welcome to politicking i'm matthew cook in for larry king coming up later in the program consumer advocate and former presidential candidate ralph nader joins me stick around for that but 1st a setback for donald trump's effort to keep his personal financial information from the hands of congress this week a federal judge sided with democrats in the house oversight committee who've been trying to access trump's financial information for months so where does the legal fight go from here let's start there with dan abrams chief legal affairs correspondent for a.b.c. news and co-author of the new book theodore roosevelt for the defense the courtroom battle to save his legacy dan joins me now from new york city dan welcome to the program out there so let's get to your fascinating book shortly right now we've got some crazy developments going on between the law and the trump administration so what's happening. this is an interesting case because here you've got the banks

sort of stuck in the middle right saying we'll do whatever you tell us to do you subpoena the documents we'll give them to you oh wait a 2nd the trump folks are telling us we can't you guys figure it out and so now there is this battle between the trump folks and congress over whether he asked to allow in effect this material to be released and this 1st court district court level very fast decision basically saying there is really no legitimate argument against releasing this information in essence congress has the power to request this accounting information these financial documents etc so it's going to appeal what's what's their argument i mean the judge said i mean it seems pretty obvious to me a layperson i'm not a lawyer but if congress has the power to remove the president how in the congress

not have the power to investigate him what's the argument so the argument on the other side would be when congress is in gauging its oversight right there's no impeachment on the table yet we're not an impeachment inquiry we're not an impeachment trial so congress has to provide some sort of legitimate legislative reason for wanting something they can't just say we can have anything for any reason we want to but you can it you can create a lot of different kinds of reasons for why you need it and here the most important argument is michael cohn basically told us told us congress that there was all sorts of financial shenanigans going on and the only way that we're going to know if that's true and engaging in our broader oversight of whether there is potentially any ongoing criminal conduct is for us to get this information and the judge is basically saying yeah that's a good enough reason i was surprised to see him throwing in the reference to. impeachment because you're right congress has the power to in to enter into an

impeachment proceeding but they're not there yet so it doesn't seem directly relevant to me yet in terms of where we are why do you think the judge did that. i think because it's look there's a fine line between oversight and an impeachment inquiry right democrats are sort of weighing oh should we should we begin the impeachment inquiry and yet it does change some things legally a little bit but as a practical matter they're still going to have to fight to get these witnesses they're still going to have to fight to get this information there's still going to be court battles whether you call an impeachment inquiry or you call it oversight and so i think what the judge in effect is saying is look part of this oversight could lead to impeachment and as a result if if the mower investigation is basically saying a sitting president can't be indicted and therefore congress is the only way that a president can be held accountable well then of course congress has to be able to

get access to this kind of information so any any predictions how does this play out somebody ministrations now appealing yeah so i think that from the trumpet ministrations position it's let's take this as long as we can they were not happy that the judge fastrack this i think they're trying to play out the clock because their legal arguments are not particularly strong i mean you know look there are so many different pieces here in terms of what we've been talking about there's the tax returns there are witnesses testifying there are these documents there are all these different legal fights going on in there different legal analyses that go into each one of those but on the whole i think that team knows that they have relatively weak arguments on most of them not all of them but on most of them and as a result their best hope is to play out the clock so now we have former white house counsel done again and he's defied a subpoena by the white house to destroy the committee he's refused to testify

before the panel now what happens what happens with him you know look i get i don't quite view it as as much sort of defying i mean yes he didn't show up he was subpoenaed it's not inaccurate to use the word defy but i guess all i'm saying. is that when the president of the united states says this person is not allowed to testify i am insisting that this person a has immunity and b i'm not permitting it you know it would be defying the president in essence for mcgann to go testify so it's not surprising that this is going to work its way through the courts that's a likely again a losing argument for the trump team the only time that very question of is an inside the executive branch adviser immune from testimony from testifying came up the answer was no they're not immune the only time it's come up in court so it's not a strong argument but again the question's going to be when how long is this going

to take is this unprecedented have we seen these kind of court battles before when's the last time we've seen these individual issues come up in different ways we've never seen i don't think is the number of them is the sweeping nature of the trump administration's refusal to comply with congressional requests they're basically saying across the board we're not giving you anything we're not going to assist the congressional investigation i should say assist we're not going to comply with congressional subpoenas in any way shape or form and in fact even when you go to independent parties like banks we're going to fight you there as well that's what makes it sort of unprecedented not the individual fights it's the totality of it so now congressional democrats are struggling to secure robert mueller and get him get him testifying so do you think he's going to appear and if

he does what happens. you know i do think i do think they'll work something out for robert mueller to appear i think his testimony will be unsatisfying to many democrats i think he won't answer the. key questions that they want for example you know would you have indicted the president but for. the office of legal counsel opinion that a sitting president can't be indicted i don't think he's going to answer that he's going to say you know that that's not appropriate so i think there's going to be frustration on the part of congressional democrats if and when he testifies but i do think that you know i think that he it's important for him to testify i don't see how i mean for now barr could say he's not allowed to but how long is miller going to actually work for bars was a private citizen at some point robert will have to make his own decision all right let's talk about your book what are what are some key facts about the 915 libel

case that you cover in theodore roosevelt for the defense. imagine the former president of the united states one of the most iconic presidents ever being sued for libel he accused the republican party boss of being corrupt the guy susan teddy roosevelt and testifies for 8 days in his own defense on cross-examination by an attorney who does not like him personally or politically it's a fascinating story that has somehow become a footnote to history so we've taken the $3000.00 plus page transcript of this trial that no one really knows about almost no one does and told the whole story surrounding this case that was front page news throughout this country for weeks with the former president on the witness stand and you know when we look back at history a lot of the time we see speeches right we talk about presidential writing speeches

this is totally unvarnished this is theodore roosevelt being questioned being peppered being challenged about his legacy and it is just fascinating stuff i think and we tell the story in in the book how did you find this how did you how did you come across it this is a 2nd in a series our 1st book was called lincoln's last trial and that was a transcript of the only transcript that exists in any case that lincoln argued and we were amazed that that had been forgotten to history and so as we were working on that book we said you know i wonder if there are any others out there that are interesting where we could actually find the trial transcripts and in the lincoln case we only had like witness testimony about 100 pages here in this roosevelt trial we've got the full typed transcript of every word that was said in the case beginning with the pretrial motions until the verdict what are some standout

moments of the testimony. well the so when the allegation is that this guy was corrupt i think one of the most interesting pieces obviously is the cross-examination not when roosevelt is just responding to his own lawyer but when he's responding to the other side's lawyer and the other side's lawyer is trying to show that roosevelt was just as corrupt as the people he was accusing of corruption he was no better than them was the was the allegation and watching a very angry roosevelt defend himself against campaign donations he got and actions he took and meetings he had was just fascinating because you know what a lot of the same issues arise today about money and politics about campaign contributions and what people expect from them and again as if you are at all a student of history you've got to find theodore roosevelt to be one of the most

interesting and exciting presidents now imagine i'm on the witness stand ok so that's sort of it's extremely exciting and it's kind of depressing that we're covering the same issues a century ago that we are now how do you think the story is going to resonate with readers to that well look i think that that's going to be what's going to really resonate is this idea that wow these same issues existed back then and by the way donald trump is being sued right now so you know it is possible that donald trump will end up having to testify in one of the civil cases either during his presidency or after and we could see a kind of similar situation because donald trump is also accused of defamation in certain cases so there is almost a direct parallel there are also you know comparisons that can be made between teddy roosevelt and donald trump donald teddy roosevelt was very critical of judge's rulings he insulted his opponents with nicknames he called new york and my

. to choose to it's liberal shrilly unix back in the day. and on the other hand there are comparisons where you'd say that they were nothing alike cared enormously about the environment. he cared about alliances he cared enormously about truth and probity so i think that looking at this case and looking after today's prism there's a little bit for everyone but there's no question that it will resonate and look this is you know roosevelt and lincoln are considered the 2 greatest republicans you know of all time and it's a really it's a fascinating book it's called theodore roosevelt for the defense the courtroom battle to save his legacy it's out and it's available everywhere including for download dan thank you so much for your time today matthew my pleasure more politicking after the break.

are we entering an era. and a flag money no money with flags on it or part of a hope paid or royal person could make. the lakes is empty of forms part of a high altitude nation was. it's one of the famous teetotal indonesia's principal waterway stunts its journey. but that's going to be some. kind of like i said and. it

runs 300 kill me. because from source to mouth and there are over $200.00 industrial facilities range the its banks. and mad and your muscle. diana into 3 things. i don't like to tell them a good deal but. the room here again screw the 4000 rice fields and supplies drinking water to 25000000 people. at the one point yes or so made by so many of us about us from have a perfect. this is a story about what happens auster a stray bullet kills a young girl in the street. what happens to her family and daughters in florida you know the mother daughter is buried in a cemetery in healing messes with your head what happens to the community the

public was screaming for a scapegoat the police needed a scapegoat so why not choose a 19 year old black kid with a criminal record who better to pin this on than him and what happens in court be the. shock shock as far society we feel. we don't know childress for the. end of this trial unfortunately due to the will still not know who killed just. walking back to politicking on matthew cox sitting in for larry king ralph nader is the longtime activist and consumer watchdog who has also made 4 runs for the oval office twice as the green party candidate and also as an independent candidate

what's his take on pursuing impeachment. president donald trump and his opinion of the group of 2020 democratic candidates let's find out as ralph joins me via skype he is also the author of a new book how the rats reform to congress which is available now ralph welcome to the program thank you matthew so the democratic base has been really angry since the 2016 election and we were all expecting they were going to push for radical progressive change so now we have joe biden leading in the polls is joe biden progressive enough oh no not really hillary redux east window or hillary folks new york joe biden who has gone to the big banks when he was in congress he was merciless against student loans bush you know bankruptcy law that would make it almost impossible for students to have a 2nd chance and he supported the war in iraq. just for starters so

he did very. deep representative of the democratic national committee which knows how to lose elections like no other political committee so is biden's popularity a result of. a mass marketing campaign by the democratic establishment or is this really the nature of the democratic party well at this early stage matthew is largely name recognition almost everybody knows joe biden's been around saugus a senator 8 years vice president barack obama and the african-american vote gives him the benefit of the doubt for now because he was with barack obama i think as the months until i'm so to the end of the year the polls may be changing that's why she has more of the $24.00 candidates start dropping out so of these $24.00 candidates who do you like. well i think a strong ticket would be bernie sanders and elizabeth warren or vice verse i think

that would be a really powerful ready one in ticket these 2 candidates understand busy the dread fear anxiety economic plight and dash dreams of tens of millions of americans have written about it they can try to. busy there for real and so who won the left right now who have the candidates would you not support in 2000 and 21st almost none of them are on the left because if you do find a leftist candidate to support policies that are not supported by majority of the people if you list the policies of lose with ward and a bernie sanders you can hardly find one that isn't supported by a majority sometimes a vast majority of the american people brooke you know the big banks on wall street to pick to fail that came in a 90 percent living wage full medicare fraud cracking down on corporate crime

against consumers and and workers supporting solar energy that one comes in any and you 5 percent we're talking concert room liberal holders we're talking about an unbeatable political force so i would call them centrists because a centrist supports policies would you buy a majority of the people in column left has got it there are a couple of candidates andrew young marianne williamson who also support the same policies that you just brought up what are their chances what are the chances of somebody coming out of out of left field and i don't mean politically it will i always like as many voices and choices for the voters so put me down is supporting anyone who wants to exercise a 1st amendment rights of speech petition assembly and run for president i think is healthy and you're not received after the 1st under 2 or 3 primaries going to probably. see the number going up to about 4. letson before we talk about your book

we've been covering facebook on this program a lot which seems to have a monopoly on communications how we get our news how we interact with our our social networks and so forth what's your position on facebook said it be broken up is there such a thing as consumer protections for social networks what would that look like. well what i might add matthew would do complicity of tens of millions of americans who both give huge amount of personal information free to facebook and no charge and they rely on facebook or lot and no use instead of watch you know their news sources so there is this complicity and i think all of us have a responsibility i don't touch. anything. now in terms of any trust there's one 1st stage easy easy case. make them sell off whatsapp in instagram that's traditional any drugs they should never been allowed to buy this gigantic

global what $1000000000.00 and instagram because that is excessive market control stifling competition as far as facebook so i think you have to deal with the privacy issue you have to get much more power to the users whose facebook likes to say they do but they don't because when users started organizing saying facebook users group if facebook threatened lawsuit trademark violation the new user said why are we going to identify yourself we're going to call us a sucker for years or. so i think the federal trade commission is going to grow a set of teeth because it's got nothing but gums there's a big fine coming out against facebook and maybe $5000000000.00 drop in a book it's going to be much more it's going to be what it one have to see commissioner said structural change and behavioral change that is you get rid of

certain bad directors and officials but you have structural change because for facebook $5000000000.00 is cost of doing business yeah i think their advertising profits were $55000000000.00 the last i looked so let's talk about your new book it's called how the rats reforms congress and you call it a fable so what's the moral of the marlin's that almost every problem americans are concerned about it's widespread in the country can be removed or men diminished by simply controlling $535.00 men and women and a congress and i don't mean all of them say a majority of them or even a 60 percent of them is that too hard we've got 435 congressional districts i've written in red in above and i said what do you think's wrong with this country needs to be. we should have a living wage we should have cleaner water we should have cleaner elections i said

it well who's going to do that and they say you know i guess what the people yeah but the people using the most part fo branch of government and the smallest branch whose names we all know the u.s. congress so i decided my frustration with you and i wanted to write a book that would make people laugh themselves seriously enough to build congress what rat watchers roots group on there are 2 senators or representatives and this book is full of humor but it's typically serious and it gives you the people power over your politicians don't you want are you tired of being pushed around disrespected looted and exploited you know under insured under paid and this is an indictment it's never been more concise on one page and if you go to rats reform congress dot org you can see a tutorial on how to start with

a letterhead your small congress watch dog group and build it so that you reach a point where you can summon your senators and representatives to your own time meetings on your own agenda 500 clearly written names with the e-mails and occupations will get you a senator 300 will get you a u.s. representative now is that he can you please stop him who do i now know and that's why i met you people are ordering this book 5 at a time. because i think they want to have neighbor hood discussions or living room discussions it's all about congress cut congress is the chief tool whether we like it or not to turn this country around top down bottom up writes reform congress dot org that sounds terrific so so one of the topics that's in the book is wall street reform right what would you like to see done and what are you advising us in

your book a lot of things 1st of all we've got a pretty good stock buybacks there been 7 trillion dollars of stock my backs in the last 10 years they don't produce a single job they increase the metrics for executive compensation formulas for the c.e.o. and the present company and they reflect bad management because if you have some trillion dollars of profits which come from you the consumer don't you have something better to do it like you could increase a we'd use a wal-mart you could improve the pension fund that general electric you can engage in productive activity and create more jobs you can and shore up the infrastructure and deal with your pollution supply chain like apple doesn't do apple is so is on the verge of writing back $300000000000.00 of stock buybacks you know that's almost half the military budget i'm here talking money so you can

be used to productive purposes and a lot of my colleagues who i went to law school ready other places who basically worked on wall street have told me when they see that management doing stock buyback they said it best not capable management because they don't have anything more important to do i think also i think we have to do is strengthen investors. sure olders own the company but they don't control their hired hands control their own ors this is ridiculous it's upside down corporate countless once we get mutual funds and pension funds and individual shareholders power then you've got democratic capitalism all kinds of things flow from because there will own the controlling number of shares under a new york stock exchange and there's no and i don't think they're going to move against their own interest when you're talking about tens of millions of americans who have money in vanguard fidelity teaches retirement and tens of millions

americans who have were pensions now didn't bernie sanders and chuck schumer work on a bill to prevent stock buybacks yes but it's going nowhere because. mitch mcconnell is in wall street's pocket in more ways than one and up until recently you know they controlled the house of representatives i think the key bill that might start moving is by timmy baldwin senator from wisconsin and i think if you had a vote 10 and i think over half the people would vote the right wing congress but they're not the most powerful people in congress they're not mitch mcconnell frank ralph thank you so much for your time today thank you very much matthew best wishes to larry king and go to rats reform congress not over for your own power over congress and the future of our country and thank you for joining me on this edition of politicking also thanks to larry king for letting me sit in this chair today

remember we love hearing from you join the conversation on larry's facebook page and as always you can share your thoughts on twitter by tweeting at king's things and using the politicking hash tag i also invite you to join me on facebook at matthew cook official and that's all for this edition of politicking. the tense situation in venezuela is still all over the news the problem in venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been phased only implemented for inside venezuela things look different we're going to announce sanctions against petroleum's to venezuela associate. in the school that could have a supplement to. get out of that political battle song oh yeah because the

map of the moment the focus of the whose story isn't new nixon called in henry kissinger to tell him that it would not be tolerated that in latin america an alternative that konami and social system could take hold and therefore the policy would be to make the chilean economy scream so wants now making the economy of venezuela screed. after the previous stage of my career was over everyone wondered what i was going to do next the multiple different groups on one hand it is logical to sit in the home fields where everything is familiar on the other i wanted a new challenge and the fresh perspective i'm used to surprising number one i'll tell you that. i'm going to talk

about football not the or else you can see goals are going to go. by the way what is it the. washington announces 17 new challenges on the wiki leaks founder julian assange if convicted he faces up to 10 years in jail on each count generalists andante wrists around the world are condemning the additional charges against the united states as a an assault on press freedom. hidden danger is the report claims hundreds of household items sold in the new which contain home full chemicals. 5 more years the world's biggest election seems that sees the incumbent prime minister handed another time in india we look at whether they perceived elite next of its closeness rival perfect turnoff to.