you are mcgrew slue former deputy secretary of labor and former white house cabinet secretary during the obama administration and joins us from seattle washington. well look the goal of trying to pressure the venezuelan government makes complete sense i'm not sure this is the exact way to do it our it will have a negative impact on our trading alliances with both your up in canada it could potentially spur retaliation against u.s. companies both in terms of their relations their trade relations with those areas as well as u.s. companies that are already doing business in cuba so to me this feels like get another effort by this administration to try to on wind up an important policy that was done by the obama administration and it's also a way to ratchet up trade pressures and so this doesn't strike me as the best way to accomplish their larger policy goal he seemed to be against cuba from the start

don't you think so. yeah well you know it's hard to tell whether that's based on a philosophical opposition to the government there and certainly that is there are many reasons to be concerned about what that government has done or whether this is simply about playing the politics of the cuban american population in florida and whether he's this is simply a plate an appeal to that group why the. new year intrusion what would be would be your. american relationship with cuba. well you know we have had this essentially an embargo on cuba. you know really for the last you know fifty years or so meanwhile european countries canada have actually had much looser trading relationships which have allowed their companies to do business and so what will essentially happen with this new policy is that it essentially allows us

nationals to basically bring actions against european companies kadian companies which could then trigger a whole series of trade retaliations going back and forth this is not unlike what we've seen really over the last two years in terms of the ongoing trade battles that not only include your canada mexico but really asia as well who would have the . cruise lines in. i don't think we do know that and i think this administration has tried to pull back some of that loosening of that that occurred during the obama administration so again i you know look taken to its logical extreme that would certainly deter those kinds of travel operations from increasing their business with cuba oh sure sure we do would then. well look this is a complicated situation and this is not necessarily

a partisan situation obviously the government there. you know there are questions about the legitimacy of the government there are questions about how they have serious concerns about how they have treated their people but i'm not sure this way is the right way to do it certainly diplomatic pressure economic sanctions are probably much more effective than a drum has a really good number of administration officials should bring in. these he said you like sat doing the do si do move more quickly move flexibility what do you make of a lot of acting and solutions. well i think it's problematic for the functioning of government when the secretary of homeland security left last week as well as the small business administrator that was the fifteenth turnover in the trump cabinet over the past just a little bit more than two years that's a record going back you know over the last forty years or so through presidents as

varied as reagan and clinton and so you not only have the turnover at a senior level of government you also have and throughout the government we have a vacancy right now running the f.a.a. which is in charge of airline safety we have a vacancy to be the bastard in mexico to time when we apparently have a national emergency on the border and so this cascades all the way down and ultimately the lack of this many permanent leaders impacts the function of government which ultimately impacts what the american people see in terms of the services that are delivered to them lou troubling his newly confirmed interior david bernhard is already under investigation by the department's inspector general in connection with a conflict of interest so many questions raised about how this administration vets its nominees what's your assessment of how they do it. well not well you know

i served in the obama white house for the first four years i ran president obama's transition we carefully vetted nominees not only in terms of their personal background but also in terms of their financial backgrounds as well and once these folks came into office we ensured that they adhere to government ethics rules what you have right now with the interior secretary is somebody who comes from. the industry the fossil fuel into has lobbied on behalf of industries that are regulated by the interior department and he's continued to maintain those relationships while he's supposedly serving the american people and so he's crossed the line allegedly in a number of different ways in terms of advocating for policy changes that were sought by his former clients we also have another story that has led to a new class set of calls for investigations that in terms of the public schedules that he has released they've essentially removed all references to meetings with

industry officials and so again it's you have to go back to this president saying he would drain the swamp he would change the culture in washington and that's all laudable unfortunately the people that he's put into place seem to embody the very swamp that he was supposed to be training when you make use reaction to troops for more. well it's a troubling move it's troubling on a number of respects it's probably illegal it's not clear that the department of homeland security has the authority to spend federal funds to relocate people to different parts of the country it also is troubling in an era of. it's troubling as an example of political retribution against his opponents that he's deliberately targeting states and cities that are controlled by democratic governors democratic

mayors you know and what i've been encouraged by is by the reactions of mayors in those cities who not only find this troubling but say look you know we are a city that wall comes immigrants and you saw that play out right here and where i am right now in seattle the mayor jenny durkan said look you know we don't think you should do this but if you do this we are walking in community and so please send them here rahm emanuel said that in chicago folks in california said that as well but this taken more broadly this this manipulation of immigrants coming to this country for political purposes is very disturbing how do you think. it would. destroy. well look this is really not just a tragedy in france it's really an international tragedy and you know all of our hearts go out to the people of france the people of paris and all those that

worship and have visited this this beautiful institution i've been there as well you know in incidences like this you know the american president really ought to sit back and you know i think it's troubled so many of us is this kind of you know backseat driving that this president has done you know he tweeted out that that we ought to take water tankers and drop water on top of the cathedral you know anyone who knows anything about you know how you put out fires so that's kind of a ludicrous idea had you done that that simply would have made the situation worse and collapse probably the walls of the cathedral you know what he is doing now in terms of offering us assistance to france to repair the cathedral is entirely appropriate and i commend him for doing that although it certainly begs the question why hasn't he offered that same level of assistance to the people of puerto rico who he continues to try to again. to claim some level of political retribution against them notwithstanding the fact that there are americans

thousands of americans who are still suffering there as a result of hurricane maria another thing like this which would sure. well i think overall the last two years have been. have really tested the norms of of democracy you know and literally every single day there is another instance were the president's behavior is kind of gone beyond what his you know forty four presidents have done what i'm encouraged by is that largely the guardrails of democracy have held up not well but they have held up congress i think in particular since january of this year has. remains some kind of check on government i wish the senate would be much more forceful in that but you've seen even more recently that a number of senate republicans are starting to push back on this and ministrations actions the press has been

a faithful guardian of our democracy notwithstanding the attacks by the president and you've seen this heightened level of engagement along people as well and so look these are challenging times in our country and you know. for people like me on the progressive side the you know the policy changes that this president has put through are deeply troubling but i think beyond that are his attacks on the foundations of our democracy are you good person. well that's a good question roy i'm optimistic and i'm pessimistic i'm optimistic as i said by the level of engagement among the american people you saw you know really record breaking turnout in the midterm elections last year you see this constant movement among young people to be more engaged there that goes back not only to the to the very day after the president's inauguration with a women's march but also the gun safety marches as well so in the sense that people

are understanding the importance of voting saying and gauge in their country that i'm optimistic about that i am discouraged however that by by these constant attacks on the rule of law on the free press on dissent in these countries and again this is not a partisan thing and if you go back to you know there were certainly strong feelings about president obama there are strong feelings about george w. bush during the iraq war but they understood that the role of these different institutions whether it was congress of the press the role that those institutions played in our democracy unfortunately this president doesn't understand or respect those other institutions lawyers always thanks for your time today great having you goodness. always thank you very much for more politicking going to the brick.

yard. russia says. you know we're big partners and to do. this 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 bath 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. and.

their of russian and lights. before you came here where did you work before you came here when you lived. in many us states capital punishment is still practiced convicted prisoners can spend years waiting for execution but most of the time the victims' families they are very much in favor the death penalty there are some people because of what they did

have given up the right to live among us somebody even proven innocent enough to years on death row and how many more exonerations is it going to take before we as a society realize that this is not working and we actually do something about. what house did last week in the crease the level of chaos across libya even if you win strictly that chaos we continue because there will be there. pockets of very very intensity systems for him across the country and i think i'm afraid like everybody else that this chaos belongs for a while is going at track more extremists from around africa and immediate. effect of politicking we turn now to our political panel they are political columnist amy holmes she's in new york and she fills in for us occasionally

brilliantly and in chattanooga tennessee brian joyce host of the brian joy's show on talk radio and on the f.m. game who is sure that this question with the tax returns he has who want to give them up the acting chief of staff says that it's a political stunt and democrats will never see his returns what is he hiding. well we don't know if he's hiding anything. well we don't know because democrats haven't said precisely what they're looking for they just want to get stacks and stacks of documents and comb through them and you know use whatever they can find against the president but here's what i think here's why i think the democrats need to be really careful this could turn into mutually assured destruction because the president of the united states he has the authority to ask for tax documents from anybody he likes so he could ask nancy pelosi or chuck schumer or any person on the

other side for precisely the same documents which by the way they don't release either our congressional leaders or not releasing a full accounting of their tax returns they generally they they list kind of a range of what their investments are and such are in terms of disclosure so i'm not sure democrats should want to go down this road there's also the second issue where some of actually raised which it would be illegal if they were to publicly reveal what they find in the president's tax returns that you're not supposed to be able to do that so i'm just not sure how productive this is going to be or if it's really good politics. but gevalt keep plugging. i think he's right that the democrats could easily find themselves falling into a trap here because trump as usual is refusing to obey by any sort of norms or rules or regulations of the presidency and the more that democrats push here i think the more dangerous it is for them they come off looking like they're begging

the president for this or they're demanding this and the more trump looks like the victim now you know larry back to your question as to whether or not the president is hiding something obviously he is if you asked me to show something to you and i have nothing to hide i will show it to you on the first request this is a man who three years into this process still refuses to show these tax returns and what democrats want to see is they want to see whether or not our president the president of the united states is being financially controlled by russian all of us and those rumors have been hanging over donald trump since before he ran for the presidency his own son has admitted that they got the financing for their golf resorts from the russians i would like to know if my president is controlled by russian oligarchs i want to find out. amy this week crazy restated his hope was transferring illegal immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities what do you make of that. well it's certainly been fascinating to

see the reaction of the democratic party and leaders of sanctuary cities saying wait a minute wait a minute we didn't really mean it we can't handle all of these people coming here his even share who i would assume you actually know larry tweeting that you know we don't have room we can't handle it we have all of these homeless people including homeless vets you know we cannot be absorbing all of these illegal immigrants and i think what needs to be said that isn't said enough is that many of these illegal immigrants crossing crossing our borders from that northern triangle they are coming here seeking asylum which they are not going to get and a lot are abusing the asylum process a lot of the smugglers are intentionally overburdening the asylum process so that people don't get their court dates they don't have to worry about it for years and years and years as they're living in the united states and putting down roots there is a very important statistic that viewers need to know and that's why i fiscal year two

thousand and sixteen only twenty thousand four hundred and fifty five people from all over the world were granted asylum in the united states that's it and among mexico and central america roughly only sixty six hundred well we're getting more than that per month most of these people will not get asylum most of them know it but they hope the asylum process is so-called up that basically it is a get out of jail free card ryan do you think this is an illustration frankly is just and to immigration. i don't think they are well yes i do think they're anti immigration but i think more than that they're just pro trolling democrats you know to this to this policy if that's what you want to call it of dumping illegal immigrants into sanctuary cities and people seeking asylum into same story cities look larry i think i bring some unique perspective to this because i grew up in a sanctuary city i grew up in somerville massachusetts one of the most densely

populated cities in america it's been a sanctuary city for thirty years that has a lower rate of violent crime lower not higher than the american average i think first of all amy is wrong some leaders of sanctuary cities have said hey if you want to give us the these illegal immigrants coming across the border saw the magaluf that i think i could never for out sorry more weeks i think i think democrats i will agree with this i think democrats have messed this up in the sense that they're universal response should have been number one this is a stupid idea much like a lot of the ideas coming out of this white house but number two sure son them are way they're great people i have a lower rate of violent crime in my saying to every city than you do in your nonsense to every city and i'll take all the illegal immigrants you want i think democrats kind of messed that up what do you make of these he's going to zoom in dream appointments to keep up that amy and the presumed servants vetter that way because you keep him in charge and through the events of purge we're going to going

on with secretary. well we have seen the president firing a lot of people particularly in the last week or two have resigned fire where they pushed the job i think that they were pushed and that the that this administration has had a very high turnover there's also a second reason why they might be acting you know having that terminology is for particularly for positions that require senate confirmation and not to have these ongoing battles about the president being able to staff his own administration so so long as they're acting then they don't go through that process but getting back to the immigration point you asked if the president is against immigration well in point of fact legal immigration has actually gone up under president trump to about just over a million than his present predecessor the united states normally takes in about one million legal immigrants per year so i don't think it's fair to say that the president is against illegal immigration since it's actually gone up since he's

become president brian what do you make of those young mans in south bend indiana how much noise you gonna make to you and pedal again xenu easy the new obama. i think he's going to make a ton of noise and i'm incredibly impressed by this man i mean larry what more can you say about people to judge the harvard graduate rhodes scholar afghanistan war veteran that worked for mckinsey and company one of the top consulting firms in the entire world the man speaks seven languages are sitting president can barely speak one the guy is he is clearly i would go ahead and say he's probably the most impressive candidate out of anybody democrat or republican now you know it'll be interesting to see just how steep this meteoric rise is but i think it's going to be very very difficult for republicans to run any kind of negative slander campaign on this man if they do they're going to run themselves into the they could find

themselves in a very difficult position too because you know obviously mayor pete is gay and i think that's one of the few things one of those sort of unwritten things that you don't necessarily unsaid things that you don't want to say. and i think the more maybe they go down the road of trying to attack him that way just last night i saw tucker carlson on fox news making some very very old homophobic comments about mary pete and i think the further they go down that trap which i think a lot of republicans probably will they're going to find themselves in a trap but as it stands right now i mean this guy is a very very impressive candidate amy does you know you. people to judge he doesn't worry me interests me and for many of the reasons that we just heard from brian in terms of his personal accomplishments are tremendously impressive but one thing that was left off to left off of that list is that he's only thirty seven and i

think that youth might you know count against him and youth and inexperience as we know is something that ronald reagan i was able to make quite a good joke about the other thing about mr putin judge is that he's a mayor of a relatively small you know mid sized town one hundred thousand people that's actually known for having quite a high crime rate so i think you know once we get past you know selling selling the man the personality and in seven languages in the rhodes scholarship and so forth when it gets down into policy what he's accomplished as mayor that he could be vulnerable we don't know right now we're in the honeymoon period but we know how even periods are short and there's certainly going to be a next democratic candidate to come along i mean the field just keeps getting bigger and bigger chunks is holding a campaign rally in wisconsin on the same night z. and you will white house correspondents' dinner in washington. that cleavage is not ending is. what can we say here larry you know i i as much as

i criticize this president i would like to find some kind words to say about him but the man is a coward he is just straight up a coward he seeks the safety of his base he seeks the safety of people he knows will will just bow down and praise every word that comes out of his mouth and he's afraid to appear at the white house correspondents' dinner i mean if it's it's a get we're in waters that are absolutely unprecedented waters unchartered waters i mean is it something that's really that important no it's not important but if the man was a real man you know like ronald reagan like barack obama like george w. bush he maybe suck it up buttercup and show up at the white house correspondents' dinner and have a laugh at himself he cannot do that because he is straight up a coward the president of the united states is a coward i hate to say it but it's true in this is just the latest example amy you know he did have a lot of fun and that there are going to all of those and there's not a lot on the kid themselves why would he not go. well i've been to them as well i

actually was the white house correspondents dinner where he stormed out with milady when president obama was you know taking his shots at donald trump i was sitting right on the aisle and i saw the expressions as they were walking past me in fact a lot of journalists think the white house correspondents dinner is absurd and don't go and have their own alternative functions friend of mine dana milbank he's told me at lake about what sort of self-congratulatory smug event it is and there's also another corresponds dinner for radio and television that many presidents don't show up to have been to them where the president wasn't in attendance his vice president or members of his cabinet so this whole idea that he's cowardly because he's not going to go there are plenty of people who think that this event is already bloated smaug overrated and needs to be taken down a peg thank you guys need see again soon thank you larry. bryan joyce that

robin. thank you for joining me on this edition of the politicking number you can join the conversation on my facebook page intrigue me it can use engine don't forget to use the politicking hash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking. aeroflot russian and lights. 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 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 we're watching closely watching the hawks. aeroflot russian airlines.

he was just six would just have conditionally to capitulate as i live eight here if they didn't feel confident. funny. nina. i wish we had learned things and the smiles and this is it you know for everyone and why some people's wants to take our things all the power just for themselves and to see whether.

in the headlines this hour smarts international a much anticipated report dispels two years of media speculation on russia collusion between the twenty sixth presidential elections in the us that i was in silence the attacks on trump and the democrats falling a new angle. no collusion no obstruction the president trumpeting gauged in the destruction of justice certainly obstructed justice multiple attempts by the present to mislead the country. the top stories we're covering described as an historic and a moral duty by the greek premier athens now demanding three hundred billion euro from germany.