from across the table from toure's empty chair. another anthony weiner series of interviews. and i'm still krystal ball. i'm still here. congress' last day until labor day. we have music to show everyone just how i feel. ♪ all right. let's talk the economy. you loyal "cycle" viewers know the first friday of each month is jobs report friday. of course, words from our two economic gurus, jared bernstein and peter. before we talk to the dynamic duo, let's give you the numbers. the economy created a net gain of 162,000 jobs last month. kind of an average number. the unemployment rate did drop a bit to 7.4%, but that's mostly

because fewer folks were participating in the work force. okay, guys. go at it. jared, you first. what's your take on these new numbers and the fact that if you're looking at it, the share of working adults haven't budged in the labor force really much at all. >> well, first of all, i really like the way you say jobs report friday. i mean, you just make it sound fun. >> you got to sell it, jared. you know? >> i hear you. it's a report that i've described as kind of symptomatic of an economy that's stuck in maybe second gear, something like that. we're far away from going backwards, so we're reliably not looking at recession, but we're not growing fast enough to quickly absorb the slack that's still left over from the great depression. and in that sense, if you think about how fast the economy's growing in gdp terms, it's between 1% and 2%. this is the kind of report you'd expect. 162,000 jobs, if you average out over the past few months, we're kind of in a 175, 200,000 range per month.

that's fast enough to slowly nudge the unemployment rate down, b now, one quick thing. you mentioned that the unemployment tick down was mostly because of people leaving the labor force. actually, that was a minor part of the difference. it accounts for a small part of the change, but at least this month most of the gain in unemployment was from people getting jobs. still, you're right. labor force participation rate is too low. >> peter, do you agree with that assessment? >> to a point. one of the things we need to look at is the quality of jobs, the kinds of jobs we're creating. we're creating part-time positions. since january, by my math according to the household survey, we've created almost 1 million part-time positions. a million people say they're working part time. about 20,000 more people say they're working full time. so when you create part-time jobs at that phenomenal rate,

nearly a million new part-time positions and only 20,000 full-time jobs, you've got a big problem. you know, people like to blame obama care. obama care is an issue, but other issues are just the slow pace in the economy and it's cheaper to have part-time people. you can pay them less. you can lay them off. they're contingent and so forth. this is very unhealthy and very disconcerting. very tough on young people trying to get started. it's just a terrible situation. >> peter, i know the part-time numbers also upset you because when it comes to tv punditry, and you're working overtime. >> well done. >> i'm an old guy. i can work more. i'm twice the age of all you people. >> jared, enough humor. i want to ask you about some of the negative news that is here. obviously any job pick-up is great. if we go with the recent rates, it's going to be another seven years just to get us back to

even with pre-recession employment numbers with where we would be to recover. that's 2020, okay. that's like president clinton or president christie going into their second term. we've worked that up there for jobs friday to give you a feeling of how far air way that is. should that be a big bummer? do you agree with that assessment? >> i do. that really was where i was coming from in my first set of comments, this idea of being stuck in second gear. if the gdp growth, which is just growth in the overall economy, is kind of just percolating along between 1% and 2%, which is where we are, you're not going to get the magnitude of job growth to absorb the slack that's still in the labor market. one of the problems you have is that when the job market is still kind of weak like that, you don't really have much on the wage pressure side. so over the last year, we find that wages are up a little bit below 2%. that's about the rate of price growth, about the rate of inflation. that just means that people's

buying power is flat. so it's not a jobless recovery, recessionary risks are very low. we are growing, and we're growing reliably. we've now put in four years of growth in this expansion. but another way to look at it is four years later, we still have a very long way to go. >> a long way to go. peter, you can spin these numbers so many ways, but the fact at matter is this continues to be the slowest and the deepest economic recovery, really, in modern history. we are the red line, the one that's moving slowly but surely upwards. >> that really helps there. >> and the group that i focus on, peter, i'm glad you mentioned this, are millennials, the younger people who are getting hit the hardest. you can see this is ages 20 to 24. it really hasn't changed all that much. i mean, we're still looking at those that are the most educated coming out of college, half of which can't get a job or very low paying job. so how concerning is this, specifically for the younger

generation? >> well, one of the things that bothers me is that college -- i'm a college professor -- only gives you a learning permit. like in driving. you've got to get some experience to become valuable. if you miss out the first five years of your working career spending time at starbucks, just dropped out of the system, these people are going to be passed over for the new college graduates. they're never really going to get going. this happened in the '30s to people. it will happen again. the last comparable recession we was in the late '80s. we came out of that roaring. we grew over the first four years which is the comparable period. instead of growing at 2.1%, we grew at more than 5%. jared and i have spoken over the months about things that could be done. whether we're talking about president bush or president obama, the republicans or the democrats, they seem to not really want to address those structural problems. arguing over sequestration and

jiggling around with the tax rates a bit, you know, spending a bit more now, lowering taxes, whatever you want to do is going to give you a little bit of a boost. it doesn't fix what's fundamentally broke. >> and jared, to that point, i actually wanted to get both of you, but starting with jared, to weigh in on the president's new proposal to cut corporate tax rates in a way that actually would increase revenue a bit, at least that's my reading of the proposal, so we could use that money to fund a jobs plan. you wrote about this over on your blog. what's your take overall of the plan? >> i think it's a good plan. i mean, over the longer term, just to be clear, it's, quote, revenue neutral, meaning while you lower the tax rate, you broaden the base to get back some of the revenue you lose with the lower rates. >> jared, just for my own clarification so i understand, he wants, though, to actually get more revenue from corporations in order to fund the jobs program, correct? >> right. in transitioning to the tax structure he's calling for,

there's some extra income that comes in one time from the transition. he wants to devote that, maybe something in the area of around $100 billion to career training at community colleges. i happen to think it's a great idea. i actually think that kind of a boost, it's temporary, it's short-term, it doesn't deal with what peter correctly identified as underlying structural problems. and we need to do that as well. let's -- they've said straight out no to the president. it's quite remarkable. >> that's exactly right. why are they not embracing what they do like? >> peter, what's your take on that? >> let's not start playing the democrats against the republicans. there's plenty of blame in this mess to go around. i'm all for the president's proposal to flatten the tax structure, make everybody pay something within the corporate sphere. we have some people paying a lot, some people paying a

little. let's get rid of the loopholes. there would be a dividend in repatriating these. that's going to give you a temporary boost in employment. i won't argue it won't. i'd like to see it used more constructively. for example, the federal government always has something like 40 jobs training programs. the graduates do about as well as college graduates do. let's use this money in an investment way that really leaves lasting value. i don't like jobs trainings programs. they sound good. i wish they worked, but the history is they simply don't. >> well, peter, i disagree with part of that, although i think you're hitting on an important piece, which is the repatriation piece. how do we get that back? secondly, what do we spend it on? we know this president has talked a lot about wanting jobs spending. we understand some folks think the time for that are has passed. coming down on that point, i m

with the repatriation issue? don't you think that it's like this thing that's always waiting there and you don't get these corporate profits back? that's frustrating to a lot of taxpayers who, like i said, don't have that option. >> well, let's be very clear about this. the president's plan does not call for repatriation, and he was explicitly saying he's not going to go there. that specifically means where you allow foreign earnings to come back at a very low tax rate. it's this temporary tax holiday for them. that's not what he's talking about. he's talking about a larger structural change. i would very much take issue with peter's point that let's not talk democrats and republicans. hey, i'm happy to be bipartisan. the fact is that this was a bipartisan proposal. we'll give you corporate rate tax cuts, and you give us something on the temporary job measures. to throw up your hands and say both sides are at fault when one side has said, please, give us tax kuts, the president gives it to them and they say, no, no, no, nothing from you, mr. president. that's very, very bad in an

economy that could use this help. >> i think you should have separated the nation of reforming the tax structure from trying to get a temporary revenue boost. it really comes down to increasing taxes and increasing spending. we've had quite a bit of that already in his first term. >> he's offering a tax cut, not a tax increase. >> well, he's going to get more revenue. where i went to school, if you change the structure in such a way that you get more money in, that's a tax increase. maybe you studied some different math book than i did. >> you're wrong about that. you're flatly wrong on the facts there. he's lowering the tax rate from 35 to 28%, broadening the base. >> he's also taking away loopholes. >> correct. >> the net corporate payment is going to go up. >> revenue neutral, not revenue positive. >> if we can put the economics arguments aside, although those are the most important part, but the whole idea here is that the democrats would get something they want and the republicans would get something that they want. that's the nature of a compromise. we'll have to talk more about it on another day, peter and jared.

thank you both very much. >> thank you. all right. up next, if there's sports news, you know i'm your gal. what's now leaking out about the impending mlb suspensions and a-rod's future. "the cycle" rolls on for this first friday in august. i'm the next american success story. working for a company where over seventy-five percent of store management started as hourly associates. there's opportunity here. i can use walmart's education benefits to get a degree, maybe work in it, or be an engineer, helping walmart conserve energy. even today, when our store does well, i earn quarterly bonuses. when people look at me, i hope they see someone working their way up. vo: opportunity, that's the real walmart. [ chainsaw buzzing ] humans. sometimes, life trips us up. sometimes, we trip ourselves up.

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will he make a deal? that is the big question in the sports world. alex rodriguez might play his last game tonight in new jersey for yankees minor league team the trenton thunder. he's coming off a second hip surgery, but his role in the

biogenesis drug scandal might keep him out of major league baseball for life. his deadline is monday to strike a deal, avoiding the lifetime ban. jeff passen coverages major league baseball. i want to start with your article. you have a great quote in there where you call a-rod a ball player who sort of wants to play ball but really wants to grab his cash and run away from the inferno of fraud that he set ablaze. so given that's how you see him and his motivations, what do you think the chances are he's going to strike a deal over the weekend? >> i think it's in his best interest ultimately to do that. i mean, we have to look at the whole scenario here. alex rodriguez has two choices. number one, he can fight this, go through arbitration, be suspended, have this linger on and potentially lose upward of $100 million he still has due to him. or he can take the suspension somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 to 200 games, miss about a

year and a half, $30 million to $35 million and at least get the rest of what's due to him. money is so important to alex rodriguez. this is a guy who's made $315 million playing this game, but that's not enough for him. that's his imperative at this point, despite what he wants to say publicly. >> wow. >> hey, guys. seems like a nice television show. can i join in? >> welcome, toure. go ahead. did you have a question? >> thank you. yeah, i mean, jeff, he's 38 years old. so two years away to basically the end of his career. i want to broaden the lens a little bit here. a-rod is absolutely guilty. ryan braun, absolutely guilty. bonds, sosa, clements, et cetera. there's a whole culture that aided and abetted these guys. we both know this, the players association helped them out, the owners looked the other way, the media didn't catch on, the fans kept rooting for them as the long balls got longer and longer and the players got bigger and bigger. everybody kind of helped them

out. now that we sort of know, we're pointing fingers at them. there's a whole group of people that are also complicit in this. >> there is. and that's why bud selig, people are calling him a hypocrite. back in 1998 when mark mcguire and sammy sosa were having that magical summer where they were duelling for the single-season home run record, nobody said anything. if you look at these guys, i think it was fairly obvious at the time. nobody wants to go out and accuse them of what you don't know. well, we've later learned sammy sosa tested positive in 2003. mark mcguire came out and admitted widespread steroid use. for bud selig to be doing this now speaks to how he wants to repair his reputation and how he feels like being harder. i call him sort of like a mob boss. he's a 79-year-old mob boss trying to crack skulls at this point to repair the errors he made in judgment a decade ago. >> he says he's willing to go all the way with the lifetime

ban. he says he has that authority, you know, under the title 11 there in the collective bargaining agreement. and that would basically not only do what you've reported about push manager rodriguez out. it also cancels very lucrative employment contract between two independent parties. on the other hand, there's other agreements on the table, as you know, including the joint drug a agreeme agreement, which gives the players rights to appeal. why not let this play out? why doesn't major league baseball let rodriguez fight this on an appeal, which would go to the merits of the thing everyone cares about, whether people are doping and ruining this game's legitimacy, instead of risking a long court battle over the rules where you have a joint drug agreement pitted against the collective bargaining agreement and courts battling through it. >> i think ultimately what it comes down to is baseball doesn't want to see one guy out on the field appealing this process while all the rest of them are suspended. i mean, there are upwards of a

dozen to 15 or so players in the biogenes biogenesis. others have agreed to suspensions and are at the moment agreeing to the tifinal terms of their suspensions. to have the biggest guy out of them all in alex rodriguez playing for the new york yankees, the biggest professional sports team in north america, is not a good look. i think that's what major league baseball is most afraid of. bud selig in particular. >> that's why we're spending so much time talking specifically about a-rod. i'm glad you guys have mentioned the other members, talking about other people that are also suspended. which teams will actually be impacted the most at the end of all of this? >> well, i think the yankees, for one, because the big deal that other teams are worried about is if his contract is completely wiped off the books, that brings him down beneath the

$189 million luxury tax threshold. if that gets reset, the yankees, who are already the biggest leviathan in all of baseball, are going to be able to spend again. the texas rangers are the other team. nelson cruz hit 25 home runs in year, been really the most consistent hitter in that lineup. he has a chance to be suspended. at this moment he's weighing, does he take it now, serve his games and become a free agent this offseason with a relatively clean slate, or does he fight it, try and get the rangers into the playoffs and go into next season potentially facing 50, maybe even 100 game suspension? >> all right, jeff. >> why a leviathan, jeff? what's up with that? >> all right. we can have that debate another day. >> toure, you're a writer.

>> go ahead, jeff. take him down. >> big words for toure. i grew up reading him in "rolling stone." >> it makes us all sound smart. thanks for your insights. up next, weiner roast. i'm sorry. that was terrible. there's so many pun opportunities out there we can't help ourselves. the mayoral candidate faces the media in a new round of interviews. see what he's saying now. ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker every day. ♪ ♪ i'm a hard, hard worker and i'm working every day. ♪

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weiner watch tops our friday news cycle. scandal plaguing nice mayoral candidate anthony weiner. just wrapped a one-on-one interview. let's say things got a little feisty. >> this is what your business is s right? take pundits, toss them out there, let them yak. i don't care. i'm not going to try to predict or parse what some other person comes out. i can tell you this, i'm not selling anything to tmz. i'm not going to leak anything about myself. this is a little glimpse of what

it might be like with me as mayor. you're not going to get a perfect person. >> oh, boy, with this guy. this morning weiner also attended a campaign event with east asian community leaders in queens, clearly showing no signs of dropping out of the race. weiner's fallen to fourth in a field of six. he's not going to win. and one day after the u.s. announced that u.s. embassy and consulate closures will occur this sunday due to terrorist threats linked to al qaeda, now we have a travel warning worldwide about the potential for terrorism. an attack could occur in or come from the arabian peninsula. the alert could last through the rest of the month. high drama in the whitey bulger trial in boston. today the notorious one-time mob boss told the court he will not testify in his defense, slamming his seven-week trial as a sham and saying, quote, i didn't get a fair trial, you can do what you want with me.

the widow of one of his alleged victims yelled in response, you're a coward. the defense has now rested its case. bulger is on trial for 19 murders as leader of the winterhill gang. he's pleaded not guilty. finally, the little summer cable movie that could. it's back, and it's bigger than ever. "sharknado" will be playing one night only tonight at midnight in select movie theaters nationwide. if that's not enough for you die hard fans, the sequel is set here in new york city and slated to air in 2014. set your dvrs now. from the fake absurdity of flying sharks to it the real life absurdity on capitol hill. >> i'm just wondering if it's going to be in 3-d. >> guys, we're moving on to serious news here. it's time for a well-deserved break. today is the last official day before congress' five-week

august recess. they may be getting a different kind of heat from constituents. americans' view of both parties in congress, not looking so hot. 31% approval for democrats. a dismal 19% approval for republicans. this is a record low. it's pretty impressive. to be fair, the president gets mixed reviews as well with 46% approval. let's spin. all right, guys. 19%. i'm surprised, but i'm not surprised. i really want to hear from those 19% that approve of republicans in congress. you know, i say it's not -- >> the tea party. >> i say i'm not surprised because you look at what's playing out. it's a very, very divided party. there's no one leading the ship. there's no one pulling them along, guiding them along the way, telling them, you know, we need to gang up together and start getting things done. the people i feel bad for, though, in all of this are the folks that do care. you're looking at me like there

is no one on capitol hill that goes to work wanting to get something done. there are individuals that do. actually, representative pete welch was on "martin bashir" recently. he talked about how difficult it is to be guilt by association, essentially. because so many folks are gumming up the system, making us all look bad. here's what he had to say to martin bashir. >> america voted for divided government. they didn't vote for dysfunctional government. there's a lot of rank and file dissatisfaction and frustration that we're not getting anything done. we can point the finger back and forth. >> so he's part of this new coalition problem solvers coalition. it's very similar to no labels. my dad is co-chair with senator joe mansion. i talked to senator joe mansion recently. i said, how often do republicans and democrats actually get together to talk about things? he looked me straight in the eye and said never. that's part of the problem. now you have these outside coalitions that have having to take control because no one else is willing to do it.

that's a sad state of affairs not only for congress but especially for americans that are suffering along the way. >> and i think that's a great point. it it is easy to look how disastrously incompetent congress has been, but there are actually good people in congress who want to get something done. i want to go back to something you said. you said there is no one leading the ship of the house gop. i think that is not only true, but i don't think there is anyone who could lead that ship. we have seen evidence this week in particular of just how unmanageable that caucus has been. we had a while back -- they were unable to pass the farm bill. this week they had to pull a spending bill from the house floor because the cuts that were going to be in it were even too draconian for a lot of moderate republicans. so what is essentially happening here is -- remember when paul ryan came out with his budget and he was lauded as this

serious, smart guy. well, it only worked in it the abstract. now that they're having to put numbers to this budget, it does not work in the real world. even republicans are saying, we cannot do this. brian butler at tpm wrote a great piece underscoring this point that i recommend to people. essentially, the rubber is meeting the road for the republicans. they can't themselves make these cuts. >> what you hear a lot is this story line about how congress is failing. oh, my god, they're not getting things done. they're not passing these bills. failure is not a bug for the republicans running this house. it is a feature. is what they've set out to do. there are various reasons for that, some that are punitively ideological. even that gives it too much respect, i think. they've come to a conclusion that passing anything equates big government. it doesn't. you know, you could pass all kinds of leadership. we've talked about doing things for detroit that don't just involve federal spending. the notion of doing anything is equated with big government, so they avoid that and can't sell it. they talk about the sequester as something that was originally a

punishment. oh, it's a failure we didn't get it done. well, this is hurting people's lives. this is undermining affordable housing. this is undermining criminal defense and the right to counsel. a lot of very core values that shouldn't be caught in partisan sniping. and it's not equal because there were democratic proposals to say, you know what, we didn't reach a deal, we said this thing was only designed to get us to a deal, let's unravel it, let's cancel the sequester and start over. what did the republicans do? they said, oh, the thing we said -- john boehner said a week before, this would be bad, this is not what we want. now it's fine across the whole country. you see that as well in the tough talk about the military. this is my last point because i want to the go to toure. he's on a giant screen here. see how good you look? the last point i want to make is, these guys were talking about how we won't cut the military. we care so much about military spending. we're republicans. we're tough on defense. then what do we have now? this slow, unfolding military

crisis according to republicans and democrats in and out of military, in and out of government. the house republicanins don't care. even on their own stuff. i'm for certain times of targeted military cutting where we're spending too much. the idea we should take this hatchet across the board, it shows the hypocrisy of republicans. i know it's jobs friday. i know it's a happy show. but it's disgusting. >> well, as lindsey graham said, we screwed ourselfens eed ourse. toure, what do you have? >> you're right. when people say congress is lady or broken, they're totally missing the point. republicans go to washington to prove that government is ineffective and then they don't participate in the system, thus proving that government sis ineffective and it all functions together. it reminds me of something that jay-z said about a wise man told me don't argue with fools because people can't tell from a

distance who is who. so they're saying, oh, look, republicans and democrats are arguing so the democrats must be equally as bad. it's not at all the case. they're trying to prove -- >> no, you're right, toure. i know we're out of time. it reminds me of another jay-z quote. sensitive hugs need thugs. they want to cry about the proposals they put in place. >> i don't have a jay-z quote, but i'll leave it there. i think these numbers just show how people feel about congress. they don't think they're going to work for them. but up next, the future of war. who will be the enemy? how will we fight them? man the robots. stick with us. >> today we are cancelling the a apocalyp apocalyp apocalypse! ♪

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general george patton fam s famously said the object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his. now scientists and engineers are helping to engineer more innovative ways of accomplishing that. in the new movie set 150 years in the future, matt damon fights while wearing an exso skeleton. is that real? yes. so are cargo drones. what? this month's "popular mechanics" follows the marine corps as they strategize, train, and arm themselves for next generation battles. joining us is the senior editor for "popular mechanics." tell us about some of the things coming down the pike that might change the way we conduct warfare. >> well, definitely robots and lasers are high on the list of things i like to talk about.

there's more in the shorter term and there are things that are coming down the pike that allow more. new aircraft right now are all the rage within the marine corps, what i had seen. the mv-22 osprey, which can take off like a helicopter, fly like a fixed-wing airplane and land like a helicopter. i've ridden in it. it's an amazing piece of machinery. it really changes the battlefield. it's sort of recovering from its bad reputation when it was in development and unfortunately killed a lot of people. it's expensive to fly, but it's safer. that's really changing the mobility of the marine corps. that's one of the systems online now. the stuff coming up is even more cool. >> joe, in the piece, you take us through, you know, marines training for the next war, which they're anticipating may be more of a conventional war than what we've been fighting with these insurgent wars. we're also seeing right now huge cuts contemplated to the pentagon. i want to play a little bit of

what secretary of defense chuck hagel has to say about those cuts. >> cuts on this scale would, in effect, be a decade-long modernization holiday. the military could find its equipment and weapons systems, many of which are already near the end of their service lives, less effective against more technologically advanced adversaries. >> do we have the money, or will we have the money to prepare for both types of warfare? >> well, the good news in all of this is we have a very, very experienced ground combat troops. we're really good at the counter insurgen insurgency, small war type stuff. we had ten years to perfect that. the outcomes may not be very good, but on a tactical level, the troops are really, really experienced. they're very good. the commanders, on the other hand, are going to have a little bit of a hard time adapting to what they call high-intensity combat, which is the other guy shooting back at you with artillery, with tanks, with some of the stuff insurgencies don't

have. that's the training i saw in california, to brush up on those skills. the commanders really have to get in that mind set, that they're facing someone who can shoot back with that kind of stuff. it's a different experience entirely. the logistics and training and equipment all has to fall into line with that. the bad news is that we have a technological edge. other people know that. they are developing things that will blunt that advantage. unless we keep up with that, the pace of that and keep modernizing, you could really fall behind. also, we're often the ones who are going somewhere else. we're projecting power to another place. the defense always gets an advantage. so when you do that, you don't have to beat us. you just have to delay us, deny us access, slow us down, make it too costly. so we have some disadvantages that we have to work through. the way the pentagon is set up, that's money. >> as the saying goes, what's old is new. you touched on this a little bit. this is what you've been writing about, going back to this

conventional warfare. are we talking about going back and fighting wars like we did in 1776? what does this mean? i mean, i have two brothers that serve in the navy. this is really interesting to me. you talk about how prepared we are now. a lot of that is due to the time spent in iraq and afghanistan. why would we go back to the old way of doing things? >> you train for who you think you're going to fight next. talking about projecting power and the advantage goes to the defense, 1776, the united states was born from that concept. really, what they're looking at doing is making sure they can do both, making sure that china, north korea, iran, they don't think that they can get away with a more aggressive foreign policy, that we would be forced to fight. there's a certain deterrent quality of saying we know what we're doing. >> we're ready for you. >> and if you don't have that, then they'll be emboldened. part of that training is, all right, we're not just focusing on the fight right in front of us. we're not just fighting

insurgents. army, navy air force, target your ships. >> like, we can be ready for a conventional war. >> we can. the focus, i think rightfully so, was on that -- was on counter insurgency, the fight right in front of you. that came at the expense of the big war training. they're trying to catch up on that front. >> all right, joe. thank you very much. while we're here talking tech, to all our peeps on the social media, it's follow friday. what you follow friday folks think is worthy of watching. we're giving you a glimpse of the staff that helps put our show together, the people we love who are a key part of our lives, and now they can be a key part of yours as well. like us on facebook and follow us on the twitter. lots of good stuff there for you and some haters too. we love them too. up next, we've talked a lot this week about the politics of the mideast. straight ahead, a personal perspective fresh off her sold-out off-broadway run,

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there may be no more common experience than a kid trying to figure out their place in the world, juggling the challenges of family, friends, culture, race, status and society. our next guest grew up ostensibly as a quintessential upper west sider, taking acting classes.

unlike most of her classmates, she was a palestinian-american. while she was sitting in on those heated political conversations with dad at the dinner table, she was also getting kisses from yassir araf arafat. it was years before she said she fully embraced her roots. today in the guest spot, she's a play write and actress. she's fresh off a sold-out broadway one-woman show as well as a new book "looking for palestine, growing up confused in an arab-american family." that's on shelves right now. thank youing thank you for being here. you say i'm a palestinian lebanese american christian woman. i grew up as a jew in new york city and began my life as a wasp. what does all that mean to you now? >> well, i think that's actually

the first kind of two sentences of the book, which everyone is sort of baffled by. but the reason i wrote it and started off that way was because that pretty much sums up how i felt about my identity as a kid and now. when i was growing up, you know, my parents are from the middle east. my dad, as you mentioned, is a palestinian. my mom is lebanese. they were christian, so i didn't fit into that sort of stereotype of arabs being muslim. then i went to this school in the upper east side where everyone was, you know, at the time, to me, seemed very waspy. i was e miss koe pail yan. i was like, i sort of fit in here. i really didn't. then i switched schools to the upper west side, which is where i grew up. at the time, it was much more jewish. it still is. >> is it still kind of jewish. >> yeah, so i was like -- i felt more comfortable there. it was where i was from, this intellectual crowd.

so -- but those were what i was given for my options of what my identity was. are you a wasp? because we're all defined by where we grow up and what school we go to. >> who where ayour peers are. >> of the category but kind of fit in all of them because i never really was as tro sized. it was mostly myself feeling different and feeling like i didn't belong and so -- >> i think it's so great you're telling your story. everyone can relate to it on some level. our stories are very different. i very much felt like i could relate. you're talking about moving around, same thing. my dad served as ambassador a few times abroad. i very much had the same issue where who am i, what is my identity. you would have heads of states or dignitaries over for dinner. there is an embarrassing photo of myself, american flag dresses so patriotic. this was my life. who am i? you know, what do i represent? and bouncing around so much.

what did you tell people? i often got this question of, you just don't relate. your life is different. you don't relate to us. now have you it all in your book. what did you tell people all those years? >> it varied. at first i just wanted to fit in. i was born in 1974. so the civil war in lebanon began a year or two later. so that was like my childhood was the '80s and i was from beirut. so i kind of didn't want to talk about that. and then as i got older, the uprising intefada and the palestinian territories became a huge think in the '80s and my dad was on the news a lot. then i didn't want to talk about that either. so it was a very difficult thing. so when i was a little girl, at first i was totally comfortable with it but then i would say i don't know where my parents were from because i was scared. i really didn't know -- it's funny. my dad wrote this book how arabs and middle eastern people are perceived in the west.

here i am, as you said, watching "i dream of jeannie," and why is she blonde and i'm not. so i was actually pauling for the media's interpretation. >> yeah, exactly. >> of what you were supposed to be. you talk about 9/11 being a pivotal moment for you. tell us about that. >> 9/11 for me was difficult because i had already been to lebanon as a little girl and had to escape under bombs. and so -- i didn't go back for many, many years. i had been to palestine when i was 19. that was it. 9/11 for me was horrifying and scary. there was this other level that was -- i've only ever known one home and it's new york. so when it happened and everyone was kind of like, right afterwards when everyone was outraged and trying to say we're going to go get them, it was

scary for me because i felt like suddenly my whole home and this country was going to turn against me. my mom was like why you? you're not even muslim. i was like i know i'm not muslim but i'm not really christian either and not really anything but american. so it was very difficult. and it was -- i didn't know the whether i was supposed to be here or there. i felt like everyone wanted to kill me and nobody really wanted to kill me. nobody really cared about me. >> we care about you. >> the book looking for palestine, very interesting. interesting time in america to think about questions of identity and politics. thanks for spending time with us. >> up next, we have a little truth to a lot of power from toure amid the palm trees. ♪

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so the right has made chicago into a symbol that stands for unsolvable urban violence, the futility of gun laws, wildness of black males, incompetent of obama and the blindness of the left which wastes time talking about race while most killings are intraracial. if only we would stop race-baiting and clean our own house, if only unwed black women would stop having babies and black men would pick up their sagging pants, the right talks about chicago so much, i assumed it was the most violent city in america. but there's this amazing new thing called google. in 2012, chicago had the largest number of murders, 506 but per capita, america's third biggest city is america's 21st most dangerous city. over the past 20 years, kake has made incredible progress

insteadly reducing their homicide rate. it's half what it was. nationally, over the past three decades anti-inflammatory arrests of blacks for homicide and other violent crimes have fallen by about half coinciding with a year's long nationwide historic drop in the murder rate "we're at as low a place as we've been in the past 100 years," says randolph roth, history professor and author of the book "american homicide." what's happened? i'll tell you. krlgologists agree. has nothing do would with sagging pants. they cite the waning of the crack epidemic and rise in number of police and smarter deployment and hot spot policing. crime tends to be concentrated geographically. 3% of new york's real estate is where 20% of its worst crimes occur. but deploying cops in ways that leave communities disrespected and attacked is counterproductive and

potentially krimnogenic. david kennedy says there is a direct link between the feeling that police are illegitimate and high levels of violence. people who feel worthless in society because they can't find any jobs and have interactions with police filled with disrespect, those people are much more likely to look at the law as illegitimate. those people just may be wearing their pants in an anti-social way because they feel rejected by society and see not value in following its rules. we don't value black boys in this society if they can't rhyme or play sports and then we wonder why they reject a society that presumes them worthless. they know the odds of escaping the prison pipeline are high. they don't need fake tough love. they need real love and respect. the question isn't what black boys need to do to be more respectable for us. it's about what we can do to

help them see more value in being a full part of american society. that does it for "the cycle." it's time for martin bashir. >> thank you so much. good afternoon. it's friday, august 2nd. and at 2:57, the least productive employees in america left washington for five weeks holiday. nice work if you can get it. ♪ >> the stakes couldn't be higher. >> there's a gone campaigning side outside the oval office. >> if i had poll numbers as low as his. >> how about a grand bargain for middle class jobs. >> no jobs bill, no budget bill. the threat of shutting down government. >> the one threatening to shut down the government is the president. >> majority leader. >> sit down and shut up, okay? >> 40 meaningless votes to repeal obama care. >> finally defund obama care. >>ou