those are stories that we tell every week and you know what they're working. what you have for breakfast yesterday quietly to put the faces your wife or. what your biggest fear is in the bin on a hay ride with the less time medical board to say if you've ever met the best quarterback. let's point the topic that doesn't belong in the piece now i've had to do due to question more. remember. the.

current. was. along tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture it looks like they're finally figuring out their message problem so why does it seem like democrats are missing a big opportunity to send the republicans acking once and for all richard esko in just a moment and senate republicans still don't know which health care bill they're going

to vote on this week because obamacare is the republican health care plan as kimono freeman and r.j. asco in tonight's liberal progressive. and event today and very bill virginia democratic leadership unveiled a set of policies that they're collectively calling a better deal as minority leader chuck schumer went out of his way to point out the goal of this new agenda is to show every day working americans that the democratic party. he's actually looking out for. american families deserve a better deal so this country works for everyone again not just the elites not just the special interests to date democrats start presenting that better deal to the american people so it looks like democrats have finally found their message but is

it a winning one and do the actual policies of this better deal go far enough to reverse our slide into oligarchy employed takhar see joining me now is richard s. co-host of the zero hour and senior fellow at the campaign for america's future richard welcome welcome back to the program great to be parents great to have you and thanks for being with us through the whole half hour here first things first it really does seem like the democrats at least understand that just being the party of not trump doesn't make it so am i being overly optimistic or have they finally turned a corner well you know those aren't the only two possibilities i think it's a step forward for sure i mean you have to knowledge there talking for example the schumer talked to wrote today about breaking up monopolies about antitrust that's certainly part of the right message you know he's talking he didn't say a lot about trade but he did talk about better trade deals you know there are moves there definitely it's a big step in the right direction i don't happen to be

a fan of canned phrases like better deal that get repeated over and over i think in this day and age it message wise it does more to keep using a catch phrase like that i think we should all learn that from the hillary clinton campaign and better deal is kind of relativistic right it doesn't say a good deal a great deal says not as bad as the other guys but you know there are things i could nitpick but i think it's worth starting out by saying this is definitely a step to the left for the democrats and as a person of the left i think that's a good move there ok well that's that's good what about the. i mean you know. endorsing the medicare negotiate prices i mean that's kind of a no brainer it's although it's been a huge political battle because the republicans are so committed to keeping that six hundred billion dollars subsidy for the pharmaceutical industry of being able to sell tire lee retail to medicare plus it hurts medicare the republicans love to

. but you know you say there's that but then you know the flip side of that would be you know single payer they could negotiate everything the democrats are not willing to go that far they say they want to break up the big monopolies or actually they say they want to start examining the mergers and holding the merged companies accountable rather than breaking up the big monopolies and there's a real consequential difference there well these are this is not franklin or teddy roosevelt yes no not no by no means and i also think that that kind of parts thing of policy and that kind of parsing of words is what dooms the democrats every time i mean it would think about how much more effective it would be as policy and as politics if you were were to say let's break up the big banks who basically got a pass in this entire policy because they have too much power economic power and political power let's break up the big corporations whether and any corporation that has a monopoly whether it's your cable company your credit card company anyone else who

won't do a fair deal with you you know they talk about arbitration and things like that which are important but they get into it and look i'm sympathetic to what schumer and palosi have to do on one level which is they have to placate you know diverse a group of elected officials that they represent but i would sure love to see the democrats go further than they're going here i mean there's no question about it and i feel that the role of people frankly like us. or if if you don't want to be included me is to push them away for the left then they want to go because i think those policies will be much more popular as well as affect them but. you know i think on the policy side for example yes it's good medicare should definitely negotiate drug prices but we should also expand medicare and make it more of a if you're not willing to go full single payer yet make it available to people fifty five and older make it available to kids start phasing it in for larger groups of the population if you want to negotiate drug prices negotiate them for

medicare and medicaid and tell the drug companies they have to honor those drug prices with everybody that walks in the door you know really get bold really get tough and i think they'd be a lot more successful and a very simple one simply allow the importation of pharmaceuticals from canada have something that you know it's the instant competition in a really consequential way the republican party at one point in time in our lifetimes had a spectrum of people in it from literally progressives all the way to. the democrats so the republicans looked at this and said you know we're just going to start ignoring the progressives in the republican party we're going to start ignoring the moderates we're going to actually start primary in them we're not going to support them anymore and the republican party has turned into far more of a right wing party essentially you know a more monolithic party. more consistent with their base of support among the billionaires and fox news and whatnot but it's there and that has allowed them to

take control of the supreme court of the house of the senate of the white house and of thirty three i think now state capitols that's pretty substantial democratic party right now is looking at a relatively monolithic republican party i mean you know only two defections on health care it's a and and they're looking in the democratic party at the whole spectrum from joe mansion to elizabeth warren and it seems to me like all of this parsing that i'm seeing in the better deal is is you know schumer palosi tom perez is their way of saying you know we want to keep joe manchin in the party and. i want to keep a list of warren in the party who want to keep it a big tent party with with a broad diversity of opinions and perspectives even if part of that diversity is people who are basically corporate sellouts. i personally if i was running the democratic party are you know i would be i would do it more like the republicans have and say these are our goals this is our ideology this is where we want to end

up in ten years and and say to some of the some of the blue dogs you know frankly you know good luck but you're on your own what do you think well look i think the underlying issue is really important first of all the republican leadership didn't do that the republican base did that and because of gerrymandering so many republican at this seats in congress are safe seats that it became a race between the ultra conservative and the hyper ultra conservative tea party freedom caucus right so it was really the base taking over the party which is something that progressive activists should look at you know what i sometimes describe as a not so friendly takeover of the democratic party in certain districts primary blue dogs going after blue dogs and but i think here bates point i think democrats have to recognize now they're basically one step up from a third party even though there's no other party out there with the the fact that they've lost two thirds of state houses two thirds of governorships all three

branches of the federal government republican cheating and collusion and gerrymandering and everything else have contributed to that but they're basically in the wilderness now and what better time to your point to restructure yourselves and when you're in the wilderness especially around policies that we know people even republican voters want expanded social security expanded medicare better wages higher even on an infrastructure and for ever education for all three higher education free tuition free higher education so they could come up with a much more quote unquote left a job. i mean these blue dog democrats are an artifact of one rahm emanuel and those guys were searching for corporate money and running candidates that would lure them money they've got to move beyond that now it seems like they're sort of in the old bob dylan you know when you've got nothing you got nothing to the rights position so what the hell you know this is what he told another word for not enough and. trampling said yeah. so you know there's going to be serious

corporate opposition to this to this better deal program that they're putting forward as milk toast as it is. how do you see the democrats pushing back against that how do you see that plane well you know it's going to be tough because i think a lot of them don't want to push back i think a lot of them want to present it as lip service and i think there will be an effort to water it down as lip service you know we saw this back and forth about the draft version of this document led with better skills better jobs better wages that's all bill clinton corporate sellout democratic party it's not the fault of the workers that they are they can't get decent wages or decent jobs it's a i'm rather it's not the fault of the corporations it's the fault of the workers they they don't know what up they are trained enough that's a total con job you know it's an inequality it's corporate control.

the national weather service in mount holly new jersey has issued severe thunderstorms for southwestern newcastle county in northern delaware northern kent county and central delaware southwestern atlantic county in southern new jersey cumberland county in southern new jersey southern salem county in southern new jersey until eleven thirty pm at ten thirty eight pm severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from home break to near green spring to near chess when they're hardly moving is that thirty five miles per hour hazard sixty miles per hour wind gusts source radar indicated impact expects damage to trees and power lines locations and pack that include violent over ridge middletown cumberland smyrna

salem long lake callaway camden clayton weymouth can time still manner chest wall greenwich shilo and hardly for your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a building in addition to damaging with frequent cloud to ground lightning is occurring with this storm moved into mediately remember if you can hear thunder you are close enough to be struck by lightning torrential rainfall is occurring with these storms may lead to flash flooding. drive your vehicle through flooded roadways repeating a severe thunderstorm warning has been issued until eleven thirty pm for the following county in delaware cant in newcastle and the following counties in new jersey glen take cumberland and salem.

the mission of news with him is to go to the people tell their side of the story our stories are well sourced we don't hide anything from the public and i don't think the mainstream media in this country can say that i mean average viewer knows that our to america has a different perspective so that we're not hearing one echo chamber that mainstream media is constantly spewing. we're not beholden to any corporate sponsor no one tells us what to cover how long the coverage or how to say it that's the beauty of our t.v. america. we give both sides we hear from both sides and we question more that journalists are not getting anything get a new way to bring it home to the american people.

plus. all the feeling of knowing something. everyone in the world should experience pfleger and you get it on the old the old. the old according to just. welcome to my world come along sure there are. republicans like to wrap themselves in slogans about a liberty and freedom but the truth is that deep down they hate our democracy and now we have the proof let's turn things over to diets big picture panel.

with different sides big picture panel of richard s. couse of the zero hour and senior fellow at the campaign for america's future and chemo and freeman program director and host of we act radio an activist with black lives matter d.c. and thank you both for being here with me today so the american legislative exchange council or alec the koch brothers backed right wing group successfully gave us right to work for less laws stand your ground shoot first laws voter suppression ideal laws has drawn up a dangerous new piece of model legislation as john nichols reports in the nation and calls for the repeal of the seventeenth amendment which gave the american people the right to directly elect their senators the proposed resolution would instead give state legislatures the power to elect senators as wild as this sounds it's a popular idea among republicans mike lee ted cruz and jeff flake of all said in recent years that they support repealing the seventeenth amendment why do republicans hate democracy i think you know the thing that provoked the seventeenth

amendment in addition to the whole progressive you know the something the man was passed in one thousand fourteen as i recall and the whole progressive wave that had been building for the two decades before that was in the late one nine hundred william clark of montana he was a copper baron and he went to the montana state legislature this was when the state legislatures elected the senators the federal senators and gave a speech public speech on the floor and said i have in my pocket a wad of thousand dollar. bill's pull them out waved him around and he said any of you who vote for me to be montana's u.s. senator i'll hand one of these bills today as he walked out of the chamber and stood there he watched the vote and as they walked out he passed the dollar bills to them and you know this was nothing new and this was nothing you know insanely shocking at the moment in the place but it got picked up by the new york newspapers and so horrified the washington d.c. in new york that the united states senate refused to seat william clark for six months as a huge battle over whether he would even be allowed to have

a seat because he had bought it through bribery and that kicked us right into the into the seventeenth amendment so why would republicans want to take us back to those days i don't get it it's the good old days. make america great again you know much of you know republican ideas no this is new that you said before you lou this is happening before the judge was john birch society and some of it was trying to fight for this thing yeah but i do think there is reason to look at the seventy of them in terms of how it's currently can screw i think undemocratic to have a senator who represents millions of people who did the same vote as a senator who represent one hundred thousand people so i think this from discussion there but to see this going down the with they have put it so that the state legislature the republican controlled state legislators i mean it's all about them good old boys trying to circle the wagons to keep our this is a consistent. obviously for the thirty three or thirty four state legislatures that

are a point controlled by republicans so that would give them sixty six or sixty eight senate seats if they flipped right say all morning troll two thirds of the legislature is this country is that what this is about and by the way c'mon you know what he suggested this suddenly it hit me what whoa what if we said ok you want to change the seventeenth the moment you want to change the senate let's change the damn sun let's let's make a proportional let's say the you know. a small state in the united states has one senator and every other state has a number of senators equal to the smallest state's population divided by the population of a bigger state for the number of senators yes so if you got it you know how to divide it up by the result of that you divide that math so that for example becoming the senator one of the senators from california doesn't involve massive expenditure on media bias and the other things that bring corporations into it come on kind of said what i was going to say in a different way which is before the seventeenth amendment the senate was america's

house of lords and let in a fact and let's face it that's what it's become again by and large in most cases because it takes so much money to run for the united states senate in this country that it's become almost a purchased seat i mean there are a few happy accidents and cases where that isn't true but by and large it's not a democratic institution it does not reflect the will of the people i mean we've even seen gerrymandering congress doesn't represent the majority of two thousand and twelve democrats got one point four million more votes for congress than republicans but republicans took control of the house now in the senate side it's even worse why should a person who lives in wyoming home of some very unpleasant senatorial characters over a recent memory have who knows maybe one hundred times more voting power in this senate than someone who lives in california why should that be the case well i was you know i guess if if wyoming or vermont you know they're both i think around

a half a million people so if that gets you one senator then california is what twenty six million people so you will go out and vote and i think wyoming mazie less than that would get more all three would you have health care to fifty two senators. we actually have more population in the state oh well maybe he was brought up and yeah i have no vote that's right that's right so we need to start was don't see that a good board in rhode island and more than i listed them out on it's going to fewer since. it's remarkable ok moving along the senate will vote on a health care bill this week probably tomorrow that much is almost certain there's just one problem we don't know which health care bill the senate is actually going to vote on mitch mcconnell is still keeping us in the dark about whether he'll bring up for debate the repeal and replace bill that senate republicans have been working on for the past few months that you know throws twenty two million people off the voting rolls or their appeal and delay a bill that they already put has back in two thousand and fifteen that would throw thirty three million people off their. health insurance rolls and was thrust back

into the spotlight last week after republican support for the repeal in place bill collapsed so isn't this chaos the logical conclusion of what happens when you don't really have a health care plan i mean after all obamacare was the republicans health care plan from the time nixon first introduced it in seventy two through the heritage foundation clean it up in eighty six through through romney put into place in massachusetts if this is the republican plan this is it's got to be why there's so stock democrats are pretty clear their plan a single payer has been since harry truman greed is good for change in this country because if they had been satisfied with the republican plan that they term a bomb and here we would be having this discussion most people would be happy with what they agreed is getting the best of them and because they got too far and it's going to backfire and it's going to actually usher in the universal health care plan where everybody you know because they have people understand what is really at stake here and i told you before my sister actually lost her life because of this

debate is very real people actually die because we have convoluted health care health insurance and i don't think anything short of putting health insurance companies out of business should be acceptable do you want to tell that story real my sister was a victim in the car accidents was cut out the car her health insurance policy dictated that because she was conscious which you're right that the hospital they did not have to do a full body examination they only had acknowledged when she was complaining though nick has showed it has she been unconscious that we did a full about examine the felt that she actually had a term of bleeding and she collapsed in her home three months later because of the bleeding and she's not with us today because of that.

the national weather service in mount holly new jersey has issued a severe thunderstorm warning for the in central delaware queen anne's county in northeastern maryland northern ireland county in eastern maryland until eleven thirty pm at ten forty nine pm severe thunderstorms were located along a line extending from near settler's vale to near wind mills moving east eight thirty miles per hour hazard sixty miles per hour wind gusts source radar indicated impact expects damage to beas and power lines severe thunderstorms will be near settlers villa around ten fifty five pm queen and the around eleven o five pm hartley and jump down eleven ten pm oakland ridgeley and has led to look around eleven fifteen pm denton and greensboro around eleven twenty pm dover camden goldsboro woodside viola speedway around eleven twenty five pm hours rising sunshine eleven in dover base housing rise sunshine and sent towns around eleven

thirty pm other locations and panted by the severe thunderstorms include barkley the village wyoming acres magnolia riverview templin highland acres south and queenstown for your protection move to an interior room on the lowest floor of a building in addition to damaging winds frequent cloud to ground lightning is occurring with this storm moved indoors immediately remember if you can hear thunder you are close enough to be struck by lightning repeating a severe thunderstorm warning has been issued until eleven thirty pm for the following county can't delaware and the following counties in maryland caroline and queen anne's. the phrase a better deal going to wake up the people who don't turn out to vote now because they have to take a day off from work to do it is going to wake up the white voters who are being had by trump and his cronies are they going to say suddenly realize you know this is

a we got a hold the democrats or somebody to a higher standard of communication instead of letting them off the hook because they're not as bad as the republicans you know i don't think a better view is this is a great you want to put it out there i don't think they should get too much r. kelly for doing the bare minimum and i think that's what they've been they're offering here yeah it's good better best the middle one why not pick the you know the best deal in their great deal to make america great again i mean it wasn't let's make america ok again it's actually really rhetorical equivalent of that slogan everybody rightfully and laughed at the democrats for that was well you should take a look at the other guys or whatever it is literally we're not as bad as the other guys it's better this is better as a comparative as a comparative not as good fair square new all of the other things that deals have been in the past there is none of those things in the deal at the new deal that are you know he's doing the great society great society the better society than it was

under the other guys that's not quite so inspiring that's that's unfortunate so where it is so here we have the situation right now where donald trump is running around trying to convince his voters that he's actually looking out for them and he's bringing jobs back and it's kind of a while he's not and yet you know fox news i mean how do you how does how do you how do we wake people up to the fact that they're being lied to. and that's the sixty four thousand dollar question i don't have a message for that one because fox news is the largest media. in the country as soon as the current numbers you know and they've been proven that they don't have to tell the truth in court. you know so i don't know this it's a love fest among some of the most. ignorant people and some of the most corporate controlled information that we've seen i don't know what is going to take the with

these people up there people have good b.s. detectors so i mean that's why that's why my old boss bernie did ok because i think a lot a lot of these voters sensed that there was something really there something real and i think that if the democrats can do something real people will resonate for richard asco come on for him and thank you both for being always pleasant as well and that's the way it is tonight don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag you're it.

in case you're new to the game this is how. the economy is. washington washington. the. voters elected the business to run this country business if. you must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. for breakfast yesterday why would you put those through. what's your biggest fear. in a bit on the hayride. board you say if you ever met him so what about.

exploring the topic so simple. now i've had to do due to my question more. i do not know if the russian state into john podesta emails and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has not provided. to support his claims. i also know he perjured himself in a senate hearing. for the revelations provided by edwards he denied that the n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the us. the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo of government claims that. 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. on the. first public statement is his role in any. the national weather service in mount holly new jersey has issued a special memory warning for delaware being until twelve thirty am at ten fifty eight pm strong thunderstorms were located along a line extending from fifty nautical miles southwest of woodland.