remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. well i'm tom hartman washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture is jeff sessions actually believe in the war on drugs or on drugs or does he just like richard nixon and ronald reagan did want to throw more black people in jail. just a moment and with

a vote on the still secret republican health care bill scheduled for sometime next week democrats are finally taking action to try and stop mitch mcconnell and the g.o.p. with their beleaguered attempt at resistance ultimately be too little too late to save obamacare brian pruett and sam sachs in politics. when he's not possibly committing perjury or breaking his promise to recuse himself from the russian best occasion attorney general jeff sessions has been hard at work bringing back the war on drugs and i mean really bring it back for more on how sessions is doubling down on what sociologists call the new jim crow i'm joined by holly harris executive director of the u.s. justice action network holly harris welcome thank you so much for uncovering this important topic my pleasure staff in this environment where it is

a certain subject takes up all the oxygen in the room so yeah. can you can you first of all can you summarize for us what sessions is doing what it what is this initiative for plan or program or set of actions or whatever. call it well basically mr sessions the new attorney general issued a directive a memo to his staff to the u.s. attorneys around the country directing them to charge drug crimes at the highest possible level to invoke these mandatory minimum sentences that we've been trying to get away from all over the country because we now know that the war on drugs as you called it earlier these mandatory minimum sentences particularly for low level nonviolent your street dealers your mules individuals who deal drugs mostly to support their habit we now know that those mandatory minimum sentences cost us a tremendous amount of money and we didn't get the public safety return that we deserve we were throwing nonviolent individuals in prison with violent criminals we

were turning out better criminals rather than better citizens we now know through a lot of the reforms that have happened in the states especially our deep red conservative states that there is a better path and the better path is treatment we have dilatation you know when these individuals go into prison we're not addressing their core problems which are addiction mental health issues when they get out and by the way ninety five percent of these individuals are getting out some day you know we're again returning better criminals rather than better citizens and by the way when we throw up obstacles to these individuals getting jobs which you know again is happening with a lot of this you know tough on crime rhetoric you know these people you know when they can't find jobs they can't support themselves or their families and they can't find they can't improve their education in the can't find adequate housing what are they going to do we care going to return to crime return to prison we are no safer we're throwing good money after bad and that's exactly the cycle of failure that we seek to break you know well it's that so far following thing jeff sessions had a big atory a warship post that he did in in

a he said basically he basically blamed the rise in the crime rate that has happened over the last year and a half or two years and it's been a fairly minimal you know i mean look at it over ten year period and so it will. we don't we don't know where this is going but he blamed it basically on obama and you know obama dialing back the minimum mandatory sentences was responsible for those were which isn't what happened there's been no legislation the status quo is is the same we've had these mandatory minimum sentences on the books since the ninety four crime bill and so you know what he's referencing is a memo that eric holder issued to his staff u.s. attorneys around the country just urging them to use their discretion when charging individuals you know. so actually ensuring that these individuals deserved a mandatory minimum and so you know it's interesting because mr sessions says that he wants to unshackle prosecutors but now if

a prosecutor wants to deviate from mr session's directive he or she has to get permission from a u.s. attorney and how often do you think that's going to happen and so and this was just a memo from older to you know reading association i assumed that it was like an executive order or you know at the very least maybe even a piece of what is you know the sentencing reform in corrections act that by the way is sponsored by a republican the senate judiciary chair chuck grassley did not pass last year and that's the closest we've come to sentencing reform at the federal level so again this is was just a memo issued by eric holder and by the way it's laughable to think that that the federal were any anything on the federal side is going to have such a dramatic shift. in crime in our citizens because of the two point three million people who are currently incarcerated in this country only about two hundred thousand of them are housed in a federal facility so however what mr sessions has done is is going to be

incredibly impactful because if we're talking about now charging all of these these individuals who are you know charged with drug crimes at the highest levels and we don't have any prosecutors that are deep. dating from that then we're talking about individuals that are going to be serving much longer sentences the federal prison population is going to again explode as a by the way it's exploded six hundred percent from one thousand nine hundred to two thousand and thirteen so it had just begun a decline and now we're going to see an explosion in the prison population again which is not good and don't you know it doesn't make us any safer the criminal justice reform that has been promoted in some circles particularly coming out of the billionaire right as this month's piece attached to it basically immunizes white collar criminals you have to if you're going to go after a corporation or an executive in a corporation say the say oh well let's you know let's let more of this particular chemical into the atmosphere and people get sick or somebody dies be you would have

to prove that they did that intending to kill that person rather than just made a horrible decision in the business context it has consequences so the whole idea of of essentially manslaughter you know the idea that i didn't intend to kill them but they died. although it doesn't have to involve a death has been you know they're trying to inject this to immunize these white collar criminals and the democrats are saying no wait a minute you know we don't want to do that but we do want to lower the you know the basically the war on drugs you know reduce it is there a way to disentangle these tour of the becomes have they really become entangled now in that in the last few years i think ultimately what we'll see on that issue is a compromise i think probably prospective mens rea a moving forward you know if there is a crime on the books that you know becomes a statute you know then congress will determine you know what the and intent standard will be moving forward and that could be a compromise they could limit the number of of. statutes this and that mens rea

applies to i do think they'll ultimately be a compromise the right in the left again don't agree but folks are all over the place on mens rea i almost feel like that if she was a red herring. meant to divide the right in the left which by the way agree on the real drivers have incarceration which are your unduly harsh sentences or mandatory minimum sentences in the states it's called persistent felony offender laws you know we've got out outrageous criminal codes now that criminalize a lot of behavior that quite frankly shouldn't be so we need to shrink criminal codes get rid of law a lot of these unfair unnecessary duplicative inconsistent laws and then we've got to expand our reentry policies we've got to break down barriers for the formerly incarcerated so they can find jobs support their families and ultimately turn away from crime well so that the war on drugs as it has always really been about racial politics more than the yells john ehrlichman key player in watergate told harper's magazine just last march the nixon campaign in one thousand nine hundred sixty

eight in the nixon white house after that had two enemies the anti-war left a black people you know what i'm saying we knew we could make it illegal to be either against the war or black but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily we could disrupt those communities we could arrest their leaders read their homes break up their means and vilify them night after night on the evening news is this why jeff sessions is reigniting the war on drugs you know you mentioned the washington post piece and i think what troubled me most about that piece was at the end where he talked about how we're turning to these failed tough on crime policies was going to be good for communities of color and poor communities certainly if you're going to talk about what's good for those communities you should look to the leaders of those communities folks who are involved with the leadership conference on civil and human rights. the a.c.l.u. groups have been fighting that for those communities for years who by the way are also a part of our network that has groups on the right that agree with them like americans

for tax reform freedom works the faith and freedom coalition and across the board and without exception all of those leaders agree that these policies have devastated their communities have broken up families and by the. way we talk a lot about racial disparities but the fastest growing segment of the prison population right now is women and no one is talking about that and again it's drugs and a lot of these women act as mules and are in abusive relationships act as mules they become addicted to drugs you know through their partners act as mules and get caught up in the drug trade to support their habit and a lot of them are serving. long sentences when their role in these schemes was at the lowest levels and you know again these individuals are going to get out and they've been separated from their children they're going to have a difficult time finding jobs they're going to get right back into drugs return to crime return to prison and it really is a cycle of failure what is the what's the logical and point for the direction of

jeff sessions is going to feel if he keeps going down this road at the federal government keeps going down this road of being harsher and more punitive and if congress gets you know on their our horse about this and even amplifies it. where do we end up i mean we've got more people in prison than on a per capita basis than any country in the world five percent we have five percent of the world's population but twenty five percent of the world's prisoners and you cannot convince me that we're just that much more of an evil country first of all i don't believe that's going to happen and a lot of that is based on you know seeing a lot of the social media from our champions on the right like mike lee who's arguably the most conservative member of the united states senate you know he was quick to point out that jeff sessions is wrong on these issues my home state senator the junior senator from kentucky rand paul just just fired on that memo and is and he's you know deeply concerned about you know the racial disparities in our

system chuck grassley immediately said i appreciate what jeff sessions is trying to do but this just underscores that we've got to pass the sentencing reform and corrections act so our champions are holding strong i do bill. there's going to be so many states that passed significant reforms that it's going to become embarrassing and i think that the federal side will have no choice but to act and what what states are the targets for it well the easy and just very recently passed very broad reforms and again the right and left had a democratic governor john bell the words agreeing with really conservative members of the legislature like representative julie emerson and they passed reforms that will significantly reduce the prison population kentucky led by governor matt bevin again my home state governor bev and you would agree with me probably one of the most conservative governors in this country you know probably one of the most aggressive governors on criminal justice reform you've got mary fallin she was by the way the first governor in this country to mention the plight of women

incarcerated in her state of the state speech and actually now has a record on on women's issues on criminal justice reform but states as diverse as minnesota ohio michigan pennsylvania all over the country we're seeing reform and it's really really frustrating to watch conservatives and by the way i am one and a lifelong republican it's frustrating to watch conservatives at the federal level dismiss the success of reform in the states when we've always considered the states the laboratories of democracy. for all europe's great talking thank you so much for half so much for dropping by coming up democrats are finally taking meaningful action against the secret republican health care bill but the too little too late to stop mcconnell from point off one of the most insidious plots are american political history brian pruett and sam sacks of politics.

i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories that our critics can't tell and you know why because their advertisers won't lead them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth the parties able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american what's happening when a corporation makes a pharmaceutical chills people when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses they put all the health risk all the dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week and

you know what they're working. to. have their. electric up at. a place that. my problem with look. at. what politicians do such as. they put themselves on the line. they did accept the reject. so when you win the trust and sure. some want to. have to do i would be the first to say what the full story of the people that. i'm

interested in the was a. question. they spent years whining about how obamacare was passed but republicans are now trying to force a still secret health care bill through the united states senate without any real debate can they be stopped let's asked a night's politics. will be for tonight's politics panel our brian pruitt contributor to red state and sam sax writer and co-founder of the districts thank you both for being here tonight going to have you guys so after democrats held a monday night talk a thought to protest the still secret g.o.p. health care plan mitch mcconnell said today that republicans would provide the

senate with a discussion draft his phrase of their bill on thursday fall goes according to schedule that would give the senate about a week one week to look over the plan before voting up meanwhile even some republicans like utah senator mike lee are starting to express frustration with how this is all been and will i be fine don't get me wrong to be voting on something soon. but we should be able to see it first we should have been able to see it weeks ago if we're going to be voting on it next week. john mccain rand paul lisa murkowski all have said similar things to what mike lee said does this mean that the democrats' strategy of trying to embarrass republicans by withholding consent is already working or does it just mean that republicans know they have to look good while screwing the american people you have to trust senator mike lee he's one of my heroes and this is not good for for the process made the american people care about the process and the senate needs to publish the draft of their

bill get it passed and then get it to conference the only thing i care about right now is the conference committee getting getting the house bill in the senate bill together and trying to find some solution but the conference committee will be operating essentially in secret to get at that's the nature committee let's hope not know typically they're not public hearings and so i disagree with that usually usually they're open to it while they work it out the back rooms and then come out and say ok here's what we're going to i don't think that's how the conference it's all about compromise it is about compromise a lot of it happens behind closed doors depends on the legislation going to be on the hill and i was working on the hill in two thousand and nine when during the health care debate in the whole process could be any different than what we're seeing today that was a long slog we had drafts that were out there for people to look at we have final legislation that was out there for the house to hold hearings on you had members of congress going to town halls where they operated by members of congress mainly through misinformation about what was in the bill and then finally after

a year you had it wasn't passed until two thousand and ten the health care bill that was finally passed here you're going to have the senate working on this thing debating this thing in public for less than a week before they finally pass it might i mean as i agree with brian i mean this is a disaster the republicans are walking themselves into my question is are they going to suffer any electoral consequences because we live in an age where the republican party operates in congress with near impunity they do anything they want for the last eight years and they have yet to suffer for it at the polls maybe you can say that. it romney losing in two thousand and twelve with some kind of you know payback for republican behavior but if you look at every congressional race every senate race overall republicans have fared better than democrats over the last eight years despite blowing up the senate despite unprecedented obstruction on supreme court justices and now this health care bill we'll see if they face any consequence was assuming they can get it the way they've been doing able to do it is the way that karen handel in georgia six has gone from twenty percent up to fifty percent and that's by millions of dollars mostly coming out of the

billionaire koch network now welded into districts and i don't know how he always has a selection but i don't know that you know just from the koch stein about how it's not only in dollars talking about outside money for handle when john has not raised a nickel in georgia but he's raised multimillion dollars from california that's a vast majority as has been coming in and twenty dollars contributions karen handel has got these these just you know but i didn't mean to litigate karen handel and johnson my quiet that was method to the larger question which is what we're discussing here which is do republicans i mean maybe democrats do this to i you know if in fact i'm sure they do you know particularly some of the more conservative democrats in the larger states but the republicans believe that they can legislate in a way that is. strongly disliked by the american people seventeen percent approval for this this legislation right now that eighty three percent of america doesn't

doesn't want to doesn't like it do they really believe that they can just shove this down our throats and then come in with a multi-million dollar ad campaign financed by the koch network or whoever else and and ride to victory as a consequence of that i think they absolutely believe they can do that considering that they got away with blocking merit garland for a year and then just everybody forgot about it and they all and they were able to maintain the senate after all that and president obstruction i think republican plus they have districts that are gerrymandered you have voter id laws that suppress the vote you have other attacks on voting that are going on so i think republicans have you know the rules are already rigged in their favor so you have to overcome that is well if you're a democrat to be able to hold them accountable electorally right i think what we need to focus on is the republicans need to give the american people an alternative to obamacare obamacare was passed the a.c.l.u. was here is the republican plan i mean it's from the heritage foundation it's from

richard nixon it's from mitt romney i would disagree with what is the alternative i mean we can spend hours talking about the specifics of of obamacare that are not conservative so what is the republican plan other than taking health care away from twenty three million people that is not what it is and i think what you're going to see is the republicans in the senate given all to give an alternative bill and you're going to see whether republicans can legislate whether they can come together and decide between the house and the senate bill and send something to the president to sign this is actual governing and well the american people yeah speed american people have given there's a fair amount of sleight of hand i mean you know reagan for example wanted to raise the retirement age so security up to sixty seven it was sixty five in this is ninety eight two or three you know and the moynihan greenspan commission and so. you know he knew how unpopular that would be it would devastate the republican party so he pushed that increase in the retirement age back to right now i mean

right now it's sixty six in another couple years it'll be sixty seven so he pushed it out thirty years in the future this from what we're reading today of what the republicans are doing in the senate is they're saying ok we're going to we're going to destroy medicaid we're not going to do it for seven or eight years we're going to put it in a law right now so in seven or eight years all the states are suddenly going to have to deal with you know huge multi-million ten hundred billion dollars budget busters or cut benefits to the american people since cowardly to the american people spoke about obamacare that you have to give the democrats credit they went to the wood shed for obamacare and say and they got the electoral consequences of that now the republicans need to do the same thing they need to offer the american people an alternative pass it and see what the american people say about it in twenty eight teen ok we'll see where this goes out if it was one what one quick point you have to also blame the media there's been a lot of reporting lately but choose a new york times the washington post major news outlets have largely not covered

what's going on in regards to the health care bill in the senate so a lot of people aren't aware that republicans are playing some dirty trick at the moment ok white house press secretary sean spicer held his first on camera briefing in a week today as rumors continue to swirl that he could be on his way out as donald trump's main public mouthpiece spicer had hosted a briefing on monday but that was off camera there's always chaos and uncertainty surrounding spicer speak to the fundamental dysfunctionality of this administration and shouldn't that dysfunctionality permanently put to rest the myth of the businessman president i mean the last time we got sold this businessman president great idea was cheney and bush you know two corporate c.e.o.'s running the country . worked out well my only opinion on this i know sean personally and i feel like he's in a really rough spot i think you know his his desired look because trump will blow up. what he says with a tweet and shirt later absolutely and i think his what the latest reporting is that he's looking to to move into

a more senior role and get somebody else behind the podium who wants to promote himself out of the center what you think about steve bannon saying that spicer was not on camera because he's gotten fat i mean that's a horrible thing to say and i don't know their relationship if that's just take them as a joke or something like that although it's a possibility i hadn't hadn't occurred to me i thought maybe it was just i mean look this is a job that nobody can do sean spicer is doing a job nobody can be done in terms of press secretary because donald trump is going to say his own thing at any moment he's going through whoever came out first with a comment under the bus whenever he feels like it so this is an impossible job it's time though for in jim acosta our c.n.n. reporter don't normally agree with c.n.n. political reporters but he's been spot on he's been one of the reporters who's been in those briefing rooms that have been aggressive with sean spicer he's calling for collective action for the other reporters in the in the room to step up and do something we had our first on camera briefing in a week but even if you do have those on camera briefings they're worthless shawn doesn't say anything he's asked as the white house seen the health care bill the

senate health care bill i don't know i haven't talked to the president about that i mean this is a pretty simple question he's asked why does the president think that the house bill was me what about it is me what policies would you like to see changed sean spicer says oh he wants health care bill apart that's it so spice are used to what exactly spice use to get himself in trouble by saying a bunch of stupid things to me is for his mouth he's gotten a little better at that but now he's gotten into the point where it doesn't say anything i mean obviously any questions about russia referred to trump's personal lawyers there's no information exchange whatsoever in these daily press briefings anymore i don't know what the solution is but i think it has to be something with collective action in the reporters to stop getting fooled around every day so we're we're does what is sean spicer do i mean you said you know what i think what asking you speak no not at all but i actually i'm going to agree with sam on this i think that reporters need to come together and and say you know. we demand to have daily press briefings as a conservative i believe in the first amendment and the press is the critical you

know whether democrats in the white house or republicans in the white house the press is the credit kohl pivot point to keeping our government honest so in the half a minute or so we have left to what extent is this mete to a larger dysfunction in the white house. well i mean i think the fact that you were never able to have a disciplined messaging system on any issue out there is a problem with organization the white house but even if you had the most organized white house in the world trump is a guy that can't be controlled he's not going to listen anybody is going to say what he wants on twitter i mean this is mine from bit bigger behind the scenes and last couple of the biggest behind the bigger behind the scenes story is that republicans conservatives are refusing you know a lot of people getting interviewed but they're refusing to take jobs because they don't believe they can do them this is a that's a tragic mended and that's a tragedy for america. bryan sam thank you both actually thank you and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not

a spectator sport you know out there get active tag your. in case you're new to the game this is how it works the economy is built around core. preparations from washington to washington controls the media the media. voters elected to run this country business because. it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. earlier today president obama said i'm not. like a. responsible choice new people and there is always hope that's what i think it was it always seems to. be here something else do you know between the u.s.

leaders that you see in place and to say this is the instructor has used to sell you know it's our lead story cause it's garbage real. welcome to on contact today we discussed the geo political ramifications of climate change with author christian parental how the people of that.