one on one with former senator and one time vice presidential candidate joe lieberman on this edition of. the politicking on larry king president trump now says the u.s. death toll from colbert 19 could reach 100000 others are saying higher this is much higher than he predicted just weeks ago the same time his administration is stepping up its spend democrat lated attacks on china we'll get into all of this with former senator joe lieberman he also ran in the 2nd slot in the 2000 democratic ticket that ticket was by the way elected it was defeated by the supreme court 5 to 4. really more or better.

ok recent polling shows show most americans disapproving of president trump's handling of the virus what do you think. yeah it's a mixed record it's kind of surprising because 'd leaders tend to go up with a time of crisis because they're given an opportunity to really do what the people . need them to do because no one else can do it so i mean it's a long story larry but i would say that the trump administration was a bit slow at the outskirt but it wasn't all their fault because honestly they were not left with a lot in place for the preceding ministrations i can tell you by coincidence that in 2014 tom ridge the former secretary of homeland security and i were asked to co-chair a commission a bipartisan commission on bio of the fence and

a big focus of it was are we 'd ready for an infectious disease pandemic we put out a report yeah 2015 and we said that the country is not prepare made a series of recommendations a number of them are actually put in the statute by congress and the president trunk not obama but trump got around to doing one of the things we asked the president to do which was to adopt a national strategy of what we would do in the case of a and then texas disease pandemic or a bioterrorist attack but the truth is there's very little was done by our government the congress requested or the president's strategy outlined so when the pandemic hit we weren't ready and i think the president any administration or slow response when they serve a response i think they have none has as much as one put expect

in a very difficult situation including some strong bipartisan agreements with democrats in the house and some but admittedly he is not an inspiring money there. no you know it can be a bit a lot of the times it's not as just as personality i'm at some of these it's not surprising to me that he finally stopped holding that his long press conferences was normally that's were an opportunity for a leader to speak to the people who country for that long and you know it just ended up being negative because he'd get into it it's true the press is aggressive sometimes hostile that's just the way it is and if you're in office as president or governor or mayor you know that's the case city that will be ready for that and don't get that in the mud of responding to tough

press questions are going to are humans with them fortunately he did i think something else happen which is he has a natural and then see where he faces a problem to say it's going to be better quickly and and i think he feels that's a way to make it better and give people hope and part of what happened here i'm afraid and why is the numbers of approval for a month about how are settled this crisis are down is that after 00 people began to not trust his optimism because it was it reflected 'd in the numbers they were seeing your every day on the t.v. he's saying he praises themselves a lot for closing down travel from china saying he did so against the advice of almost everybody in that it actually same's tens of thousands of lives you agree. well i don't know how many lies would say but i think it was the right decision.

and i applaud him for but really he should have done a lot more then another if he acknowledged this isn't the end of january so basically he was acknowledging this was going to be a real threat or else it was a pandemic. but what he what he also should have done was focused inside america and it would have been tough but move right away to this show to ring and place a request that followed about a month later and right away to urgently trying to use the powers of the presidency getting the place all the supplies we needed i tell you this is not the time for an extensive post mortem unfortunately we're really on what are after action review of what happened when and how we could have been better prepared we needed an independent bipartisan investigation once this viruses and control just the way we

had one after 911 that really helped us to avoid another 911 but but there's no question in my mind as you look back now that the month of february was in some ways the last months of opportunity to immediately inside our country. get us ready to protect our people and pick your nose and the sick from the virus being still you and tom ridge did we can say that you would terribly surprised by a pandemic or you. not really and it's not that tom and here are our prophets and jesus is honestly larry we just talked to a lot of people who are experts in this field and they just said it's coming. and of course you have an extraordinary spanish flu pandemic of 918 which between 50000000 and a 100000000 people died so that we my father his mother died in that epidemic in

new york city he was less than 3 years old and never knew it was mother really in a chorus line at work or was a great loss to the family but and that's what the thousands tens of thousands of people in america are experiencing now both but in more recent years we've had sars and murders and the bulletin. and it was pretty clear it was something also unlike when you compare it to $918.00 my god we're all traveling so much more goods are troubling and so there's a is it an infectious disease and virus in china is so much back and forth with china that inevitably is going to be around the world and here we are are you concerned that so many states are opening up maybe prematurely. i am concerned about that unfortunately you know we always say what we think we're thinking about laws that states are the great lever tours of democracy when the federal government

doesn't do something the states try to work unfortunately this is a real like real time experiment you know i'm worried about it but we're going to learn. which states do it right which states are able to continue to flatten the curve of infectious disease and death and which fortunes of it go up as a result the prematurely lifting those those limits. and how about the experts who say the this pandemic will come back in the fall well it may i'm not an expert in bradman's but i learned a lot on the work on the commission with tom ridge 'd you know and i think a teen in that the awful epidemic and. that it started in the winter one year it stopped this the weather got warmer which we hope it will and then came back with 'd ferocity that actually killed more

people the following winter than it does before so i think it's best to. assume that that may happen and get ready for it and that's why i'm so encouraged but all the effort that's going on to find a treatment drug for the coronavirus 'd of course most important will find a vaccine if we can do that we can blunt this this letters and. use it with him in the senate. both democrats. immediate thoughts on joe biden's current situation. you know it's as though the city personally a mess or 24 years of them in the senate is the strange personal test of faith i was a state senator in the 1009. $172.00 joe biden it

selected to the u.s. from though he's not even 30 when he gets elected 3rd constitutional minimum age when he takes office in january 2 years later i'm running for reelection i have a friend in. new haven amish is a mirage harrison writes us and says how do you like to have a u.s. senator come up and campaign for it so i can't imagine who would want the lowest it's a well i wouldn't serious with a guy in a job i've ever had him up and he was great and splendid there together we've been friends ever since just flying human being. he knew how to make the set the senate work i mean he he by the virtue of his personality the fact that people liked him and trusted him he has on usually strong relationships with republican senators even people like strom thurmond but certainly people who

orrin hatch of utah who as with whom he collaborated to get some big 'd was passed so i have a lot of respect for him do you worry that the made to model month will now attach itself to him you know if you were divided i mean it's look this woman terrorist made a serious a decision i mean i will say. myself from. all these decades on joe or 24 years 7 and there are said it like the behavior these are even suggestive of. the city he uses the most but she's come out and it's not easy and made them as part of them so. she deserves to be taken seriously in the investigation and the accusation investigated one of the most significant things in these cases is that is there

a pattern of behavior i mean there are others who will say that joe biden did something similar and i'm so forward i haven't seen it so. my guess is because of the 'd way politics is that this will chase him however this kid is right through options but i don't really think it's going to have this many people vote unless something more is proven but this kind of behavior virgil bored right now it's just it's a joe you love great aguirre's you're doing what you are good health. thank you and not all accurate or is good who would take care they care senator thanks for your time today more politicking right after the break.

he said throughout the course of police that he can reach the other than the men friends who. told them on the better side going to dad the perkins muscle that this isn't just one instant of. emotion learning t.m. months can do i feel still east of korean missiles from the course putting the fish

resists into that of increases for. the coach of the future. that. we think he minds be soviet soldiers dicky's off the boots he's wearing. which to the soul the took to the opposing opinion with to get on the show stuck with some russian police force to bust hold. welcome back to politicking senate majority leader mitch mcconnell says the senate

will not pass another economic aid package unless it includes protection for businesses against lawsuits will it do the virus for analysis on this i'm joined by dan abrams he's the chief legal affairs correspondent for a.b.c. news and founder of media i don't co-author 'd of the new book john adams under fire we'll talk about that later can't wait to talk about that john adams the founding fathers fight for justice in the boston massacre murder trial then is like everybody else holds up a new york dam for some other things what do you make a measurement connel asking for more liability protection. well look this is kind of like tort reform right what mcconnell saying is that in exchange for this next round he wants to make sure there are protections in place for companies so let's take a step back and talk about if that doesn't happen where are we and so the standard

then becomes like in any other case which is negligence and there are going to be a lot of lawsuits there are going to be people who are going to say that they were exposed to the virus either by going to work or being at a particular place etc but the standard still requires a level of irresponsibility on the part of the person being sued meaning if you just go to work and you happen to get the virus from someone else at work that doesn't mean that the company is legally responsible for it there still has to have been some sort of knowledge there has to have been some sort of action taken or not taken by the need to hold them responsible on a list saying is let's avoid all of that we just want to basically immunize the companies moving ball do you by that i mean look it's really a. typical pull argument right i mean typically the right has been more supportive

of tort reform limiting the amount of money that can be available to people suing for example a company typically the left has been more supportive of the people who are doing the suing so it becomes a fairly typical divide between republicans and democrats over an issue like this once again is this going to be sure as an issue is that going to change will new policies be written. well the insurance industry i think is going to be a super interesting question coming out of this which is you know when you talk about policies right and they have clauses in there which talk about force measures we call an act of god at a is this an act of god is this going to be determined to be something that was so un for seeable that insurance companies shouldn't be responsible for losses

etc that no matter what passes or doesn't pass in the in the senate is going to be an issue moving forward is going to be a question of how much liability do insurance companies have for damages for losses that companies have incurred based on the specific language in their policy . this is going to be an upheaval in the legal system is it not oh there's going to be litigation over this for years and years and look and you know we're probably thinking about it some of the smaller cases they're going to be some really big ones right some deals that got called off at the last minute putting aside insurance for a minute a lot of contracts that say for example you know this contract is valid unless there is an act of god and his district turman to be an earthquake a tornado those are the typical things that we think of that language is used but

there's going to be in your debate moving forward as to whether this applies or doesn't apply in terms of contracts and about privacy people going to sue over being tested and the important. well you know that's going to be a tougher one the government has a lot of authority and power when it comes to a health crisis you know i hear people saying that you know civil liberties are being impinged on and maybe they are but the constitution is not absolute the 1st amendment is an absolute we have libel laws congress shall pass no law well libel law is one of those logs on the 2nd amendment we ban machine guns the 2nd amendment is not absolute either and so there are exceptions in the constitution and one of them that the supreme court has ruled on in the past has been this question of how much power the government can have in a health emergency and this is

a perfect example of that i think the more interesting legal questions about sort of the rights of citizens is going to come a little bit down the road we're already seeing the 1st of these lawsuits it's basically saying for example wait a 2nd state how can you treat a drive through differently than a religious nation and those are interesting lawsuits but they're going to have to be specific it's going to have to show an even treatment it's not going to just be able to say my civil liberties were violated here and as a result i'm entitled to damages. who got an election coming do you see a lot of issues during they're based on the virus nomo boating by mail in some states will lead to probably you know conventions you know conventions. well though they'll have online i would assume they'll have online conventions right to be a virtual convention that don't have but they won't have

a live convention i don't think in the in the typical way the interesting question of course from the from the election point of view is going to be what happens if business 2nd round of corona by then if things haven't continued to decreased and then do people not show up to the polls and in certain states there is no absentee ballots and how do you deal with these questions because you can't just postpone the election that would be the president certainly can't postpone the election so so it's going to be there's going to be some very tricky questions that come up as the election approaches in connection with the coronavirus usually the trump would have been a ripple ratings right now if you hadn't tried to shift blame in this crisis on the tag of a miss expand on that. look i i said this on my radio show that i thought that the

president could have had a 60 plus percent approval rating right now if he had been to this and just gone for supporting unifying not attacking that this is an opportunity for a political leader in an environment like this we all want our president to be the person we can look to for information and there's a reason that the governors across the country according to polls are more popular than the president right now because the vast majority of republicans democrats whatever they are there's a sense within those states they're doing what they have to do to do what's best for us and when the president engages in these fights with the governors when he attacks people on twitter rather then in this time when the country is nervous and afraid simply saying. i'm here for you we're going to do everything we can

that that i think that that trumps supporters in particular should feel like it was an opportunity lost for the president to to really emerge from this even more popular than he had been before and now he's back exactly to where he was maybe even a little bit low. let's turn to your book before he became the 2nd president of the united states john that i'm sure is a distinguished lawyer and boston what was this case the boston massacre this was a case where british soldiers in 1770. fired on american colonists and killed 5 of them and as you can imagine this is a time right before the revolution when tensions are high and the colonists wanted justice otherwise known as revenge they were angry they were furious at what the soldiers had done and john adams took the very unpopular case of representing the

british soldiers at trial there were actually 2 cases one of the captain one of the 8 soldiers he represented them in both cases and he i think became it became one of the most important moments in his legacy we used a transcript from those trials actually someone had been handwriting what happened in court to tell the story of the boston massacre trials in this book that they hire adams or that he volunteered to do this. to good question he was hired and he was later frustrated that he felt he was appropriately and you know without giving it all away i'll tell you that the captain is found not guilty and adam said that he later bumped into him in london and the captain basically ignored him and was not appropriately appreciative either psychologically or financially for the

amazing thing that adams did in helping to get the captain to quit the case of the soldiers was a much more complicated case because it became clear the captain had not given the order to fire. i can't wait to read this book john adams is a fascinating character in american history like the bush years later his son became president he was also was he brighter than most or you thought he was brighter than most. he was brighter than most and he thought he brighter than most so both are true he definitely had a very high self esteem when it came to his intellect but he was also a very smart guy was also a very difficult guy. and i think that you know as president there were certain mistakes that he made there were certain things he did very well but he really i think is underappreciated and he felt this way. for what he did in this case for

taking on such an unpopular case and what he did is he also did not attack the citizens of boston someone else in his position might have felt the only way to win this is to really place the blame on them because it was a self-defense case adams walked a very fine line in this trial of on the one hand saying it was self-defense there was nothing else they could do but being very specific about the blame without sort of casting a wider net which also would have made him even more unpopular in that area at the time his his wife abigail wright was a very important figure in the early american history. and the letters that she wrote the letters between them are some of the greatest historical artifacts that we have i mean you know we don't have george washington letters with his wife we had some letters from thomas jefferson etc but we don't have the kind of treasure

trove of exchanges that we have between abigail adams and john adams that range from the political to the personal and she was i think if she were alive today she would be running for office herself and pretty darn successful at it then i can't wait to read this book thank you so much for being with us larry always great to see you and great to be with you the new book is john adams under fire the founding fathers fight for justice in the boston massacre murder trial it's out now and available everywhere including to download and thank you 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 to use the politicking hash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking.

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because there is this is the kaiser report loving lockdown if i knew lockdown was this great i would have done it sooner. it's just magical time of reawakening and let's talk with stacy. max we're going to talk about the cycle of life you know how one is born in your have people who have to take care of you and feed you and change your diaper and then by the time your in your eighty's or ninety's and you're at the end of life you're at the same sort of position and.