papal visit -- who will show up? it's time for "inside story." good morning, everyone. i'm matt o'donnell. it is sunday, september 6, 2015. let us meet our insiders for "inside story." we have nia meeks, communications executive. >> good morning. >> good morning, nia. ed turzanski, foreign policy analyst. good morning, ed. journalist and author larry platt. >> good morning. >> good morning, larry. and chester county g.o.p. chair and attorney val digiorgio. >> good morning, matt. >> morning, val. well, let's talk about the papal visit and what's going on with this, the secret service and the city of philadelphia and the world meeting of families. you have to say, when it comes to the goal of planning to protect the pope, they have done a great job, right? a great job. but in the process, some fear the security plans may have actually scared a lot of people away. rail passes have gone unsold. many hotel rooms are vacant. there was talk about thousands of charter buses coming. there's only gonna be about

1,100. so they tried to shift the focus away from the security. they are renaming the area where the pope is gonna be "the francis festival grounds." there will be two pope parades. but looking at all of this, nia, up to this point. >> mm-hmm. >> and reminding people that this is a city of neighborhoods. >> right. >> and it's not like washington, d.c., where you can just plop a world leader down and there's not gonna be anyone around. there are neighborhoods everywhere. >> right. >> do you have any fault with the way things have been handled up to this point? >> you know, this has been a difficult and tenuous situation for a lot of people involved. i mean, the mayor has done what he could with what he had. but what you have is too many chefs in the kitchen and everyone kind of going off and doing their own thing. from a communications standpoint, it would have been really more helpful if we had this kind of messaging early on with how this whole thing was going to be put out. we have media outlets now advertising, "oh, you don't want to be in town for the pope? we'll give you places to go." i mean, the messaging got off so early, and the unfortunate thing is, this is gonna be a fantastic event for the city. instead, we got fear, fear,

fear, fear, scare, scare, scare. and now it's like, "oh, no, come back, have a great time, welcome in." and i am hopeful -- i'm hopeful that people can turn this around and say, "okay, i will participate." but, you know, it's troubling because this was such a great opportunity to do a lot more with what we had here. >> is there time to turn this around? >> i think there's time to salvage it, but there have been some real missteps. and i think ed rendell was right when he said there was, early on, an overreaction on the part of this administration in terms of deferring too much to the secret service. and now the nutter administration has sort of stood up to them and tried to work it out. but sort of the die has been cast. and just changing the name of... >> the traffic boxes. >> ...the traffic box to... >> francis festival. >> ...francis festival is just window dressing. the perception is out there that because of, as nia said, this

fearmongering that came from the administration and, frankly, mea culpa, from the media. >> there is an element in this world that would love to put something off during this and get at pope francis. >> yep. >> and that's still a real concern, and that is why you have this reaction, right, ed? >> oh, sure, it's the boston marathon effect. it's not that you wind up going after the people who are actually the headliners and the participants, it's the spectators. >> sure. >> and that explains why there's such a strong emphasis on security. i think we're all saying the same thing, though. it's hard to un-ring the bell. and once you've rung the bell of security as loudly as they did, without very much thought about what it will do to people's desire to attend, you've put yourself in a deficit situation. now, this week, the archdiocese sent out notices throughout its

school systems and also all the supporters, and they have these placards and stickers they'll have that "i'll be there." >> "i'll be there." yep. >> that's the latest push. archbishop chaput spoke at the union league a couple weeks ago about the event. and he said, "please, come. this is going to be a good event." and i think if people are willing to re-examine the entire concept, they'll find that it won't nearly be as terrible as it was initially described. you'll still have to walk a little bit. there are certain things you won't be able to bring into the area. and off camera, matt, you pointed out that... >> they mentioned explosives, which we thought was... but, you know, selfie sticks. people were like, "selfie sticks?" >> got to have tall friends. >> what do you think, val? >> well, i think larry said it right. i think it was as much a communication problem as anything, and it would have been nice if the administration, early on, had at least shown a

face, "well, we're gonna push back against the secret service. it's our city. we know how to protect our city." and had that sort of communication mode to reassure people that the mayor and his administration was looking out for the pilgrims who were coming to the city and the people who live in the city. but, that being said, i think it's gonna be a great event. it's gonna be great for the city. it's gonna have its pitfalls and people complaining, but i think it's gonna be a really outstanding event. >> the washington post took a jab at philadelphia... >> surprise. >> ...in an article written by francis stead sellers that said, "philadelphia risks reinforcing the notion that it is a second-rate stopover between washington and new york city, both of which will host his holiness and appear to be taking his arrival in stride." and i'll mention once again what i said about washington, d.c. -- they have vast areas that clear out at the end of the day. new york city does this all the time. they have 8 million, 9 million people living there. they have the u.n. there. >> right. >> so, i mean, i'm putting up a defense for philadelphia here. >> absolutely. i mean, i'm not surprised that the washington post, anyone in the swamp, wants to jab at philadelphia. you know, just be jealous.

whatever. we're going to have the pope here. we have the world meeting of families here, okay? just step back. but the truth of the matter is, we have a lot more density. we have a variety of different type of people that are coming in. and, you know, our geography is not quite laid out the same. and new york, yeah, they do this kind of thing perhaps with a little bit more regularity. but the events that are happening there are different. they're ticketed. they're smaller events. this is an event that's really open for the masses and the public, and so that in itself makes it a different logistical issue. so it's apples and oranges, really, and the guy from the post needs to step back. >> yes, philadelphia's very much a lived-in city. >> yeah, absolutely. >> so it's not the federal city that's got lots and lots of money and really not people living anywhere proximate to those areas where they produce large crowds. but let's keep in mind that the world meeting of families in philadelphia has sold more tickets and has more attendees than any other world meeting of families that's been held anywhere else. >> and that's not known.

we're saying it here. >> well, we just said it on "action news." >> there you go. there you go. >> i think i don't disagree with anything that you said, nia. but i do think it's important when you read something like that in the washington post to not react overly defensively because -- and to actually react introspectively. like, okay, what should we be doing that puts us in the same league as d.c. and new york? and that gets back to the sort of strategic discussion we had earlier about communications and so forth. and i think had we not gotten off on the wrong foot, that article would have never appeared in the first place. >> sure, but, you know, its more than one foot. as i said before, you had the nutter administration, you had the people in jersey, you had the people from septa, you had the secret service. you had all these people getting together, and, unfortunately, you didn't have one face. they didn't come together and say, "okay, this is going to be the face person and everything's gonna go this way."

you had the world meeting of families faces. you had the mayor. you had septa. everyone was doing their own ad hoc kind of this, and it wasn't as coordinated as possible. could we have done it over? i don't know. but in addition to that, you also had media folks beating the drum and saying, "hey, you guys are screwing this up. you guys are horrible." so why are we surprised that the washington post jumps on that bandwagon that we've already kind of started here in our own town? >> leading up to this, if i hear one more reference to the santa thing, i'm gonna flip my lid. i mean, how many more times can we hear that? >> what's that, like 40 years old now? >> yeah, and he was a bad santa. [ laughter ] >> he was not only a bad santa, he was a 17-year-old drunk santa. >> yes, he was replacing the real one. >> he was replacing the real one. that's why he was being pelted. >> yeah. >> it was a moral act. >> he deserved it! >> we have a very high santa standard in this town, and we will not abide a bad santa. >> secretary of state john kerry was in town, actually came here to our studios here at action news. he was in town to give a speech on the polarizing iran nuclear

deal. and given that there's about a quarter of a million jews living in the philadelphia area, when we sat down with kerry, we asked a question from israel's perspective. if we were where israel is, less than 1,000 miles away from iran, would we feel as strongly or as strongly as you feel about this deal? >> i will speak today very directly to the fears of israel and of israelis, which i understand very, very well. it is our belief, deeply, that this will make israel safer. it already has made israel safer. the amount of time to be able to produce enough fissile material for one bomb was down to two months. we will now stretch that out. we've already stretched it out. we've reduced their stockpile. we have limited their centrifuges. >> before that interview with kerry, senator coons of delaware and senator casey of pennsylvania joined a group of senators who will protect the agreement in congress, and we've

seen senator booker of new jersey also join that group now. ed, let me start with you. you're the foreign policy analyst. thoughts on kerry's visit. and also casey is a big get in terms of falling in line with other democrats. >> he is, and he's expressed some misgivings but said, "in a world where you can't choose between perfection and something really bad, sometimes you have to take the least bad situation." that's where bob casey landed. but kudos to you for that interview, specifically for that question. because just on thursday, joe biden was in florida. he was at debbie wasserman schultz's constituency. now, she's chair of the dnc. and joe biden said, "i recognize that iran gets to keep $150 billion out of this. they're getting $150 billion they hadn't had..." >> it's their money that's been held in other places, generally. >> well, it's sanctions, right. "...and they're gonna put it to

bad purposes, and there is an existential threat to israel." which left people wandering aloud, "did you just go off script and commit the classic washington gaffe of telling the truth? or did you misspeak?" this is not a good deal in a lot of different ways. john kerry came here in large part -- you'll notice, the same day, barbara mikulski signed on as the 34th senator. so they get past the corker bill. now their goal is to try to get enough senators so that they can filibuster. >> 60, yeah. >> right. >> i think you're right that that windfall is now gonna fund hamas and hezbollah, and you're gonna see iran ratchet up its sponsorship of terrorism. by that same token, if this -- and steve coll wrote a great piece in the new yorker sort of

laying this out as the best of a bunch of bad alternatives. and by that same token, his argument is, if this keeps iran from getting a bomb for 10 or 15 years, it gives a chance to the moderate forces in iran to develop. >> so, larry, yes, they're playing for time. but keep this in mind -- the secretary refers to "our friends the chinese and the russians," who, quite frankly, don't behave like our friends very often, especially when it comes to iran. and the administration went from, "hell no, never, not ever will iran be able to do it," to, "well, let's recognize reality. it'll happen someday. let's push it far off." this deal will do it, and the u.n. will make certain. however, no americans can be part of the inspection, no canadians can be part of the inspection, and there are secret codicils guiding the inspections, and you can't know what it is. now go ahead and tell me it's a

good deal. >> devil's advocate, there was no inspections to start with. >> right. >> so at least you're getting something. >> i wasn't in the room when they negotiated these deals, okay? so i can't speak from the ultimate expertise. but this is what i look at as a citizen and when i talk to other citizens. we all have a fear of another nuclear-armed state, particularly one in the middle east where there's so much drama that's going on. however, if we can create some space and some time, because we all know, i believe even around this table, regular iranian people who just want to live, they don't want to live with this craziness, they don't necessarily like all their leadership, and they are interested in pursuing peaceful paths. we want to give them an opportunity to be able to rise up to -- >> that was true in 1938. >> except when they had a green revolution at the beginning of the obama administration, we did nothing to support that. so now the obama administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth. on the one hand, we want to give the moderates a chance to take over. maybe we'll have regime change. when we had a chance to get

regime change, or at least support it, we sat on our hands. and you really have to wonder what this president is thinking. >> if you cannot learn from your mistakes, though, that's an issue. >> the democratic party is gonna have to live or die with this deal because they made it happen. they supported the president. and when iran first comes out and violates this agreement, which they will do in short order -- they're already buying missiles from russia -- then they're gonna live or die with it. and the republican party is gonna make sure of that. >> well, you know, there are other countries also at stake. this is not just the united states' doing. we all have to realize the people that were in that room negotiating -- i don't know. like i said, i wasn't there. and i'm going to put my faith in the people who were there, who've been studying this, who look at this, and then have to do the best thing possible. >> we got about 30 seconds. what if this same deal was brokered between us and pakistan before we knew they had a nuclear bomb? >> well, it's a much different geo-political environment, and, of course, india comes into play. >> 'cause pakistan just sort of got one, and that was it, you know? >> look, if you're looking for some historical analogy that

helps you understand this, go back to munich in '38, where churchill said of chamberlain, "you had a choice between war and dishonor. you chose the latter. you shall have the former, as well." >> that has to be the last word. we'll be right back with more "inside story." >> "inside story" is presented by temple university. temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. plugged into the city, powered by the world. temple.edu/takecharge.

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>> i want to talk about the 2016 presidential race. and there are a couple of local things going on that i wanted to mention. former governor ed rendell told the new york times that hillary clinton's campaign has handled the e-mail controversy atrociously. and that's a huge surprise because rendell is one of her biggest cheerleaders. he even said he'd run her campaign for free if she wanted him to do it. let's also talk about vice president joe biden. he made some campaign-like appearances in delaware and florida. he's gonna be a guest on "the late show with stephen colbert" on thursday. what he's gonna say, i don't know. and then, before you jump in here, val, on thursday, biden, in front of an audience and a microphone and everything, openly questioned whether he had the emotional energy to run for president. so, jump in there, val. >> i don't know where to start now with all that.

but, you know, i think governor rendell's being charitable. i mean, what hillary handled improperly was the substance of it. i mean, she told lies all along. the washington post printed an article this week about the five hillary lies on this. first that she only wanted to use one device, and she was using several. second, that she wasn't under subpoena when she was under subpoena. and third, that she didn't leak classified information and didn't have classified information on there and send that out, which proved to be untrue. and on and on. so that's really the problem. it's not a media picture of how i should have handled it. the substance of it was handled badly. i think the governor's trying to bail her out by saying it's a matter of politics over substance. >> i think, as so often happens with the clintons -- we don't know the total facts of this case yet -- but just the pattern, and it's so exhausting, is that the cover-up is always worse than the crime. they are addicted to cover-up, it seems like. and after eight years, for

whatever you want to say about president obama, it's been a clean, non-dramatic administration. and it would be such an exhausting thing to go back to these headlines. >> anyone want to talk about biden? >> you know, i thought it was refreshingly honest that he said, "i'm not sure where i am right now." and it's also refreshingly biden. it's who he is. he'll just say whatever is on his mind, and we all know that upon the loss of his son, beau biden, that it was a hard blow to him. and i didn't think he was going to run for president even prior to that. but after that happened, i didn't see that, per se. i think more people were trying to talk him into it because they're looking at hillary clinton's -- not to say meltdown, but there's so many issues. and i've been talking to democrats all across the board. there's some enthusiasm only because they're looking at the possibility of trump. they say, "well, you know, clinton will be it." but there's not that same fire. you don't have that obama

coalition to say, "yeah, let's go, let go," right now. and so biden is sort of looking a little bit more attractive. but again, emotionally, is he going to have it? and he's going to be older, really old. >> the words that biden spoke discurveive unsure about whether he wants to run for president when the general election is just about a year away, could that hurt him if he actually did enter the race? >> yes, and let's keep in mind, as we mentioned in the previous segment, every once in a while, his inner thoughts have a jailbreak. honest. >> that may be, again, the classic washington gaffe -- he just told the truth. another thing happened that may be playing into all of this. and the clinton people have said, by the by, "hillary has

20% of the votes she needs to be nominated today, and there hasn't been a single primary or caucus." it's the super delegates. >> sure. locked in. >> and it's a way of saying to biden, "are you quite sure you want to go through everything that will happen?" and to larry's point, dealing with the clinton's, there are sharp elbows. it's gonna get really dirty -- everything that'll happen. and he may be looking for a way to say to all of those people who want him to run, "i'm not quite sure i want to do this." >> because for him to be successful, he, on some level, has to go negative against hillary. and if you watched that speech he gave in florida, first of all, it was heartbreaking. but there is a narrative here, and the narrative is -- and a very compelling narrative -- it's that beau biden, who was, by all accounts, the best biden, even by joe's account -- that on

his deathbed, he wanted joe to run. so there is a very compelling human narrative there for him to get in. >> biden had suggested, or maybe this is sort of like "sources say," "maybe i present myself as a one-term president." >> you know, if he did decide to run, i don't think it would hurt him, because he would come back and say, "you know, i told you where i was at that time, and i'm always telling you what's going on, what's happening. and upon reflection, this is where i am. i've thought about it. i've studied it. i've steeled myself. i'm ready to go." i don't think that could be used necessarily as a strong negative. he does have a powerful emotional tie to a lot of people in the party and even outside of the party sometimes because of just basic decency. so, i mean, his candidacy would be intriguing. he could be a one-term, but i think he would be even more powerful if he decided he wasn't going to run, but he's endorsing someone. and it may not be clinton. >> donald trump signed the pledge. did you see that? he's not gonna run as a third -- he's gonna support the nominee, whoever the g.o.p. nominee is. >> so he says, yeah. >> and so... >> that's not a binding

agreement. he could turn around in six months and say, "the party's treated me unfairly. they didn't live up to their end of the bargain. i'm gonna run as an independent." >> that would be my expectation. >> inside stories of the week coming up.

>> "inside story" is presented by temple university. temple fuels students with academics and opportunities to take charge. plugged into the city, powered by the world. temple.edu/takecharge. >> inside stories of the week. we start with nia. >> what's in a name? in the cecil b. moore community in north philadelphia, the name inspires power. it inspires pride. but right now, the cecil b. moore station of septa that's on the temple university campus, that name has been covered up, causing a lot of consternation. people are looking at that as yet another infraction in this overly gentrifying area. as of friday, the situation hasn't been resolved, but there are a lot of bad feelings that are going on right now. there are people working on both sides, on the civic side, as

well as the septa side, and even on temple. let's see if it gets resolved. >> thanks, nia. ed. >> matt, different kind of hardball being played at campbell field over in camden. the riversharks may be moving. they haven't worked out an extension of their lease. there's a chance that the club might be moving, which would be a blow to camden itself. so we'll keep an eye and see if they can't keep the home team at home. >> all right, thanks. ed. larry. >> matt, how world-class would philadelphia be if its citizens cared about our civic health the way we care about our football team? that's the discussion i'm gonna have tuesday night with connor barwin of the eagles and charles barkley at the arch street presbyterian church as part of the philadelphia citizen, the website we're launching on tuesday, as part of our social-impact series. and for tickets, go to thephiladelphiacitizen.com. >> good luck with the launch. thanks, larry. val. >> just to show how far the parties are in their world views, this week, pat toomey came out and supported the police officers all across the nation, some of whom have been under attack, being fired upon.

on the other hand, the dnc unanimously supported the "black lives matter" movement, which some people blame for attacks on police, including what their quote of, "police in the blanket, fry them like bacon." and the president has yet to speak out on any of this in an affirmative way. we need the adults to stand up on this one. >> that's "inside story" for this week. we will see you next week. for all of us here, thank you for watching. we'll see you. time nydia han, we have the made in america festival in. those stories and the accuweather forecast and more next on "action news."

>> good afternoon, it is sunday, september 6 i'm nydia han alone with eva pilgrim. >> here's some of the stories we're following on "action news," massive crowds are filling into the benjamin franklin parkway as day two of made in america festival gets underway. we'll take you there live. a firefighter is