tv Politicking With Larry King RT January 16, 2014 11:00pm-11:31pm EST
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welcome to politicking with larry king one of my favorite people a legendary newsman dan rather what does he expect from the president and the president's political opponents in the years ahead as you see parallels between the bridge controversy surrounding new jersey governor chris christie and the watergate scandal that brought down richard nixon plus how far would he go to get a story it's all next on politicking with larry king. on the politicking he's a bestselling author he was one hell of a white house correspondent and one of the best anchors ever the long time ago the c.b.s. evening news he currently is the host and managing editor of dan rather reports on
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access t.v. and i'm honored to have the legendary newsman and my friend then join me he's been with us many times in fact this man while i think we just c.b.s. news would cover hurricanes for us on larry king live the lonely member standing are very very well know if a tree dan rather with him or let's get right to it what do you make of the bridge gate well first of all it's an overstatement to call it bridge gate and then what are sort of all these serious but if you fish from about this all started with watergate watergate became a shorthand word for a widespread criminal conspiracy led sort of say by the president of united states out of the oval office constitutional crisis for the country more than forty people sort of court time now those who know that story to be true of this widespread criminal conspiracy tried always. to soften it by saying well these things happen all the time as bridge gate it is this gate and that gate there's only one gate and
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that's watergate good series now this bridge fiasco you can call it that as we head toward a probably better word see what i mean that there is one has to has to have some context for things in the watergate is in a whole different category now this kind of thing does happen in politics very often a widespread criminal conspiracy led by a president whom happened once a lifetime first of all i think this story has a long way to run. and what's happening to governor christie he's hunkered down like a mule in a hail storm just right now. i was going to ask you get here dan rather is rushing toward christie's going through you just gave it to me well he's also admitted he would rather walk through a furnace in a gasoline suit and go through this. because partly is other here's some of your republican compatriots are turning to him like your friends in the desperate housewives turn to one another that's inevitable in these things happen i think is
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a long way to run we don't know how it's going to turn out i do not assume that it necessarily knocks christie out of the republican prison in law who's going to find out that he knew about it more it could but his reason here now we have to know more they've indicted the other call on people to testify or have someone turned or someone said he did know well that would be very bad news for christie indeed but you mentioned criminal charges that's one difference here watergate as they say of widespread criminal conspiracy forty people convicted felons as best i can see there's no more been broken here in the bridge gate thing now it may turn out to be their best to getting one are they invested in their will and one but as i understand it from criminal defense attorneys it is going to be a difficult case to make but we will see what is not a widespread criminal operation i think where the trouble is really going to come down in the courts are civil cases people say listen i was put out this was unfair and i think that they'll have some cases you've covered politicians for so on the
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something that always amazes me and i defer to your knowledge of this whether christie knew or not let's take his top aide nixon was going to win that election what is he invading democratic headquarters looking for why you're going to win the election one mayor isn't supporting you so your staff close is of the. well you're going to win whatever are you were one whether governor christie knew about it was involved or not we don't. no but at least his staff you have to say they were schooled in the high ninety's on a dumb test this was really dumb to do it all on all from all appearances with these be good people did was they parachuted into the valley of the stupid he didn't need to do is really depressed he could get them a month from now a year of now or two years and it was a dumb thing to do but look who among us haven't done something dumb our lives and pettiness the jersey city governors big mayors elected people are all going to come
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down to help them he says he's not going to go as they cancel everybody town from the state to help out the city why the big politicians major politicians get petty . i can understand of the local councilman but why a governor or a governor's top aide well because nobody's perfect that's number one secondly it depends on organizations take on their personality and character from the top and not every political organization is filled with revenge and that i'm pointing out the downfall of richard nixon was clearly it wasn't good enough for richard nixon to beat his opponents this is key it was either the watergate thing it wasn't just good enough for him the big his opponents he's want to destroy and that's the lion and you can say in a way that line where that line was made to determine how long this bridge situation goes because it from all appearances they sought to destroy the mayor the democratic mayor they have been supported to give this reporter lives in ny i was
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going to discuss this later over europe now fox news channel president of into this roger ailes who's and now they've got a book coming out that really apparently really attacks him i haven't read it yet he was asked in the interview today the distinction between the news and opinionated program his exact reply was i grew up in the era when dan rather hated richard nixon he was a newsman but you knew what his opinion was the reaction well first of all i really thought of the you hated things i've never seen it just simply isn't true it isn't really really worth discussing i'm respected and continue respect the office of the president i respected richard nixon and came into office what is true we know this from the tapes richard nixon hated dan rather and c.b.s. news that's a matter of record and roger ailes was and for all of the things he's accomplished roger ailes was an operative for richard nixon use of an expected to say something like this and frankly i don't take it personally don't take it seriously do you
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agree with the think that the thought that fox news channel is a actual part of the republican party. you know i'm pausing only because i want to give a thoughtful answer that i understand that argument i think it goes too far which is to say i think ailes is considers himself still a part of the republican party i think central far as he's able to that he wants his channel to be that way but i don't want to indict everybody at fox news channel because i know some of the pros there who are pretty good i don't want to dance around your question but i do do think that roger ailes would say this about him he is a very good businessman he's very smart about television and he built a network when i for one wasn't at all sure he could do so and has he used to do benefit the republican party yes the record is very clear on that but is it a sole property even propaganda machine for the party and have stopped short of that right now or move to something is more card expectations for obama and twenty
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fourteen what's going to happen in the house and the senate well you know i was goes many times the straight answer kind of question is i don't know i want to discuss it with you but you know i've been around long enough to know that he who lives by the crystal ball learns to eat a lot of broken glass in i really didn't more than my share of the talk about what's going to happen i would say at the present time we're talking here near the end of january in the election year i think the republicans keep control the house of representatives i would not be surprised to see it in games and seats in the house republicans keep control of the house in the senate the other things will gain seats in the house and the senate but i don't think enough to get control of the senate it is not going to be a good year for brock obama and the democrats in my judgment you easy to few months back that president obama's opponents politically want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs politically where he is that still true even more today it was when i started you think it's part racist. i do
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a point only because i know that the people jump over them but it was later so venomous well it was over it was a duel make clear not everybody who disagrees with obama not nearly everybody not everybody in the republican party but your question was is some of it says yes i think it's impossible to have the first president of color in the white house and not recognize that that some of the dislike for him and his policies of it is rooted in racism no question about it but not by no means all of it and let's acknowledge that president obama has made his own mistakes he hasn't operated a perfect presidency. so it gets complicated but the answer your question is some of the races of course as an american as a journalist what are your thoughts is no going to hero or a villain you know no human has that person is the most difficult question i try have to try to answer these days i come out of i think he's neither a hero nor
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a villain at least not on the basis of what we know because we don't know the whole story or we know that leaked and we don't have a legal question about that but for example and i'm not did he get the job intending to be the leaker that he became or was he conscience stricken and he got the job and it's on things like that we don't know but again i don't want to basle it but i think like most people i'm i'm a bit torn on the one that i think the information on the medium and long will it will be of value to society we stand a chance of being a better country because this information gets out in the short run i understand the irgun this is listen the country needs to be able to keep some secrets such as who in ours my apparatuses has contacts in pakistan and other places to pose and enjoys difficult to come down on it that i think he's neither a hero nor a villain i think those who say bring him back to this country let him. stand trial
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that's fine but it quickly gets in the question if you're going to put him on trial what about the head of the g.s.a. of what do you know the lawyers on the at the n.s.a. who didn't deliver to the congress what are your thoughts on the right to listen to phone calls of. domestic or foreign you know i think you want to hang around with arnold ok denies that no i think in in twenty first century reality. that the government has to have a very constricted and very limited ability with proper safeguards built into it to listen to some called what i'm an old really opposed to is blanket listening to calls all over and there is a system in place as we know i'm not saying the system is perfect let's point for cyclists is to be used that you have a court where they're supposed to go to this court and the court is supposed to be
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a check and balance now some of the time they have been going to court other times it looks like the court may be the quote the fix is in but i tend i can subscribe to a theory that says the government under no circumstances can listen to no telephone calls to mostly not given the terrorist environment which we're operating and read how do you feel about greeks totally one hundred percent would just it's a dilemma but they've got to do what if you knew someone was going to do something or you had strong suspicions and you could prevent it you not for that yes and how would we judge any president who said well i could have known what you know what i decided if but i'm not and will be right back with the great dan rather coming up more right after this.
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on their knees join me. in our call and plans are for kerry and much. only on the best and only. cost of a new alert and a based. it's given me a little but. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news. alexander's family cry tears of joy at the grave. that. we haven't read arquette a court of law from all on there's a story made for a movie is playing out in real life.
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dan rather the former anchor of c.b.s. evening news and of course with access t.v. dan i understand the president is no one from the administration or is the president and first lady going to the olympics for the thing. all things considered probably the right you might call because well because there's so much going on in the soviet union including the persecution of gays and lesbians but there's only a part of it it wouldn't very difficult for him to go in my judgment but i have no doubt it was a close call in his mind because after all the olympics with most of his and very special category and you try to lift the both nation for that matter international politics but in russia at the present time just not possible so ok we have
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a situation this country it presents unpopular with congress on whose popular was a hero in america. well it's a good question maybe unite should do a book where of all the heroes long i think there are a lot of heroes and i think the comp who walks the lonely beat in a tough neighborhood by himself with my hero i think the single mother with three kids is working four jobs trying to keep her. her family together is in her on their day to day heroes all over the country in terms of transformational political leaders pretty short supply right now and you look up and down the society but we go through these periods you know larry you know i've talked about this so many times before i'm so i'm an optimist by experience and by nature i love this country with a deep abiding. love and i'm up at least one feature i know there are going to go listen we're on the down who's live in the back side of the slope we're in the room on the standing to get and we have no over commanding heroes in our political
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life but you know what we'll get there we'll get there and i don't have any doubt about it great lawyer to friend of mine the way that we've been a williams i asked him once you're an optimist so pessimist has said of course i'm a pessimist unintelligible i thought. i didn't take the opposite view that i don't know that. compare that i wanted you to compare the controversy over lara logan's now discredited sixty minutes report and the problems you had if your national guard service report on well joy landed there but i want to make it very clear i don't want to add to c.b.s. news his problems are a local problem i know what it feels like to be in the vortex of those kind of controversies and i'm pulling for everybody at c.b.s. news. virtually and of all my life there is a great difference between their situation this is the one you mentioned and what we wanted to do with the bush national guard story let's see it clearly where our
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story our story was true you could argue in play did that we reach that truth through a flawed process and there were plenty of people that they knew the story was true but they couldn't stand it so they had to make it out to be false that's what happened to us kids think our story was true did george bush's father use influence to keep him from going to be a nom getting him an initial guard yes that's true. george w. bush there's no joint saying there's did he disappear from his national guard obligations that's a fact those things are true to our story was true we caught his own you can argue impression shoot him that the process was not pristine but i've got a clue what to come back to i'm not walking the logans use and i'm not walking sixty minutes use i'm no longer at c.b.s. on that they've got a lot to deal with of this and not only add to their problems you asked me the difference between that situation in which they have acknowledged that they had a problem witness all account i told me near the end of his life that he was
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disappointed. that an ordeal and you certainly felt when they did the fiftieth anniversary of j.f.k.'s death and trying to airbrush you out when you reported from dallas so many reports on that scene in that area and you feel through finally you know what i like you any do underside of the grass was a great day and i said you have his work and i love it and all it happened is the years of the tale runs i do think that. we need to see when it comes to history they can airbrush me out of the pictures they present when it comes to the history the news organizations in be trying to change history and the c.b.s. news history is whether they now like me or not like me who there doesn't you go through just this coming year and a verse we've been square in which we were at the union square the civil rights movement which i covered. not to mention the kennedy assassination so to try to
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change history and that's very serious what they do to me doesn't matter all right you've done a lot to get a story including i told you tried heroin back in one nine hundred sixty five right so you would cover it better so you would understand since i've tried pot i like potter effect i got a friend to smoke there because i thought i would start smoking again but part was i thought a pot should be legal i've said that before always heroin or iran's older quite different thing. this is the scene is the houston police station in one nine hundred fifty five uncovering the police lead heroin nobody really knew what heroin was my recollection is they had arrested some musicians and into town and they were talking about the charging with heroin what is heroin i work in the radio stations or so when you want to do the police say well we don't know we've never tried it so what would you do it for me this would not happen today and you can say it was
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a damn fool thing for me to do but this is what happened between us and what it was like of the number one otherworldly is the best way i can describe it i can also say it gave me a three or four day headache afterward and i came out of it saying myself i don't know what he what he sees in this stuff and i know i never want to face it again and never did it it isn't getting correct on the internet we're on the internet. where you make of all this where's it all going well we're going to words all going but it's part of the reality and going to be perfectly honest for a long time to come you know we went through in terms of journalism but. also the society we went through the print age of newspapers that gave way to the radio era radio era gave way to the television era now the television iran might have been used in the way to the internet era doesn't mean it's going to replace television more than television replaced radio but the internet is the future when anybody likes it or not now i have to think that overall in the main the internet is a force for good information education edition for news as they have its problems
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yes one of them being that with anonymity you can smear your neighbor or anybody else nobody can see over there but nonetheless and if it isn't already true larry i think it's already true but if it isn't but truth now that most people get most of their news from the internet it soon will be particularly young people know that them so people don't read a visit all under the age of forty other it's only will depend on newspapers by and large for most of the news noted that on television or radio they go to the internet that's where it is yeah but the young they grow up and the old get older and leave us what happens to newspapers in twenty years they are around i think they'll be around the again heavens that i'm an optimist understand the argument that they're finished i don't think so anymore than normal going to remember radio came in everybody's that was in newspapers or that is where they were vanished when television came in is that both radio and television if it is it doesn't work out that way i think newspapers will be around i think their content will be more of it
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will be longer longer form it is now because people who want longer form news important information good newspapers you'll miss the old days of free met work sam p.b.s. . sure do of course i do something will say that journalism we have twenty four hour news but the journalism was better than that there are no morrows now. i'm not sure that's true and i'm not sure on the best person to judge it would have to roll you know i'm a i'm a child of the thirty's forty's fifty's sixty's and seventy's i do agree that edward r. murrow stands alone this is one of the problems i had with walter cronkite mum i'm sorry for the way cronkite. was a vital icon and a legend but marone was the founding strain develop twenty journalism one know it as we know it i don't think any one of has matched moros the quality of
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the sustained quality of his journalism but i'm not always enough to say listen the golden age was back when i was doing it back in the sixty's and seventy's there are a lot of good journalism around the day in fact the three anchors at a.b.c. c.b.s. n.b.c. a very good one to a great over i'm first rate first rate and the newscasts are first rate but they're not many people as many used to watching them well i have somewhere to go of the newscast and i think overall we're over adult beverage i think the three anchors would say they probably have difficulty with it because there is so sensitive they've always been seriously to ratings and demographics but i don't think any either any one of the three network newscasts now are as hard or as hard news as the anchors would like them to believe that they'll have to speak speak for themselves did you run a tough ship and seen you the managing editor i was so was your your newscast there's anyone out there anywhere but come down from above than say don't rub those
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. basically you know c.b.s. at that time i can't speak for it you know the deal was i was anchor and managing editor even years which meant i had to call on every story it was of legal process i would ask a lot of other people's opinion but in the end i decided what went in the broadcast and what didn't now after the broadcasters over i was accountable plenty of times i got hauled into the news division president's office and said then what the hell do you think you're doing when you try to try this thing into the ditch but that's the way it worked then only they were only two occasions in the twenty four years and it was an anchor managing editor of the even years that a news division president. came anywhere close to commanding that we do something coverage one was the newer member this case a broader point for a second a congressman. condit member there he the. killing of girl in the lantern
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gary condit is very condit everybody else it was august news was late everybody was running with that story i didn't want to run with it and finally the news division president in effect that then you got to run something on this and i said it's her journalism the words she said you got to and so but by and large c.b.s. when i was there i got to make the calls on the evening news but i was accountable it was over you know i didn't make all perfectly obvious why did you ever come close to leaving c.b.s. of your own militia going to another network you know ted turner and well a lot of first let me correct that. in my heart of hearts you know but there were two times when i did carefully consider it. one when when roone arledge zero tried to get me to come to a.b.c. news in one nine hundred eighty seven united eighty or it was a powerful push way really when they're they've you know well if you know what i mean and then. around the two thousand i want to say in one thousand nine hundred
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ninety two thousand are ted turner. came with an offer and quite honestly i've always wanted to work for ted i admired him truly loves early on but those two times i considered but each time over money was better elsewhere and one could argue might have been better financially to go you know somewhere i've seen the years and years tattooed on my hands i understood him then and i had the kind of loyalty and also not just loyalty but i thought it was the best place in the world for electronic journals to work no regrets on sure you always have regrets you know might or could or should have done this that it was all captured on. you know i love reporting years as with fish and go i have a patient as i do i have a lot of laws larry many of which you know what many which you've been exposed over the years i have a lot of wounds someone's overinflated some of them still open wounds but i think even people who disagree with me would hope like me for
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a reason that would be theirs i have a passion for covering yours always having you say working for me going is that i actually i love to get out on the story and big stories even better and the been out front to be in the really big story there's nothing like the unit kind of got it wakes up and says what's going to happen today absolutely my feet at the floor every morning i say where's the still. oh it was thanks to dan rather for joining me on the politicking today for my views out there i want to hear from you join the conversation on my facebook page and share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting at king's things and using the politicking hash tag that's all for this week's politicking you got a surprise guest for you next week don't go away.
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i know c.n.n. the m.s.m. b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's close and for the truth from the mike think. it's because one whole attention and the mainstream media works side by side the joke is actually on we're going to put it up. at our teen years we have to print press. because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not how. you guys talk to the jokes i will hand over the stuff that i've got to.
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i've got a quote for you. that's pretty tough. stay with sub story. if this guy like you but smear that guy stead of working for the people most missions the mainstream media works for each other bribery just as you know. they did rather well. wealthy british style. time to. market why not come to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mikes concert for
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a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune in to conjure reports on. their i marinate this is boom bust and these are the stories that we're tracking for you today. first up dr james baldwin joins me on today's show to talk about predator states which also happens to be the title of his new book then outspoken british politician nigel kharaj gives the prime minister and kind of some arse a proverbial smack which you won't want to miss that's pretty funny and in today's big deal ed harrison and i talk mismanagement misuse and abuse of government funds enough and it all starts right now.
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