parties are in reality one part of corporate and those who attempt to puncture the . breathless universe of fake news to sign the push through the cruelty and exploitation to be a little more up for so far to the margins of society including by a public broadcasting system that has sold its soul for corporate money that we might as well be mice squeaking against an apple a squeak we must. protect the american middle class has been railroaded by washington politics. big money corporate interests a lot of voice that's how it is in the news culture in this country now that's where i come in. i'm michel. martin america i'll make sure you don't get railroad you'll get the straight talk in the straight through. to.

a lot of harm in a washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture a republican senators have scrambled to steal health care for millions donald trump was busy begging billionaires for donations i'll be talking with robert weisman public citizen about this new gilded age in american politics and we'll be discussing the news and hot issues of the day in tonight's politics and a later in the program.

on wednesday night while republicans plotted how to more effectively take health care away from twenty two million americans donald trump took a short ride to his gilded d.c. hotel for a fundraiser opened to anyone who has thirty five thousand dollars to donate to republicans the press on the other hand was banned from the event continuing a longstanding tradition of shadowy republican fundraisers being held behind closed doors and away from public scrutiny protesters chanting shame that trumps motorcade between the white house and the trumpets al but what exactly was the most shameful aspect of wednesday's closed door republican fundraiser at the president's otel let's ask robert weiss been president of public citizen rob welcome tom thanks for having me great to have you with us so in your opinion what was the worst you know use the word shameful i'm not sure that's even an appropriate strong enough word. conflicted potentially. you know what what what's your sense of what the real

problem was with this and what motivated you and public citizen to go out in the streets yeah well there's layer on layer of horrible so much for this administration the first piece i think is the conflicts so that the president having this fundraiser in his own hotel he's actually going to pocket some of the money because the cost of the event was going to go to the hotel that's a hotel of course that is leased from the federal government. by donald trump in clear violation of the terms of his contract with the program and believe that slowly specifically stipulates no government money can go to. the owner of this property cannot be a government official couldn't be more clear so i've got to level one level two is the pay to play politics you know for forty months or plus away from the next election why in the world are people dropping thirty five thousand dollars for a play on a thousand dollars to be a host of host committee and because they expect to get favors back and they know

very well they're going to get favors back and so that's you know that's because of the core democratic issues which are so familiar. but i think was probably the worst at least to me is to have this gilded age access and it really was at the exact same moment that the president and the senate republicans are scheming on how they can strip away health care coverage for more than twenty million americans and that contrast you know the price of a check that thirty five thousand dollars ninety nine million americans live in households that make that or last a year you know two years ago on my on my radio show president jimmy carter had this to say it was. a good validation has a sense of what made america a great country and its political system now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being not the absence of getting the nomination is full pressure for the president of the elected president and same thing applies to

governors and us on design and congress members so now we've just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors who want any expected sometimes get. they was well themselves after their actions obama so is the president right have we have we lost our democracy or are we on the verge of losing our democracy yeah you know i remember that interview very well. yes he was right then i think what. you know i think what president carter couldn't realize then i didn't maybe you did. actually there were ways to imagine it getting worse and here we are it is that he's still worse the sort of the access that the billionaire class has to the trumpet ministration has no parallels including because the people are just taking the positions you know you look at the cabinet it's a cabinet of billionaires and a corporate elite and if you look at the second tier positions they're totally

taken seventy percent of them we looked at filled by people who work for corporations or a corporate lawyer so the machinery of government the policy making machinery is being handed over to the corporate class is there you know i mean it was one of the great contributions. in my lifetime to the quality of life in this country was ralph nader's work back in the sixty's seventy's and to this day i mean you're going to say she was started by him circle and. his you know he was always committed to making sure that government was holding corporations accountable and franklin roosevelt made this point over and over and over again that only the power of government can face down the power of organized money of great wealth whether it's corporate or individual and that whole notion seems to have been completely lost wasn't anything built into law into structure during the ralphs time or during f.d.r.'s time that would prevent a government takeover by corporate interests. well not enough and it didn't happen

overnight i think you're right i mean you can sort of you can go back to the new deal or go back to the period of the sixty's and seventy's when so many of the most important progressive legislative achievements it happened not just in sort of the consumer area in worker health and safety the creation of the p.a. under nixon's watch so we did have a government that created structures and institutions to hold government to hold corporations accountable corporations recognize what was happening and over the decades have really organized themselves to the chamber of commerce and other means to tear down that power and to take over and further capture the government and it's jimmy carter was saying massively facilitated by the citizens united decision so what do you know. what do we do where we start how do we get our democracy back . i realize you're twenty seconds for that and we know i think where we are you know where where we where we are right now it's different

and where we were in. october thirty first. twenty six scene right now resistance to become a little cliche but that is really where we are everything now is about. preventing the worst abuses of the trumpet ministration that's that's the first thing in the course of that building up a social movement that can make positive demands not likely to be achieved in the near term with this congress and this president. because you know for as important as all the institutions are all the guarantees are all the rights that we went over time are the most important thing is whether we have a powerful movement rising up from the bottom to make demands on power and it's the only hope we have to reversing things. the movements cancer stem cells forever so they have to win victories that result in laws that create institutions that guarantee rights and safeguards for us but the only way to get there is by building . a real movement speaking of movements and protests you want tell us what happened

when you guys went to the trumpets held last night to protest this fundraiser but we were outside right in front of the hotel we had some of the three hundred people attending the event walk by us you know get dropped off in a fancy car and walk in. most of them found other ways into the building and then we had the president drive right by us and you know there is something we've been out there chanting and screaming for an hour hour and a half but you get a different burst of energy and donald trump drives by and you do have. as you say it's hard to come up with the words to have the president united states states drive five blocks from the white house into a hotel that he owns. all the least from the government for a fundraiser that's going to. it's going to enrich him and he's going

simultaneously as part of a payoff system for the corporate donors you just have so much of what's wrong embodied in this one moment so i was i was proud we were out there and i think one thing that we did it was important i should say is it wasn't just to talk about the conflicts and the money and politics issues it was also to have a series of women who are on medicaid now tell their stories and explain what the consequences are of the kind of policies the president is pushing if that goes through what it's going to mean to them and really human terms you know back in the seventy's after the scandals the nixon scandals there was this i think a hopefulness that came along with the ford administration in the carter administration the disinfectant the sunlight excuse me could actually be the best disinfectant that you know food opening of information in government holding people accountable doing something about corporate cash you know all these things and enormous model legislation was passed in seventy three and seventy four

specifically about that and then in seventy six after lewis powell had done his palm and seventy one been put in the court by nixon in seventy two and seventy six he authors this you know buckley versus fellatio decision from the george washington administration till nine hundred seventy six giving money to a politician had been considered a behavior that could be regulated in the supreme court said no it's not a behavior it's free speech that's protected by the first amendment in the started us down this road. do you see that as a turning point or you know in the reagan administration basically you know just taking that old you know now citizens united taking it full explosion and and if so doesn't that suggest that you know money is the principal corrupting force here and the supreme court has empowered it with multiple decisions from a caution to you know citizens united back to to buckley in the end i mean you know we could take it all the way back to to santa clara county if you want but there's a bunch of. then isn't one of the principal solutions to pass

a constitutional amendment to basically overturn the supreme court pass constitutional amendments and the corporations are not people and free free speech is not money absolutely absolutely you guys are working on this we have been working on it. and i think we're going to win it now actually i also think had hillary clinton been elected and even a moderate genuine moderate like merrick garland been put on the court we would have succeeded not necessarily overturning the evil a right away but i think we would have reached overturn citizens united pretty quickly but where we are right now and this is for sure going to be one of the lasting legacies of the trumpet ministration we're looking at decades of a historically reactionary supreme court back to the locker court that we stopped at least maybe ours yes roger tenney so i think these are people who you know people have been skeptical of the constitutional amendment remedy they're going to face the reality that there is no alternative in this regard and we're going to have to win the constitutional moment it seems in the minute we have left martin

surely the pharma bro took a thirteen dollars drug jacked up to seven hundred fifty bucks for desperate people he's on trial for fraud what does this say about our system that he's on trial for fraud not for jacking up the price of pharmaceuticals and you know for sick people well i think you're spot on and so it's one thing it's how it is. we have to redefine what is legal and acceptable in society and you know as you're pointing out the allegations in that case are that he defrauded investors but he plainly ripped off from price gouge regular consumers and deny them access to import medication and that is legal and permissable in the case of pharmaceuticals almost everything about the pricing power of the drug companies as a derivative about what they get from the government not totally in his case which is sort of a special one but by and large the pharmaceutical industry model is to rely on monopolies that are granted by the government so we give them the right to charge

whatever they want and we can take it away and if we want to do it. keep up the great work thanks thanks so much for. coming up we'll be discussing the issues of the day in our politics. it's. not. just.

about the stuff that's going on in the world as opposed to just regular crying we're going to find out what the corporate mainstream media is not telling you about how we're going to filter it through some satirical comedic lenses to make it more digestible that's what we do every week. what you have for breakfast yesterday why would you put those. now i didn't do due to. all. i'm a trial lawyer i've spent countless hours poring through documents that tell the story about the abuse articles in. corporate media read uses to talk about these. i'm going to pick clear picture about how disturbing to look for conduct has been

in mind these are stories that you know no one in my pepto you're close to the american. question. all eyes have been on the g.o.p. trying to steal people's health care donald trump has nominated a corporate lawyer named brendan carr to serve as the f.c.c. is third republican commissioner in a commission that only have five commissioners that could mean the end of net neutrality as we know it according to think progress f.c.c. chair joe pa has welcomed cars nomination claiming that quote he would be an added voice at the commission in efforts to reduce senseless regulations and install sound policy making in other words he would help guide destroyed net neutrality wire skin services so committed to making easier for monopolists like arisan and

comcast to charge consumers more for worse services and really should we be going the other way and recognizing broadband access as a human right as most european countries and canada have done let's ask tonight's politics panel. with me for tonight's politics panel is valerie irvin senior advisor for the working families party and julio rivera editorial director for reactionary times thank you both for being with us tonight thank you so much great to have you so you both are my set up the seems like a blatant trump of the republicans to roll back net neutrality protections and deregulate broadband internet providers but according to a report from the u.n. human rights council the internet should be considered a basic human right which enables individuals to exercise their right to freedom of opinion and expression so why do republicans want to make open access to the internet into a privilege for the few who can afford the deluxe. first of all let me explain to

you the u.n. human rights council is a freakin joke ok any human rights council that recognizes countries like saudi arabia and qatar in the way that they deal with things there first of all just take that right off of the table is for is what net neutrality has done in practical application it is actually strengthen these monopolies that you complain about it's a smaller rural i.s.p. carriers did have been stifled due to net neutrality regulations and we've talked about this before six billion dollars in infrastructure spending which the smaller ideas p's could have done to provide better services all in areas where they may not have access to all the major i or any of the major i s p's can actually do business there that's all been stopped because the net neutrality the other part of it is as a concept it makes no sense if you're on skype or you're on some sort of like team view or

a log me in type of software the packets for that type of service that communication has to be given a higher priority than just regular e-mails or maybe downloading one way you know like a song or something from a website so. neutrality just doesn't really make any sense other than it's another opportunity for the f.c.c. to try to regulate. the internet as if it was a utility which it is not because it's not vital to american safety ok i think you're misunderstanding net neutrality but no i'm not you know so so you're going to be fine when when your internet service provider with comcast or whoever you get your name from comes to you and says hey we've got a new plan we're going to do the internet just like we do cable t.v. you want to make basic packages fifty bucks a month you want you want to new services that's an extra ten dollars a month all you want to use you tube that's going to be ten dollars a month you're using streaming video that will be fifteen dollars a month on top that you want to download porno that's twenty five marks you know if

you're going to have a competitive service it would be easier for a competitive service to come out and then give the people what they want problem which is just like with water just like a lecture in a city to have only people have one internet connection coming to their house valerie you want to jump in here i sure do i think that this is really about what the trump administration is doing across the board and that is they want to deregulate and for me net neutrality is all about freedom and access and i think that this is what is going to happen if the trumpet ministration gets its way the internet that we know today will no longer be viable and it's very and i'm going to i'm very god that is not democrat it is an. internet service providers role because of the regulations attached to it is in the details our interests on the reasons we're losing that spending valerie let you talk. as i was saying i

think and i think it and i think it's a very dangerous. way for us to begin to destroy the internet that we now know and love it's free it's freedom it's hot. julio you. i just want to understand this you're in your stand for allowing a handful of giant companies to reprice and slice and dice the internet for us and basically turn it into a commodity rather than this open information system that we have right now you're saying it's not like telephone service you know it's not an essential essential thing except you know there's a lot of people who get their telephone service deliver the internet listen to limitations that are creating these these large corporations to have total and absolute it's not it's not limitations they added net neutrality no it's not i did the spending stop why did this law internet service providers we have always had an outage ality julio has we've always had net neutrality we never went from no net

neutrality we the united states has never experimented with no net neutrality no internet service provider has ever successfully tried to say we're going to look at what data julio is getting and we're going to decide what we're going to charge him for and if he wants to watch this we're going to charge you more and if you want to watch this we're going to charge him less the only thing that internet service providers have been able to do is charge based on bandwidth on the amount of usage that you're using and nobody is suggesting that that should change that that exists under net neutrality it's not unreasonable if you use a whole hell of a lot of the internet or if you need a really fast you know speed internet like i do for my business i pay more for it but you know i don't know a problem with that but when they start actually looking at what i am looking at and charging me based on a just as if they were listening into my phone calls and saying you know we should charge him just a penny a minute right now because they are going to his model we should charge a ten dollars a minute when he's talking to us and out of the sky we get more for we had

neutrality two years ago the internet service providers weren't doing that we had the early years and good thinking that will happen if we get rid of we've had net neutrality all along julio it's the the internet has been regulated by it's real desire and yeah you know. yes there are no center of the government it's also something yes it is really it's really odd about in your own letter i had options i could have went through verizon and gotten the jetpack i could have used comcast to get my cable in the town that i'm in there's always been options and your people the more angry scenes i you were going to have one on the people who are going to produce and i'm sorry that's ok you were going to say i was going to say you talked earlier about the internet service being very poor in a way out in the hinterlands out in the in the smaller communities when in fact the big divide or any of the the big providers have decided not to go there and this has nothing to do with net neutrality it has everything to do with their bottom

line and how they make their money so i think you are wrong on that one of these and these are internet service providers have had trouble and have been going through a lot of red tape to try to improve their services due to net neutrality no it's due to the monopolistic behavior of a half a dozen very very large companies the wouldn't even be allowed to be monopolies like they are afraid and have been stopped in force in the sherman antitrust act in one thousand nine hundred two but ennio on wednesday kansas secretary of state kris kobach sent out a letter to all fifty states in its role as vice chairman of the white house committee looking into nonexistent voter fraud the letter requests the states and all of their publicly available voter roll data to the white house by july fourteenth just five days before the commissioners meeting first meeting on thursday several states including california kentucky and virginia i think we're up to twenty four states now have declared that they will not comply with donald trump's commissions regina governor terry mcauliffe laid out the problem plainly he said at best this commission was set up as a pretext to validate donald trump's alternative election facts and worse it is

a tool to commit large scale voter suppression so valorie which is a we know that the trump administration is using this as a way to deflect i believe. what's really happening with the with the russian probe that's what's really wrong with what happened in the sixteen election cycle and it's the republicans across the country have been suppressing the votes of black people and. folks from around the world and we know that to be a fact and so this is just a ruse. to take the focus for the focus should be and that is that our election was hacked by the russians and tromp talk about creating fake news there's nothing real about the fact that he believes he needs to prove that there was widespread voter suppression that they created mostly in republican red states so.

you get. your million. seven the lawyer you're getting there for seven points you're going to let me make a point if donald trump wants to put an end to any speculation that the republicans are engaging in voter fraud he should do one thing when they were asking for recalls when the clip in the campaign was asking for recalls in certain states in the d.n.c. they should have requested a recall of california you know law because jerry brown in twenty fifteen put a provision in there the illegal immigrants can start driving and get driver's licenses in concert with another law this said you got registered to vote when you got your driver's license there is no way that hillary clinton won the state of california legitimately by florida half million votes this is a which runs through this nonsense you're speculating that they're going to try to use this information to suppress voters but you really don't have a leg to stand on or anything to prove it well actually it's the other way around

earlier you know you cannot demonstrate that there is any consequential voter voter fraud in the united states i can change the law in california wacky california it's not just california there's a number of states that have motor voter laws. member in michigan with the release of these when they're they letting illegal or just good right now and they don't in california have that many illegally oh it's likely a stop for a second and listen if you if a motor voter state if you say yes i would like to register to vote when i'm getting my driver's license you sign a form says that this is under penalty of perjury and if you are lying or if you vote you go to prison for two years i guarantee you there is no illegal immigrant in a say in the world or in the united states who is enthusiastic about going to prison for two years and in some states as much as five years that's why there's no voter or that i'm really as we'll just have it romney lost by three million he was a bland this candidate the g.o.p. ever ran there's no way trump lost by that big

a disparity while the. believe the actual numbers i don't wasn't just to get in the state of california no it not not the california numbers we should add a recall there it wouldn't approve and they're going to recount and claim but it would have uncovered a lot of votes they should be invalidated that would be. you know california ought it's there any way valerie urban julio rivera thank you but yeah anyone and there's a way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag you're it. i do not know if the russian state hacked into john podesta e-mails and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has

not provided credible to support his claims of russia i also know he perjured himself in a senate hearing led three months for the revelations provided by edward still. he denied to be n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the u.s. . the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo chamber for government claims that cannot be verified you would have thought they would have learned something after serving as george w. bush's useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. and. interests. to.

play. on larry king you are watching our america question more. for decades the american middle class has been railroaded by washington politics. big money corporate that's drowned out a lot of boys that's how it is in the news culture in this country now that's where i come in. i mean it's still on our t. america i'll make sure you don't get railroaded you'll get the straight talk in the

straight. to. go whoa. thank you and. we start. with the health care debate which i don't believe exists i do not believe there is a health care debate sure there are red faced politicians screaming about one make believe side of the other but that doesn't mean there's a legitimate debate it's kind of like alex jones radio show like i get that it exists somewhere and then a certain number of people who don't watch properly listen to it like. i know it's out there but i don't really acknowledge it's a thing that matters. not even alex jones believes what he says matters no

seriously seriously in court recently his lawyer said on his behalf he's playing a character he is a performance artist. yes he's impersonating an internet troll who's medications are not interacting well. anyway in order for there to be a health care debate there needs to be two sides with some merit that can be argued about right but that's nowhere to be found in the health care debate right now instead there are two sides both of which are disingenuous both of which are corrupted by big money both of which are hardly even science instead they're just two separate spawn. it's in the center of whatever proverbial thing we're picturing i i'm i'm picturing a duck and i don't know why you always i always picture a duck but the debate should be is our country wealthy enough to cover the health care of every man woman and child if the answer is yes. then the edge you weigh.