet. the remember numbers are worse than hers. tom: the problem for hillary is what comes next? when this first came out in march, my first impression was if you have a private server and foreign intelligence knows about it, the french, russians, chinese, israelis all have the capacity probably to hack into that. they may have the evidence, they may control hillary clinton's destiny if they have classified material that could then leak. literally. they will try and hack -- eleanor: the state department. tom: at best it was extraordinary negligence but at worse, it may be a criminal issue. this could destroy her campaign. john: here's what president obama says about the classified

information. this is his position -- "as commander in chief i believe we must keep information secret that protects our operations and our people in the field. to do so we must enforce consequences for those who break the law and breach their commitment to protect classified information. that was president obama in a counterterrorism speech in may 2013. what do you think of where we re now in this discussion? mort: i think in may of that year, that might have been relevant. i don't think it's relevant to what's going on with hillary. i don't think there was anything like some kind of serious attempt to avoid the secret or the security dimensions of what she had on her own equipment. this seems to me frankly, i can't get excited about this because it doesn't seem to me to

be the kind of thing that anybody would have done deliberately. pat: you're walking through a minefield. mort: i don't disagree. eleanor: it's a stupid thing she did and i believe it comes out of an excess of caution in her part and that's when she gets into trouble. many times her predecessors also used private seveners. i in powers -- colin powell, believe did. pat: this this is what, 15 or 16 more months before the election. this could go boom. all the justice department has to say is we have now begun to open a criminal investigation because it appears there are a lot more secrets just like the ones before. as soon as they say that in the primaries, that candidacy could

blow up. eleanor: that's your fantasy. that's what you're imagining. there's nothing here. pat: why do you say the likelihood is that there's nothing here? eleanor: i believe in that likelihood and you believe in the other one. the country could care less. john: you're out of control. i want to hear from you. tom: i tend to think it's a fantasy that it's not a big issue for clinton. why did she have a private server? she had something to hide, clearly. she knew as secretary of state there would be a lot of intelligence activity. she wiped the server, which is -- eleanor: so she is deliberately skirting the intelligence rules, you're saying. i -- i -- i think that's not -- tom: yes. eleanor: but we'll fight about it. pat: 10% of her emails they saw

had secrets on it. it's probable that in the 33,000 there might be a few more. john: right. eleanor: you know in the white house classification they classify just about everything. john: we have to move on. question -- is it time for joe biden to get in the race just in case hillary goes down in lames? john: i think he ought to prepare himself to get into the race. he doesn't have to get in early. if this blows up, and it could, i think the natural leader of the democratic party is joe biden, if john kerry. john: do you think joe biden hungers for the job? pat: i think he did at one time and i think he's seeing something rising again. john: we're wail over. eleanor: i said earlier if the party needs a savior he's there but hillary is in a strong position. much stronger than the dialogue today.

john: he said yes, he should get in. and you? mort: if anything we don't know now comes out he should be ready to get in. john: joe biden, start warming your engine. issue two -- tales out of school. >> and the majority leader looked at me and said there is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal. like st. peter, he repeated it three times. my staff told me that afternoon, he's lying to you. that's what my staff said. we've been around the senate a long time. he's not telling you the truth. john: senator ted cruz has declared war on republican senator majority leader senator mitch mcconnell. he says that mr. mcconnell made a covert deal with democrats so ensure the or authorization of the import-export bank,

something mr. cruz and many other republicans oppose. senator cruz claims senator mcconnell lie told him by denying that no deal had been struck. while some republicans have praised senator cruz for his words, other republicans like senator orin hatch believe mr. cruz has impugned the senate's tradition of respectful debates. >> deliberation without decorum is not deliberation at all. it is bickering and bickering is beneath this body. john: would you consider senator cruz a whistleblower? eleanor: no, he's trying to get attention to make sure he gets on the debate stage. makes the 10-person cutoff for the republican debate next week. he's also the most disliked member of the senate, which tends to be a clubby place. he's talking about a covert

deal. it was on "the new york times" that it was part of the negotiations in order to get the number of votes that they needed. they agreed they would bring up this import-export bank as an amendment to the transportation bill. he's all twisted out of shape because he wants to kill that bank. quemplets can't get rid of the cabinet department so they want to kill this little bank, which basically creates jobs and has helped reduce the deficit. most democrats wants sexut a lot of republicans want and it mr. cruz is out in the cold. pat: let me tell you what this is all about. cruz has elevated himself and damaged himself but this is about the presidential election. cruz has gotten out front on this issue calling the majority leader a liar. he says barack obama is the biggest terrorist, the biggest supporter of islamic terrorism

because of the iran deal. mike huckabee says the deal is going to take the jewish folks to the door of the oven. trump has taken over the whole detective. they want to get themselves through through because there's a real possibility, for example, that trump could implode and if he falls, these guys want to be out there on the base, working frankly with the jewish community with edle son, who has tremendous amounts of money. this is about the whole dynamic of the republican presidential race. touchdown i think that's right. it's more than the fundraisers. they are trying to demand media attention. but ted cruz, yes. all the other republican senators have openly repudiated his comments. he's deeply unpopular. i think ultimately in is a political game. john: mort? mort: i share your views about

cruz. somehow there's something about him that is all self-promoting and he does it in a way that is inappropriate for the senate. i don't understand why he has to put it this way. i don't think he's a heavyweight as far as i'm concerned. point of view when trump slips and falls, they are the logical inheritors. eleanor: he wants to be the next donald trump saying the most despicable things and wants to inherit trump's support. of : he doesn't have 1/10 trump's charm. mort: raw -- john: are you a trump man now? mort: are you kid something eleanor: that was a facetious comment. john: he has real estate all over manhattan. pat: i'm not disparaging what mort said. i'm just surprised by it. mort: i've always liked him and

i've known him for a very long tomb. i just don't think he is the person who should be the president of the united states. john: who should? mort: oh, you're asking me a -- pat: the update is that donald trump has vaulted way into the lead for the republican nomination. he's got twice the support of eb bush and marco rubio is sinking. and trump is ahead in florida, new hampshire, iowa and all these states and the feeling is wait a minute, perhaps he won't implode. everybody thinks he's going to imborrowed -- exexplode and implode. but if the nomination race started off today, and it's not. if it started today he's -- he'd win the nomination. eleanor: he's getting 22% to 23%. 26%? ok, maybe he can get up to 30%. that's still a small portion. pat: with seven people in the

field? eleanor: it's still relatively small. and if the republicans want to give him the nomination, i say bring it on. hillary will lend in -- win in a landslide. time all the other republican candidates -- all the other support base will go to one other candidate if it's trump. eleanor: anybody but. pat: why? tom: because he cannot win the general election and i and i think a lot of other conservatives think a lot of what he says is pretty stupid. john: why can't he win the general election? tom: because of the way he is. he's not presidential material. pat: he's got a real hill to climb to get the nomination, no doubt about it. because of what tom says, the other candidates will drop out. he's further down the road than i thought he would be. john: ok, house of cards.

on tuesday, republican congressman mark meadows launched a surprise bid to oust john boehner as the speaker of the house of representatives. mr. meadows claims speaker boehner has centralized power and failed to advance conservative interests, while the challenges largely symbolic, boehner has more than enough his to hold on to speakership, it illustrates the ahead when congress returns from itself summer retreat. votes on federal government funding, due to expire october 1 and raising the $18 .1 trillion federal debt ceiling before the treasury department's coffers run dry in november. are we in for capitol hill fireworks this fall? eleanor: this will be the fall

from hell but not because speaker boehner is in any kind of jeopardy. this congressman meadows may have some people behind him but the speaker is not really as a rule nerbling. but they're going to bump up against the spending cliff. probably want to shut down the government over defunding planned parenthood and what in gentleman from north carolina represents is between 30 and 60 members of the republican congress who john boehner cannot control and who have basically paralyzed congress. congress has an 8% approval rating. pat: we could have a shutdown i think of the government in the fall. it would be utterly unacceptable to the democrats in the senate and of course to the president if it ever got to his desk. john: they have the budget issue. the aaron nuclear executive

agreement. pat: the iran agreement will be noted on i think around mid september. john: the federal ceiling debt extension. there may be as many fireworks here this fall as there were in 2013. during the 16-day government shutdown in october. you want to predict that? pat: i think it's a pretty good prediction that you could have a train wreck in the fall. tom: you're going to have the two sides, the republican leadership who want to essentially have it clean because they're worried about the party's 2016 ramifications. then you have the presidential candidates who want to generate that republican anger towards their own campaign. i think it will go to a shutdown. john: exit question -- how has 14th congress done so far this year. assign a midterm letter grade from a to f. pat buchanan? pat: it's gotten some things

done. a b. eleanor: i'll give it a b. got some things done but left a lot of big-ticket items. tom: i think it's a b. improved. mort: a c. they've gotten a few things done but not nearly enough. john: i'll give it a b-plus. the house and senate passed the first balanced budget in six years, the first major medicare reform in 20 years. the keystone x.l. bill. obama vetoed it. and number four, a major education bill and they're on their way to a highway bill. not bad. ssue four -- sea slaves. [meow, meow. meow. >> i've been kicked in the teeth and my jaw hurts every time i

chew. i kept thinking about my family. there were times i was about to jump into the sea to kill myself. my friends held me back. otherwise i'd be dead by now. john: long unnoticed, sea slavery is slowly attracting new attention. each year, thousands of men from across southeast asia are lured to thailand by the promise of work and money. once arrived, they are forced to become slaves on thai fishing vessels. fishing is a highly lucrative industry for the thai economy and according to the "new york times," the united states is the biggest importer of thai fish. much of these imports are for u.s. cat food prucks like iams' meow mix and fancy feast. and with the consumer using 30 pounds of fish per year,

american pet owners are filling thai wallets. last year thailand earned $190 million from its pet food exports, but the thai fishing industry has too few workers and that's where sea slaves come in often undocumented, often speaking different languages to their captains and often held at gunpoint, these men are enslaved without hope of rescue. -- are major global corporations like nestle and mars inc fueling slavery one tin of cat food at a time? pat buchanan? pat: i don't believe they are, john, and if they know this information, they ought to deal with the folks that are selling them with fish for the cats. frankly this is a problem for the southeast nations themselves and their navys and it's something where they're like somali pirates, people that do that, and they ought to get the same treatment the somali pirates do and those folks ought to be liberated. john: does this have special

interest for you, due to the fact that you had a cat that you called cat? a gorgeous white cat. pat: we didn't feed him fish. he got lobster, john. [laughter] eleanor: "the new york times" did an excellent piece of reporting on it. this is really a tragic story. first of all they're overfishing the waters. the boats are going further out. they stay out for months at a time. people are kept in horrendous conditions. i think when americans become aware of this, from a public relations standpoint, the companies that are involved are going to be just as worried about doing business this way, as remember slave labor and sneakers and clothes made in this country and the corporations reacted? i would hope that the corporations do react here. especially if we're going to be entering into a trade agreement with countries in that region. this is something that should be of great interest to the u.s. administration. john: would you look for a

conditioned label "slavery-free product" before you bought? tom: i don't eat cat food but if i did -- i think as eleanor said we're going to move into a situation as with tuna, people wanted to no dolphins were involved. quickk it's going to be a cycle. john: pro cat or anti-cat or neither? tom: i'm neither. john: you like cats? tom: i have no problems with cats. john: cats are intriguing. you don't have any idea what they're thinking. tom: it's just one example of a lot of issues we have in the ocean. plastic in the ocean. toxicology. my uncle works for an ocean alliance that does whale toxicology tests. eleanor: the organizations are hurting. -- oceans are hurting.

anything that brings attention is a good thing. mort: a lot of fishing boats bring people in from some countries in asia and they're virtually slaves. they get terrible wages and terrible conditions and they can be held there for months at a time so this is the kind of thing that in the sense they use it because they're so inexpensive and this is something that has to be addressed. john: do you think that the thai government should be fault and would faulted strenuously? mort: absolutely. john: predictions, pat? pat: issues like abortion and the plan parent hood and gay rights thing has called a -- causinged a number of folks on the rights to talk about something called a benedict option, which is basically a secession from the society in general. goes back to the old monasticisn of the 139 century. eleanor: if there's anything golded -- good to come out of the knucklehead dentist who

killed the lion, it's that the lid has been blown off of these companies that conduct big-game hunth trips and charge tens of thousands dollars to rich people to get a trophy on their wall. in with heavy regulation. tom: going on cecil the lion, i think the big story coming out of this is that american popular society, we should be embarrassed that we've been so attentive so to this and not other serious issues. john: you like lions? everybody seems to mort: i love with them and work with them too. the man who i think is going to surprise everybody is governor perry of texas. i was just witness to his performance last week and he was phenomenal. very knowledgeable, forceful. had a great sense of humor. he is an underestimateded candidate. john: good to hear.

i predict that senator will vote for a bill to defund planned parenthood. enough democrats will get onboard to overcome the 60-vote minimum needed to bring legislation to the floor. bye-bye. ♪

good evening. welcome to kqed "newsroom." i'm thuy vu. tech companies are under increasing pressure to show progress. apple, intel and other firms will be meeting to press them to diverse their workforces. we're going to look at one aspect of this problem, the gender gap. yahoo!'s marisa and facebook's sheryl sandberg are the exception, not the rule in