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west. north korea and the united states that down from a military stand off what happens next we'll get perspective from the former secretary of defense william cohen on this edition the politics. of politicking on larry king for nearly a week north korea and the united states stood on the brink of military action punctuated by a bellicose rhetoric from president trump and kim jong un north korea has since back noun from the standoff but for how long what happens next we'll talk about that with an old friend william cohen the former secretary of defense under president bill clinton former senator from maine long will fall that one of the first republicans to speak out against richard nixon but also get his first. active

on the controversies involving the current occupant of the white house he joins us from washington d.c. william last time you were with us you talked about donald trump and about you know being a little uncomfortable with him making decisions for we talk about north korea based on the events of charlottesville in the last few days how do you feel. well obviously i was just appointed i wasn't terribly surprised to tell you the truth and i think what you saw of most recently was president trump speaking from his heart what he really thinks and what he really feels and not by reading it from a script i think whenever he's reading from a script or a teleprompter those don't necessarily reflect his true feelings and i think he that is true feelings come out just yesterday and unfortunately he failed to distinguish between the neo nazis or the nazis of the white supremacists and put

them on the same level as the anti-fascists i don't know anybody on the left to his pro fascist but nonetheless i think a failure to condemn anyone who's carrying hitler's flag as being un-american i think is a failure of leadership and you know these people who are promoting hitlerism and anti-semitism anti black and anti minority anti-gay they can't be considered be part of of middle america as such not they're not mainstream they're radical they're french but unfortunately they've had a platform as mr bennett has said formally at least on the bright part and that's something the president has to take into account you can see that a number of the c.e.o.'s left his counsel as such now they've been disbanded to save him from further embarrassment by c.e.o.'s the same we can't afford to be on this council because our constituents our employees our shareholders are speaking

out against what we're doing so we have to step aside if you were secretary of defense do you know marine general john kelly. not really well i knew him when i was at the pentagon. certainly and i think he's he's the right man to be chief of staff right now and he has his work cut out form but he's trying to bring the kind of discipline to the office which every president has to have and i think the difficulty is that president trump doesn't really appreciate the gravity of the words of his office that everyone not only his base is listening but every leader every person in the world essentially has access to what he is saying and they make their calculations based on what he's saying so i think bringing in general kelly general mcmaster having general secretary state sector a defense jim matheson rex tillerson and stay these are people who are trying to

bring order and discipline to the president who really feels constrained and that he feels that this is not really him that he wants to be able to tweet and to express his personal thoughts in a much more vocal way we saw the result of that just just just of that can joan seems to he backed off a little on gone what's your assessment of donald trump is dealing with north korea . well i didn't appreciate some of the language that president trump used i think he was right to send a very strong message and i thought that secretary maddest said it very directly and simply saying if you ever try to attack the united states one of our allies our territories you will be met with overwhelming response so i think the president got into a name calling. match with can john which to me just diminish the office i don't think we should ever sink to his level but the message was strong

and i hope and i trust this is taken place that the president has his sectors state and his his. department of state working behind the scenes going to the chinese and saying the president is serious that he is no longer going to simply sit back and allow the testing and the threats to go unanswered and there's a military response that at the ready i think the it's hard to persuade can john nunn he doesn't respond to threats but as he does respond when the chinese say we're going to cut off any supplies of either energy or food or whatever the trade is then we understand that his regime is under threat from within. we spoke recently with another former defense secretary william perry he's deeply worried about the nuclear threat particularly the possibility of the world stumbling into a nuclear war he doesn't think that north korea wants to take over other countries

obama the countries he thinks they just want a seat at the table but he's worried about a sort of a stumbling into what are you. yes exactly the north koreans are not suicidal in my assessment i've met with them when i was at the pentagon albright met with her counterparts in north korea so we understand what they're after and what they want to do is have a nuclear weapons capability that can threaten the united states so that their regime succeeds into generation after generation we ought to persuade them there's a way for them to succeed and perpetuate their regime but not through the use of threatening the united states or our allies and secretary perry was correct the danger of miscalculation and that's why i was concerned about the language being used when president trump said we're going to ring down you know fire and fury and brimstone and destruction and then can john starts up the. rhetorical and

then the question is is president from bluffing well if the north koreans think he's bluffing then to continue to do maybe even fire a missile toward guam and in that particular case what do we do do we wait to see how close it comes and this is the danger of stumbling into something like that it's sort of like if a person comes to you and says i'm not going to hit you bomb or a fire these four bullets come within twenty feet of you don't worry i'm not aiming at you well do you wait for them to see whether the bullets hit or don't hit or they come and within twenty feet you can't play those kind of games and that's with secretary perry was worried about that we start escalating the rhetoric and suddenly someone takes the move we're going to have exercises off the korean peninsula this coming week and it will be a regular exercise that we run with with the south koreans to make sure that we are prepared for war should it ever come now does can jong un see that as

a preparation for an attack on him and would he take peremptory action against us those are the kinds of things that we have to avoid and i'm. more confident today after rex tillerson secretary towson made his comments last week and what secretary madison's been saying and writing that we have calm the waters for the time being and the message has gone to the chinese you need to get this guy under control because we could stumble into a war which could turn nuclear which would be disastrous for certainly that part of the world and for the world economy based on kim jong un's recent statements about gone vote which the president so the congratulated him do you think he blinked. we don't know at this point it would appear that he's backing down and if that's the case that's great news the real issue is where do we go from here. is he going to continue to test nuclear weapons underground test is he going to continue to

fire missiles if not toward guam toward japan through the sea of japan exactly what is he going to do from this point forward he may have backed down for the moment but he's not going to give up until he understands that there are consequences that will flow if he continues to missile tests and to conduct nuclear tests this is why we've got to put a plan on the table that the chinese the russians the japanese and certainly the south koreans are behind to somehow bring about a real peace for the korean people and not just the cessation of hostilities i think that's possible i certainly have talked to the chinese leadership about it i know that jim matta secretary madison's talked about it with his counterparts and i know that the us secretary listen has been writing and speaking about it so i think it's possible. i'm more optimistic today than i was last week because i was concerned that we were going down

a path in which you can't predict what kim jong un would do to try and what i called engage with the president in a diplomatic trash talk my missiles are longer than yours my bombs are bigger than yours i can destroy you in a matter of a few seconds etc that's not something that i think the president i states should be engaged in with kim jong il and i think it reduces the office of the presidency and i'm glad to see the rhetoric and now as stopped and that the real work is being done behind the scenes what do you make of the dung translation ship with its mr putin he always is hesitant to criticize him he didn't agree with the sanctions he said he signed the orders. and the two should what do you make of that. it's almost inexplicable that the president of the states refuses to be critical of president putin he has criticized virtually every one of our allies he has criticized

chancellor merkel he has criticized the british intelligence he is criticize the president of france he's criticized the prime minister of australia but never president putin and i don't know what's behind this i have supporters saying look if the president in his real estate empire is such if he has russian money and that . i don't i don't feel problem with that but it needs to be disclosed other words i assume that there is russian money in the that the trump enterprise and its various subsidiaries and companies that itself is not illegal the issue is it appears that there is a attempt to cover up whatever those relationships are and i think that's the danger involved here had the president simply disclose on his tax returns here's my here's my assets here's my liabilities here's the russian money that this involved or not involved making is sumption that they are but i don't know that it's just

something that tells me in my heart there has to be some reason and the reason using go back to is this money so that may to be proved not to be the case and it may be there is no russian money but there needs to be an explanation in terms of why this coziness why this reluctance to to treat president putin on the merits you know and deal with him as we must but deal with him from a position of strength and straightforwardness an arm's length and that's the way we have to go about it but to simply ignore what he's done or what he continues to do in terms of trying to destabilize ukraine or fly his bombers and other aircraft over the of the baltics and threatening to undermine the. legitimacy of elections free elections in various european countries this is something that the president has to address and. forcefully we'll take a quick break and come back with some more moments with secretary cohen don't go away. about your sudden passing i've only just learnt you worry

yourself and taken your last term here at the top to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each pair. but then my feeling started to change you talked about war like it was again still some more fun to feel those that didn't like to question our archaea and i secretly promised to never be like it said one does not leave a funeral in the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one quite different to speak to now because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker.

called the future we don't need to. everyone in the world should experience freedom and you'll get it oddly or will. the world according to just. come along for the ride to. have a back to politics you know i'm talking with william cohen the former secretary of defense under. president bill clinton former republican senator of maine presently chairman and c.e.o. of the cohen group of global business consulting firm in your first term in congress you got involved with the house judiciary committee one of the first republicans to break with the party and vote for impeachment of richard nixon.

based on election is next year do you think there's a possibility of an impeachment of this president. i told at this point. i think people are waiting to find the outcome of the investigation being conducted now by the special prosecutor such i think talk of impeachment this point is very premature. i think we have to wait and see were there and it was there any collusion with the russians on the part of whom how high up to the go if it went beyond just a few of the the lower level staff people that's one thing if it climbed up to the president's higher level staff or even his family then it gets to be more serious but frankly i don't see any appetite on the part of the republicans at this point to. offer to start an investigation of impeachment it may come about but i would not be. projecting at this point are you still a republican well i'm

a republican from a different school of thought a republican goes back to the days when we had people like howard baker or more and rudman and jack danforth and a host of other people in the senate who believed in fiscal conservatism and social moderation and inclusiveness that's not the party that we have today but it's the party that i grew up believing in and would like to see us return to what happened to moderate republicans. well the party moved further and further to the right part of it has to do with the economy in this present trump a saying that having a better economy will fix a lot of problems in the united states it has to do with the world how it's changed globalization certainly is a factor many people feel that we have lost the ability to control our own destiny . particularly white males who may not have a economic future or their kids may not have one that's part of the anger involved

but also there's a racial and a racist component in our society it's always been there from the days of slavery it's been there from jim crow up to that lynchings all the way through to segregation and finally desegregation there's been that element of people who've been walking down the streets wearing hoods now don't have to wear their hoods taking them off and it's really ironic larry if you think about it people who are flying the nazi flag. if they want to go back and say look if you really admire hitler that much why don't you go to germany well if they went to germany today they'd be in prison because the germans would not tolerate this kind of activity they understand what hitler did to their country and to the world and for us to hold that high and saying jay this is what we believe him that's not being pro-american that's being anti-american these are not being the patriots but they're the very antithesis of patriots and you had a you had

a global consulting firm so you deal with people all over the world what are they saying about trump. well it depends on what area you're you're you're dealing with in the middle east for example i think the countries like u.a.e. a potty trained saudi arabia very supportive of the president because he has been supportive of them so they look at it from a purely internal point of view if the president eyes as is with us we're with with him if you go to china. chinese initially i met with him the day after the election actually the day of the election talk to a very high level chinese official and he asked me said with president trouble now being elected is t.p. pay trans-pacific partnership dead and i said regrettably yes and he pointed his finger in my chest and he said good good that was something a signal to the chinese that we had just overthrown and tossed overboard seven

years of negotiating with our closest allies in the region to put together an economic plan where we were the leaders of it and the president through a through it over saying no more multilateral agreements well as a result of that many of our allies became concerned about whether or not the united states was still committed to their security because the economic part of it also pertains to the security relationship as well so i think it depends on who you talk to in europe their. feeling that they have got to pursue their own security now aside from relying upon the united states and that's something i never thought i would hear chancellor merkel saying looks like germany will have to go it alone from now on maybe an overstatement but i think it reflects a sentiment among many of the european allies that the united states is no longer going to provide a shield as such to protect their interests as well as our own in europe thank you

for your time today mr secretary. that really. now nino turner former democratic ohio state senator who rose to national prominence as an outspoken backer of bernie sanders during last year's presidential primaries she's gone on to denounce donald trump and the democratic national committee she's also president of our revolution described as the next step for bernie sanders movement i spoke to her earlier about that moment and the aftermath. of the deadly violence in charlottesville here's that interview what you said nina that the system is trying to drive a wedge between progressive people of color and progressive whites what kind of wedge wouldn't they be aligned. well we should be but you know there's a lot of talk about identity politics within the democratic party itself and in that frame it does drive

a wedge between progressive weights and progressives or i should say establishment establishment those in the democratic establishment are trying to use identity politics to drive a wedge but i do believe that the majority a conscious majority of people of color and whites make up the woman jordi of the electorate is how do you bring those two synergies together would understand then and with respect for one another pushing towards a progressive agenda for this country what is our revolution our revolution was born from senator bernie sanders campaign as you know larry and many of your viewers when the senator traveled in two thousand and sixteen he talked about galvanizing millions and millions of people all across this country and he asked people to get involved that if we could get a revolution in this country we could change this country similar to what f.d.r. was was able to do you know after the great recession in this country depression i should say in this country and also in one thousand nine hundred four when

president f.d.r. talked about an economic bill of rights what americans should expect from their government and so senator bernie sanders very much ran in the same spirit but his message was not about me it is about us so even though he did not get the nomination he continued to push forward his idea his brainchild was our revolution and so we are the embodiment of his work moving forward we have a saying that our revolution the campaigns in but the revenue revolutions endure so we empower grassroots organizations all over this country larry we have about four hundred organizations right now all across the country in forty nine states and seven of those are international so we have two in canada we have one in great britain so we do have an international footprint right now but it is really about the empowerment of the grass. so that they know that the power is really de heirs and that they have the power to elect local state and federal leaders that will been hold up the progressive mantle to public policy can we say nina that pac

you could have been more practical if the bernie sanders people turned out you wouldn't have donald trump. you know where we can't listen or be proud to go if you stayed home on a principle that you liked you didn't like hillary and you didn't like trump you elected trump. you know i disagree with that larry not is not this is not to do this election outcome of this election should not be at the feet of bernie sanders supporters i mean let's face it about twenty percent of eligible voters did not come out and twenty sixteen and that cuts across the spectrum there are focus groups done of people who voted for president obama in twelve and also voted for mr trump in twenty sixteen and there was a disconnect during that election cycle i don't think that we lay that at the feet of the voters it is the job of people who run for office to both motivate and

excite the imagination of the voters in this country and democrats unfortunately have been losing elections for the last eight years maybe nine now eleven about eleven hundred seats across state state elections and also in the congress and so the election of mr trump was really the straw that broke the camel's back was that we have so much work to do in this country and i'm hoping that democrats will wake up and go back to our f.d.r. roots go back to our congresswoman shirley chisholm roots and really inspire any gauge the citizens of this country not just during election time but three hundred sixty five days of the year so that they will feel motivated and know that there is a real difference when they come out to vote mr trump told me many years ago that he supported a single payer health care system you told politico you think there's something wrong with democrats who don't support the single payer health insurance idea which is basically medicare for all you think there should be

a litmus test the nominee in twenty twenty should be for a single payer system is a value proposition larry is not my litmus test is the test of the american people the overwhelming majority of american people regardless of their political ideology really believe that the government should take more of a role in managing and providing health care medicare works ask our our seniors ask our own. it really does work and in the wealthiest country on the face of the earth it really is a moral question for us whether you're democrat or republican but because the democratic party is the party of f.d.r. we are the ones that expose these high minded values why wouldn't we be the party that wants to push medicare for all through you know again going back to f.d.r. in one thousand nine hundred four the economic bill of rights within that bill of rights he had health care there he had jobs there he had people living in decent homes and also safety net so folks too we have to get back that to that to show

very clearly that there is a profound difference between us and the republican party not just by what we say but what we're willing to stand up for and what we are willing to do what was your reaction to charlottesville. oh my golly heavy just heavy heart restless you know the people that i talk to are very heavy you know what i teach these kinds of things i'm a professor at cuyahoga community college and i teach about this kind of stuff the k.k.k. the emergence of it you know after slavery ended you know during the reconstruction period but never did i think in the twenty first century that we would see in such a over way the display of hate and bigotry that happened in virginia the loss of life you know my thoughts and prayers as are all of ours with heather's family the one thousand people who were injured and also the two law enforcement officers that lost their lives on the way there we cannot we cannot absolutely not tolerate that kind of open racism and bigotry in our country where we have

a long way to go and it is in the d.n.a. of the country and part of the reason why this is so shocking is because we have not been a perfect nation but one thing we can say we have been a nation of progress but we are being reminded that we are long overdue to really deal with the vestiges of racism and discrimination systemic racism and discrimination too i want to add layer because it's easy to look at what happened in charlottesville and as we should have right is indignation and stand unified as a country but going deeper than that we need to deal with systemic racism and bigotry in this country and we haven't done it i think it's time for truth and reconciliation in the united states of america do you think the president's initial statement. was disappointing. very much so i mean very he had he had the opportunity in that moment to unify this country morally and he failed to do it do you think he's a racist. well you know that's that's that's that's asking me to look into his heart i will say that what he has shown this country so far not just as president

united states with some of the things that he has done in the past has shown him not to be sensitive to issues of race and class but whether or not he is all races is for him to answer that question my thanks to nina turn in my thanks to you too for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget use the politicking hash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking we'll be right back with more politicking we'll continue the conversation with william cohen right after the break more with william cohen after the break nina turner is my guest and we'll have more with her right after this. about your sudden passing i phone lee just learnt you worry yourself and taken your last turn. up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry.

so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each. but then my feeling started to change you talked about more like it was again still some more fun to feel those that didn't like to question our arc and i secretly promised to never be like it's one does not need a funeral in the same as one enters mind it's consumed with this one different. speech because there were no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. for decades the american middle class has been railroaded by washington politics. big money corporate interests that's thrown down a lot of boys that's how it is in the new culture in this country now that's where

i come in. i mean it's still on our to you america i'll make sure you don't get railroaded you'll get the straight talk in the straight. question. hello i'm tom are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture is the trumpet ministration actually full of nazis or just people who like to play them on t.v. i'll ask around.