i don't think i'd be worried legally though you never know you should always be worried being worried is a good thing it's prudent if you're a defense lawyer you're always worried and if you're a defendant you should be worried i don't think he's in legal jeopardy but i do think the report will be politically very critical and that won't be the right thing to do you know prosecutors are not supposed to express political opinions nor are they supposed to express opinions on the goodness or badness of a defendant that was commies mistake when he went after hillary clinton after declaring that she had committed no crime he then said that in his opinion she had engaged in and then he described her conduct in very negative ways i don't think that a report should contain anything other than allegations either of criminal conduct or no criminal conduct i think that a pining on the virtue advice of a person is beyond the scope of a prosecutor specially since the prosecutor only hears one side of the story you have said that president trumps decision to declare a national emergency to build

a wall and a mistake ok is it is also a constitutional era. well it may be the constitution provides that all spending bills must originate in the house of representatives this is in some respects an end run around that calling it an emergency doesn't make it so an emergency usually is something that has happened so suddenly like nine eleven or pearl harbor that congress may not have time to act in the president has to make a decision himself but here this is been a problem that we've suffered with for many many many years moreover congresses are already authorized over two billion dollars that he can start building the wall with so i don't see the emergency and i think at least some courts will say we don't see the emergency what the supreme court will decide nobody can tell because there are two new justices and some just as may say look we can't second guess a presidential declaration of emergency other judges will say no we have to look to see whether this is

a circumvention of the constitutional provision that spending bills start in the house of representatives must be voted on by congress i don't think it's an emergency of congress says to the president no that's part of their constitutional authority that's part of our system of checks and balances if the supreme court let's say decides in trump's favor the next president could declare climate change and national emergency health i'm ashleigh merge and see right here and presidents have you know look this all started with thomas jefferson when he bought louisiana louisiana purchase without authorization from congress and a lot of people said my god the president has exceeded his authority lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus franklin delano roosevelt put one hundred ten thousand innocent japanese americans in detention centers truman seized the seal nels so we've had a lot of presidential expansion of power and i think it's only getting worse i don't think the framers had in mind expanding the presidential power in this way i

think they really thought that the power to spend should be with the congress not with the president. did the president make a mistake when he said in making his announcement that he could do the wall over a longer period time i don't need to do this right now but i think i should hurry it up doesn't that take away from yet word emergency yes i think it did it made it clear that this wasn't really an emergency that he was doing it to circumvent the power of congress that turned him down whether the courts will hold that against them or not we just don't know courts differ as to whether you look at presidential statements or just the action that the president took. this what do you think the court everyone is saying now the chief justice will be the new kennedy and he's going to divide between four and four and he'll be the fifth and spending cases do you expect that well i knew john roberts when he was

a student at harvard law school and i've met him on several occasions since i have a very high regard for him i think he understands that the role of chief justice is different from the role of an associate justice he has to maintain the integrity of the supreme court and i think he will do what he thinks is best for the united states supreme court so i think he will be a fifth vote on some issues i think judge kavanaugh may be a fifth vote on some issues he may surprise some people i think one of the first issues will see is the review of the recent decision regarding restrictions on abortion rights so it'll be interesting chief justice did grant the deciding vote on the stay but that doesn't tell us necessarily how will vote when the case comes if it comes to the supreme court on the merits. allen do you see the war as a necessity. well i see border security as a necessity i don't think it has to be in the form of a wall look i think many of us favor israel putting up

a wall separating the west bank from israel proper and a wall in the gaza or at least the security fence security fences are necessary to protect the public a wall is a symbol though and i think it's a mistake to think of it as a wall but thinking of it a security barrier makes some sense will provide one hundred percent security of course not it's drugs are smuggled in legally to the country and through other ways and of course drug smugglers will figure out ways of circumventing anything you build but i'm not against security i'm not against preventing illegals from coming into the united states i think we ought to be more lenient in letting people come in the united states generally but they have to come in legally the new york times reports that trump asked then acting attorney general would act to put his ally an appointee u.s. attorney jeffrey berman in charge of the southern district of new york's case against michael cohen this despite the fact that moment over the recused themselves is that stories right one of the implications for trump and for whitaker wrecked

the department of justice thomas jefferson told his attorney general to prosecute aaron burr and it not only that he he gave witnesses immunity and threatened witnesses so historically and constitutionally the president is in charge of every branch of the government under the unified executive theory should he be doing it no he shouldn't be doing it president shouldn't be interfering with the administration of justice particularly when it involves people who are close to them and people who might testify against them so i think what he did if it's true is wrong but probably not unconstitutional what do you make about the acting former f.b.i. director andrew mccabe's new book which he says of fissions discuss the possibility of invoking the twenty fifth amendment. well i think if it's true that official seriously thought about invoking the twenty fifth amendment that's a very very damaging and dangerous phenomenon the twenty fifth amendment was

designed for woodrow wilson having a stroke ronald reagan having been shot president kennedy having been assassinated it was designed for a president who is unable to fulfill his duties for physical or very obvious psychiatric reasons for example james forrest though when he was secretary of defense was a paranoid schizophrenic who believe the russians were sending missiles after many jumped out of the high floor of the walter reed building killing himself that's the kind of psychosis or physical disability the twenty fifth amendment was intended to address not disagreements over policies not even criminal conduct even if you believe that the president engaged in criminal conduct with russia that's grounds for impeachment but it's not grounds for removal of the twenty fifth amendment so it was a serious serious breach to even consider if it was done seriously invoking the twenty fifth amendment following muller's indictment roger stone you said that mullah has found almost no crimes that occurred before he was appointed special

counsel you suggested virtually sailed to do the job he was appointed to do you still feel that way about mullah. i do i like mullah personally i think he's a person of very high integrity but if you look at the three categories of cases that he has really managed to go after there are crimes that were committed called process crimes after he becomes special prosecutor people who lives a serious crimes people who lied people who misled things that occurred after the investigation began then there are things that occurred before the investigation began but they related to taxi medallions bank fraud those are just efforts to squeeze people to get them to testify against the real target and then the third category are russians people who are in. right it will never be brought to the united states so at the moment i don't see that there was much of a justification for bringing on a special counsel but we have to wait and see have been open mind let's see what

the mother of four contains maybe it'll have smoking guns that we're not aware of that would surprise me but i think we all have to keep an open mind. and has seen a more chaotic two years i'm in and been description. larry we've been around equally long those of us and i think we can both say we live in interesting times no i've never seen the first two years as as chaotic as this. you know there was had problems over the years but i've never seen anything quite to parallel this but our system of checks and balances working president doesn't get everything he wants congress tops him the courts occasionally stop him the public stops and consider when you try to separate families at the border there was a revolution the public said no the media saw that he had to change it so democracy is thriving in america i don't see democracy in danger the sky is not falling in is

the result of this administration our constitution is being tested but it's passing the test alan as always thanks for your time today be well. you two you two will be back with more politicking right after the break. aeroflot russian airlines. you know world a big part of the new digs a lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to

stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. aeroflot russian headlights. live.

shots seemed wrong. wrong just don't. get to shape out these days because. absolutely and. because betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart. just to look for common ground. from the plus lead the boy is known to keep the slums or sneak the focus on the best of you so he's. one of the. easiest to just the dumbest of us because it's the most good movie didn't. really.

seem less. want to. join me everything on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guests of the world of politics school business i'm show business i'll see you then. go back to politicking return that i had committed to. democratic strategist former senior aide to senator chuck schumer he's in new york and in washington adolfo franco former member of the george w. bush administration he served as assistant administrator for usa id and he was also a spokes person for both john mccain and mitt romney's presidential campaigns ok

gentlemen michael roberts is expected to wrap up the investigation next week. what's what's your read michael what do you expect i think if i had any sort of a read i would be much more popular much more important than i really am and anybody who claims i have the inside track on this is making things up whether we have alternately a fairly damning set of facts. that fall short of a criminal indictment who gets indicted what it looks like maybe it's just a holding pattern while the report continues and the investigation continues we just don't know yet but one thing is for sure every presidential candidate on the democratic side looking to run in two thousand and twenty and i think that list is growing by the day will pounce on this and our inbox is going to be flooded with fundraising appeals and reporters are going to have a field and. she was in the previous segment city into some place that attorney general william will rule the model report do you agree well i i can't imagine that

he wouldn't i haven't been a while i've been awash in a long time like the two of you and i have never seen anything be kept secret i really haven't so i think it will be made public it actually should be made public and if there's anything redacted it really should be for national security purposes that i don't think would affect the bottom line of the report so i completely agree with that but one of the things that professor dershowitz says that a completely agree with is a think in all fairness says it is this is a report that the special counsel prepares is the big be an opportunity for the president's legal team to review the report and actually have a report prepared that gives or corrects from their perspective the set of facts course this is done all the time routinely as michael knows working for senator schumer there's always an offer in the senate a majority in the house as well majority report in the minority report giving to

a different perspective so i think that would be in the interest of fairness to the best thing to do michael who do you think has the most to be worried about. you know i would say the president but i simply don't think he's wired that way i think everything is about a rally and everything is about undercutting the credibility whoever it is out there that's criticizing him or investigating him as you and professor dershowitz discussed so i would say the president but i simply don't think he sees it that way because he believes everybody is persecuting him and everybody is out to get him i think ultimately some of the trump children i think some of the folks around him in the campaign and i think ultimately former mayor giuliani the attorney the president's attorney is going to have a lot of explaining to do adolfo in twenty fifteen you testified in the senate homeland security committee about securing the u.s.

border and any part of your testimony plus vied the situation along the border as a national emergency did you agree with that did you think it was a national emergency in twenty cysteine i did i actually did think that i had a when i testified before the committee in two thousand and fifteen i think the situation has only gotten worse since two thousand and fifteen and it was pretty bad at that time i don't i can't imagine now anybody can serious an emergency that goes to sovereignty this is all the political show in theater over the type of security you have the democrats have said repeatedly that they're for border security have she they've actually border for barriers and fences and things of that kind in the past so this has to do with the president's promise about the border wall that's just one of the instrumentalities course the president's plan is far beyond that but there is no question that for example the areas that we know

that michael's going to talk about the ports of entry and so forth which are of legitimate concern is we don't know what we don't know and what i mean by that is that area of the border where where there are no barriers where there is car obviously not a port of entry. we have no idea of the volume of drugs and gang related and and frankly legal immigration that that's ongoing so to secure our border and put the fences that exist in europe exist in israel and they absolutely appropriate this is a michael started talking about the talking points for democrats but they want to do in two thousand and twenty is campaign against the wall and this is what this is about not serious they're not really serious opposed to to border security that would include a ball a border wall under normal circumstances the public polls say the public's against the war well the there is they've also been plummeted by the press the mainstream media has has been extremely critical that down things of that kind i would venture to say that president trump won the nomination and the election because of the wall

and because of the immigration issue so i think it's it's politically popular if it's framed in the right way and i think the president will be using it as a centerpiece in two thousand and twenty for his re-election the supreme court i am most assuredly on the other side of this issue but interestingly and i'm going to get some angry e-mails and calls from my colleagues about this i understand why the state attorneys general are filing their lawsuit and i understand their argument and i agree with a lot of what professor dershowitz said in terms of doing an enron or a side order congress suspending powers however i think it's a very risky gambit i think ultimately the courts and i've spent the past several weeks and i few pages at a time rereading the book that was made into a movie vice about dick cheney and his decades long quest to expand presidential power i think ultimately however the national emergency or national crisis has defied that i get i agree with some of those definitions i think ultimately the

courts wind up siding with the president's ability to decide what is a national emergency at how to address it almost separate and apart from the facts in this specific. case in the politics in this case but rather the courts will be loath to curtail a president unilaterally acting as that ultimately fall the. plainest commander in chief so therefore future presidents could declaim claim helps the national emergency climate or climate change absolutely do you agree it was better davo well i don't completely agree with michael on this the only thing i would add is that both democrats and republican presidents have been expanding presidential party powers to professor dershowitz aerotow said sense at least the you know the one thousand century and certainly since the one nine hundred thirty s. with franklin roosevelt so both have done that but there is your michael's absolutely right and i agree with with him on this says there's either a further complication for the lawsuits against the president or the position taken

by the congressional democrats is that there is a statute of course in the one nine hundred seventy s. that is so broadly written doesn't define a national emergency that the courts by nature rule very narrowly and that is the authority is there it's up to congress to go back and either repeal that legislation which would send a strong signal of the courts or define a national emergency and limit the president's authority but right now is as it's read and i went back as you did michel and read it is it's wide open and it's very difficult for me to imagine that the supreme court would. would declare a so broadly that they mean the courts would start to define what a national emergency is i don't think they'll do that so i will what does it what do you think it is no especially troubling i'm sorry what is so especially troubling is that everything we're talking about is about politics and there are very real world real world consequential policies being discussed and implemented or not and the only thing the president sees is politics and to be fair the only thing the democrats see right now are presidential two thousand and twenty campaign

politics in davos. what do you make of the president's attacks on his own department of justice. well i don't think the president is attacking to be partner just as i think he's attacking individuals that have had. i think from the beginning a partisan. i think agenda i know that michael's going to say the republicans my gosh washington is full of never trump burgers and a lot of republican chris stablish meant critics so i think it's on the in not on the apartment of justice and the people who do the work on behalf of the american people a daily basis but the leadership in those individuals that for example in the case of. mr mccabe that at the f.b.i. and mr rosenstein sitting around a group report professor dershowitz dershowitz really plotting a soft coup using the twenty fifth amendment which was never designed for that for

because of their opinions of the president's exercise of his authority was somehow nefarious without any basis what to do so i think that's what's most troubling so i am beginning to believe as the president has said many times that there are a lot of people in part in the bureaucracy that have never accepted his legitimacy that have never wanted him to be president are doing everything possible to undermine him michael politically what about the split in the democratic party the progression wing in the establishment wing is that where you oh it certainly does it seems that a lot of the heat and a lot of the activism a lot of the energy is on the far left but i think we see the tail wagging the dog and i think this was evidenced by this new member of congress that attacked a pac and was immediately condemned by all parts of our party although some other folks rolled their eyes that something that people who have more experience and

a deeper history and understanding of the cadence and rhythm of these things even if you have a strong. that was just a unforced error that i think we're going to be seeing a lot more of but i think ultimately this is going to impact who gets through the early caucuses and primaries and whether or not a joe biden decides to get in the race to subject themselves to the criticisms of the far left before getting to the more mainstream midwestern northern plains southern primaries i this is this is going to me i personally find it very troubling because i'm more of an establishment moderate centrist until the road kind of person and then you have to middling don't thank no both certainly isn't saying thank you i don't vote michael thank you both thank you for joining us of new zealand vision michael o'berry on the exact.

error of slow motion and light it's. you know world of big partisan movies a lot of things and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell us more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the back and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the troops the time is now we're watching closely for watching the hawks.

aeroflot russian and lions. because there's plenty of survival guide substation just like all the stores simply travel all the surfaces. he should be going to get a pass. repatriations look at the rest to seventy. delegates separate cars kaiser report.

it. was. the latest on. this that. there was a building also up. in the him a new question about how they. look. for the look i. don't want the money i don't want to go about. how much is it really going to. miss the need to. own. a full stomach we have been down. there and you know that a little off and you know what.

shall i do. this i will. mean. my dough for sixteen months and i said did you know. just. isis fighters. philippine people should. not fall. in the. us still don't know who watch waiting for them. can you tell my lucky.

stars. that i get out of. them the way. the top headlines are to international two people have reportedly been killed in venezuela and a standoff at a checkpoint near the border with brazil that's made growing tensions over international aid deliveries. also coming up british arms contracts with saudi arabia all thrown into germany refused to lift a ban on supplying certain components to the gulf kingdom. the u.s. actor was accused of faking a hate crime against himself just the small it's plain that he was assaulted by

a double trump supporters had led to an outpouring of sympathy and support.