donald trump opens up a new front in the co the 19 war this time against the world health organization the experts will weigh in on this edition of politics. on tuesday president trump announced that he would do with the whole contributions to the world health organization and blame the agency for not alerting his it ministration to the dangers of the coronavirus for reaction and i'm joined by andrew sullivan former acting administrator of the centers for medicare and medicaid during the obama administration he joins us from minnesota what's your reaction and into. strong and the w.h.o.

well thanks for having me on. you know this is it's not an opportune time to start to defund any efforts at public health i think that should be hopefully obvious to most people you know donald trump is no fan of global institution and i think he certainly would want to take steps to make sure that blame is placed didn't places other than where he is i'm not suggesting that the w.h.o. did its job perfectly here i think the weather today b.h.o. the c.b.c. or anybody else plenty of blame to go around but in the middle of a crisis to take the feet up the street that you need in the middle of a global epidemic doesn't make a lot of sense to me was the obama admin and what the obama administration is you know would have been prepared for this. well look it's hard it's hard to prove a negative i think i think i'd say 2 things one is there was

a. structure in place that would have been able to respond more quickly and i think that's that's the 1st thing the 2nd thing is that. they would have probably no other administration to whether it's nobody else i think would have been highly unlikely that they would spend january and february ignoring warnings and the problem is that when you know if you're if you're 2 months late at getting on something then we've all been late before you can usually recover but when you're 2 months late and something that's growing exponentially. it's kind of letting a speedboat swimming after a speedboat it's 15 feet ahead of you by the time you get 15 feet at 100 feet ahead of you so that was very costly time so i don't think the it's an easy crisis to handle i wouldn't claim for a 2nd that anybody would handle it perfectly but it would have been the warmest or if we would have been able to get out ahead of it a couple months earlier do you regard trump as

a wartime president. well let's think about what our best wartime presidents do they arm their troops they read the data they're in kept to kl good news they are decisive they move their troops around and they make quick decisions and they follow the data they're not instinctual so i would love to say i would love for president trump to take on those characteristics those are his i think tendencies i think he's more instinctual i think he's more like to be praised and sees himself in the problem i don't think he has made it a priority to arm the front line namely the doctors and nurses but he should and i would give him all the credit in the world if he if he did. as of about nursing homes the best data and it's very incomplete says that at least 2500 nursing homes

in 36 states have corona virus infections with the federal government is not tracking the incidence of call the 1000 and factional or deaths in nursing homes why not. well we have a 1000000 and a half people living in nursing homes today and millions more are living in senior centers and other places like that. these are people who are of a generation that built this country lived through the depression many of them and they are now. they are owed to their last day a dignified healthy life and in 2017. donald trump eliminated it said he would no longer enforce the nursing home regulations that were put in place to reduce infection levels and nursing homes and i said i don't think you'll ever say you regret that but that was

a really bad decision. many of these there's a hope in the country once infection spreads given the way they're designed once one person gets something it's spread rather quickly many people who work in nursing homes go from nursing home to nursing home and it's the public now knows most much of the time the virus is asymptomatic and so just when you do no one knows when they're spreading it. people are sick they're staying home but if they're a symptomatic they're going out they're going to work they're traveling so we're going to see and i'm unfortunately we're going to see a significant part of the death toll here from coronavirus happening inside places like nursing homes do you talk to anyone in the trumpton ministration shirk practically every day do you know what are they saying inside to you. well i think they're at the moment they're you know i think they've spent the last

month or 2 trying to catch up with the crisis and then later and hospitals and in. p p and i think those are still issues i think they're now based on making trying to grow the number as we have available in the country and that's. a battle that they're that they're still chasing you know increasingly i think they are being pulled into a debate around when does the country quote unquote open again which is i think a very natural thing for americans to wonder about it a natural thing for the president to focus on i think you know to your earlier question about a wartime president if he's looking at it the right way those are those are conditions based decisions what are the conditions on the ground necessary to open the economy further not a decision around picking a date a date certain and i think he's facing i think there will be political pressure given the election in the fall people want to get back to normalcy their sports

teams playing so i think the people right now in the white house are i think consumed in that conversation about how do you put together. a plan to open the economy which the president is going to insist on doing but they're going to have to do it the safest way possible. so until we get a vaccine we just say we're a long way off. from a vaccine you know. yeah well. you know this is another thing that i hope that the c.d.c. and the administration is more transparent about you mentioned nursing homes there's a lot of information that should be shared with the public on a regular basis so we don't have to guess i think a vaccine you know typically it's going to take 18 months working it at all speed to get something like this manufactured safe effective it's

possible that if the if the crisis is bad enough that they'll be able to give some form of the vaccine if they think it's safe enough to frontline health care workers who have a lot of exposure a significant risk that they're at you know the greatest thing we can do is continue to be socially distant and continue to reduce the spread because until there's a vaccine there's really not a great solution and many you know many people there to disappear will many people have this and never know they have it but they're doing it everywhere and till the virus finds the people to whom it's lethal to and i think you know until we have a vaccine we're going to have to be very very careful you were saying seated at the center for medicare and medicaid services by seam of arma and she's a member of trump's coronavirus task force you talk to or i do and how is she comfortable how she doing. well look everybody is working incredibly

incredibly hard you know this is a crisis that i'd like to think you know doesn't separate us as republicans and democrats the virus spreads equally between democrat and republican as it does in a party and so it should be a moment that people work together on the best ideas. and i think that's happening in a lot of ways i i'm not going to be pollyannish and tell you that there's no politics or no differences there are of course but. i think that you know people want to save the largest number of lives possible then they're working and the right thing in the right direction and i don't envy the task of anybody in the administration right now and that's why i'm even though i'm of a different political party i pledge to do everything i can to help them. you recently launched a podcast call in the bubble with the help of your son you talk about the tell me what this is about shirt well you know we're all kind of living in our own

bubbles these days you know my 18 year old son came to me larry and said. dad would you why don't you do a podcast and have to tell you the number of times my 18 year old son comes to me and says dad you want to do anything it's pretty limited so i think yes before i even knew what it was you know he stuck here with us and so it was fun which i thought it would be a fun project as it turns out we had an opportunity to build what i call i call it 50 percent winston churchill 50 percent fred rogers. give people the information they need in a way that's helpful it's truthful it's unifying but also is helpful and gentle it's intended to be listened to be able to listen to with your type of family and we have had some really great interesting guests we had been we had governor phil murphy amy club ishtar we just had the most recent surgeon

general united states going to have anthony scary movie on coming up. chelsea clinton. tina fey so people who and we're really talking about how how are they getting through the virus how do you make people laugh how do you how do you inform people how do you scientifically think about what we're going through and how do you help people with the the mental issues mental health issues the financial issues and otherwise. i am enjoying it. you know and it's really interesting because i have the privilege of. you know. you know being able to pick up the phone and call. people like senators and governors and people in the white house and took a vote focus on these issues and what i'm doing now is saying hey do you mind if i record this from from my podcast and so people can actually hear. governor murphy

and i in new jersey talk about how to get resources on the ground. and so i want people to feel like they're getting an inside look at people working on this problem how they're working on it what the issues are what we know what we don't know and so far everybody's been incredibly gracious i don't i mean i have i if i had to in my pinky analogy you have about how to interview people i'm sure the pockets of be a lot better but it's. just starting to study figuring that out. andy thank you so much continued good luck and let's hope that. when we talk again soon this is over oh. thank you all the best to you larry and your family stay healthy. and he's left at great pleasure having with us more politicking after these words.

better of long russian and like this. i'm a journalist it's all i know being a truth teller people say i make among comparable good uses like a jackhammer good drill down to find the true news with rick sanchez because it's time to do news again and question more.

better if long russian airlines. the kind of economic recovery that there's going to be one can be expected after the pandemic is going its course comes the pain jimmy changed economy it is a chance of returning to pretend demick condition. something man has it in punishing honest and continually that same. on the internet it is action a. bunch although the. history.

of them sit on. me about show as a western blot. this time will push. me to show. you prince not on parts and you will not i'm one of the not so the esteemed what did i see of the cover of her. welcome back to politicking donald trump created a firestorm monday by stating that he as president has absolute authority to reopen the states for business although he's backed away from that since he'll tell states to end their stay at home orders he seems to still insist he has the authority to do that or we can't get a better legal read on this and now i'm very sure it's constitutional scholar harvard law school professor emeritus and bestselling or there is no this book is

guilt by association the challenge of proving innocence in the age of me to. get right to our no one knows where the new or the term alignment who's right. well it's a very complicated issue 1st of all larry thanks for having me on and name my book by accusation accusation because the basis of the book is you're guilty if you're just accuse then i've made available how they breathe on kindle use it guilt by association which will i behold k. it's ringback simple but it's guilt by accusation now let's get to the 10th amendment business question that end of the 10th amendment the framers of our bill of rights said that any powers not specifically given to the federal government are reserved to the states the people that suggest the division of power and our system of federalism both governors have power presidents have power if there is a conflict and if the constitution or authorizes the federal government to act then

under the supremacy clause of the constitution federal government prevails over state government but it has to be authorized by the constitution so let's talk specifically about the virus if you have a situation say for example when there is a hurricane on the coast and the governor says i'm closing everything down the governor prevails there because it's regional it's local but the virus doesn't respect state boundaries so if you actually had a pandemic that was covering the entire united states that would allocate powers to the president the president could shut everything down at that point who has the power to reopen is a much more complicated question but the short answer is the president does not have total of already it's divided 6 ways basically 3 ways in the federal government that is judicial executive and legislature and then that's multiplied by

2 when you have federal versus state he is the most powerful of the 6 units but he is subject to checks and balances ultimately by the supreme court. so how do we resolve this. well it's on a case by case basis if for example a governor says i'm not reopening the schools and the president says you have to reopen the schools the governor went governor wins schools are much more appropriately handle on a local basis on the other hand if the president says not allowing reopening of airlines the president wins because airlines are national and international so it really depends on the issues no simple yes or no answer to who has the power . or you were involved in the impeachment process has anyone in the government or otherwise as you to be involved here i get calls occasionally just for advice

but i'm not the president's lawyer i'm just an ordinary citizen i did make the argument against to be sure in the senate but if a president calls me any president i get them advice and occasionally presidents have called me for advice and i've been asked my advice on some aspects of the virus and federal power. where do you think this is going to go once and do you think could trump will stay back dogs do you think he'll try to go where you are go to supreme court what are we do. well i think the big issue that's coming up is going to be whether we have an election in 2020 we have to have an election wisconsin totus unless it you can't make people choose between their health and their right to vote so we have to begin planning now for how to have an election in the event the virus gets worse and the worst case scenario would be what if it gets so bad that the post office can't continue to operate then we wouldn't be able to

have ballots by mail we wouldn't be able after in person voting computers there's no law today in most states or the rising computer voting so we'd be in a real dilemma the one thing is clear in the 20th amendment this president's term ends january 20th sharp at noon nothing extends that term so if there is no new election president trump ceases to be the president at that point and then we go into a very convoluted mechanism for how to pick the replacement president and it's extremely complex specially because there's no election there won't be as representatives that would be 2 thirds of the senate so you couldn't have the speaker of the house become the president there would be no speaker of the house you couldn't have the president pro tempore because the president pro tempore right now is a republican in but if there were 2 thirds of the senate left they would be a majority of democrats and then they would pick the president through to have it's

unbelievably complicated let's make sure we have the election on november the date specified by congress can you possibly see all is happening no. look i'm a law professor a law professor specialize in hypothetical so we have to deal with every hypothetical possibility the likelihood is the virus will be controlled enough in november or so that we can have our usual voting our usual voting by the way as many many many most people vote at the polls but an increasing number of people in an increasing number of states. by mail i vote by mail generally because i'm often out of town or traveling and so i hope we'll be able to have elections on schedule and there will be some conflicts about what businesses can open and when and who has the ultimate authority the president indicated yesterday that he were as indicated recently that he would work with governors on openings

and that's the way it should be you should have cooperative federalism nobody should be able to use this pandemic to their partisan political advantage and we should have as little restriction on civil liberties as it will possibly even example church services so you can't really allow people to go into mega churches or synagogues and have $1500.00 people join together but if people want to have a service where they are in their car and drive it in front of the church or in a drive in movie which taken over by the church that seems reasonable in the constitution should give deference to religious observances under the 1st amendment if it can be done consistent with protecting out. do you question his right to leave the world health organization. oh absolutely not of course he has the right to do that congress probably can say something about it remember nikki haley who is

i think widely widely respected has also been quite critical of the world health organization and its many biases but i think whatever monies taken from the world health organization should be given to the c.d.c. to american health organizations it should be just put back in the budget it should be allocated to health care that deals effectively with preventing this virus the world of organization did not perform it distinguished capacity at the beginning of this pandemic and it didn't deal with the china problem in the most appropriate manner i have my right to privacy can there any in time out i'm about to board a plane and the airport or the employment company can take my temperature. yes they can condition going on an airplane or being willing to take the temperature i happen to be in turkey with this thing holbrooke at i was with my wife and my daughter my future son in law who were in turkey and before you know

the airlines there they took their temperature they didn't do it by putting anything in my mouth that just read something past my forehead i was in israel before that they do in israel look at israel's a democracy and prime minister netanyahu shut it down wouldn't allow people even have sitters with people who are not members of their family the president of israel was criticized you see invited his daughter to come to his seder he's a widower and he was all alone so you know democracies can be very tough and if they're tough they can be effective and we have to make sure we always strike the balance where it's funny acceptable is for partisans to use this to try to promote their own partisan agenda for example trying to shut down abortion clinics as outrageous people who have the need for abortion have to be able to go to a clinic and get it it's time sensitive it's urgent and if abortion is a constitutional right people who are opposed to abortion shouldn't be using this

pandemic as a way of furthering their own partisan or ideological agenda. alan isn't what we do know this constitution and you deal with it all the time is this is this tough dealing with there are so many examples where you can give one side of the other in the hassle of very very hard it was tom paine who said these are the times that try medicines and women's a soldier 'd. who went home said hard cases make bad law we're in the testing situation our constitution has endured for what with any other constitution in the history of the world and it will endure this but it has to strike a balance it has to strike a balance between privacy the right of people to who congregate for religious purposes the right to protest government actions and the need for public out historically we've done

a pretty good job we never did what many other countries did fell into the lure of fascism or communism during times of crisis we haven't always been perfect and some liberal presidents have been less than perfect president roosevelt invited 110000 americans of japanese argentinian detention centers that was an abysmal abuse of due process president lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus we haven't been perfect but we've never given in to or thora period is a more tyranny the way france did the way germany did the way italy did the way spain did the way chile did the way it continued it we have had a very good record of standing up to tyranny even in times of crisis and we will do the same now so i don't worry for our country the constitution is being tested it will pass the test allan as always great talking with you in the book is guilt by accusation right and it's pretty i cando if you're home alone or with your family

just press the button it's very. thank you and thank you thank you all for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things don't forget use the politicking hash tag and that's all of that there's a dish and of politicking. heteros long russian and why this. i'm a journalist it's all i know being

a truth teller people say i make among come from good news is like a jackhammer good drill down to find the true news with rick sanchez because it's time to do news again and question more. better if long russian and lines. the stories that we're told to this point are going to seem dated instantly and we're going to have a whole busy new generation of storytelling moving forward our very definition of

what a hero is one of illness what's successes all of that change smoothing into the future our whole value system is suddenly shifted and changed. readings in salyut asians this week while talk of impeachment reigns supreme on our cable news airwaves and social media news feeds the trumpet administration tighten the federal rules regarding work requirements for millions of americans currently on supplemental nutrition assistance program or snap this move effectively leaves an estimated 688000 jobless souls living in the united states without access to

discounted or free food also the u.s. department of agriculture can save the government 5 point $5000000000.00 over 5 years or roughly a little over a $1000000000.00 a year meanwhile the business of politics my friends is booming the wall street journal is reporting that spending on political advertisements is projected to hit a new high in 2020 surging 3600000000 above the most recent presidential campaign year and how high you ask 9900000000 according to group m. the world's largest advertising media company so a close to $700000.00 americans will soon be without food assistance just to save the federal government a buck or 2 political parties and their gilded corporate sponsors are more than happy to waste close to 10 $1000000000.00 on campaign commercials that works out to a little over $14000.00 per person who is now without boot stamps but guess what that $9900000000.00 might be on the low end of estimates group global president.