>> president trump takes on the philadelphia murder rate, and the philadelphia mayor takes on president trump. "inside story" starts right now. ♪ good morning, everyone. i'm matt o'donnell. it is sunday, january 29, 2017. let's get right in on "inside story." joining us this morning, attorney, nonprofit executive george burrell. good morning, george. >> good morning, matt. >> ed turzanski, foreign-policy analyst. good morning, ed. >> morning, matt. >> donna gentile o'donnell, nonprofit executive. >> good morning, matt. >> good morning, donna. and christine flowers, attorney and journalist. >> morning. >> hello, christine. so, president trump is in philadelphia, his first official trip outside the white house since the inauguration. he attended the gop congressional leadership retreat. during the speech, he said this about homicides in philadelphia. >> here in philadelphia, the murder rate has been steady, i mean, just terribly increasing.

>> now, the truth is, the murder rate has generally -- you see there on the screen -- generally declined over the long term, going from 391 in 2007 to 277 just last year. however, murders are up significantly in the month of january, 37% compared to the january of last year. it's unclear if that trend is going to hold. but, ed, do you think that the president knew that when he said that, or is he just spouting out generalities, he's got chicago in his mind, and he just said something that he just didn't have any facts to base it on? >> my sense is that he paints in very broad brushstrokes. and then you go back, and you can start to parse what he has said. he's put himself in that situation a number of times. overall, i think anybody in a big city is going to complain about crime, is going to say that it is an issue. for him, that was certainly the case in the campaign. it worked for him very effectively. so, he does have a tendency to

make statements where, when you go back and you start to take them apart, it's not quite what he said, but it's close enough for him politically, in terms of advancing the agenda he wants, especially when it comes to crime fighting. >> let me continue the discussion. i just want to throw what mayor kenney said about this. he did have a statement that said, "trump's false statements today were an insult to the men and women of the philadelphia police force, the same men and women who are working long hours today," being on thursday, "to ensure the president's safety." christine? >> really, i just wanted to say ed's right. he's playing -- it was politics. he was playing -- it was the optics of it. he was in a very friendly audience there. outside of that very friendly bubble, there were people who understood that the reality was very different from what president trump was saying. and as -- i agree. i think it was extremely insulting to the police force in philadelphia, not only who were protecting him -- i mean, it was sort of like a backhanded compliment to them, i think he

thought, but it was actually basically saying, "hey, guys, you're not doing your job. you're allowing this city to sort of sink into an afghanistan like chicago." >> does the mayor have the right to be upset about this? >> absolutely. i think going back to sylvester johnson and through mr. ramsey and now richard ross, philadelphia police have done a good job of trying to tamp down the issue of murders. but the president of the united states has a responsibility to be factual. i don't care who's -- you can play to a constituency and be factual. you can take liberties with those facts. he was intentionally or unintentionally -- it's inexcusable -- not factual. there was no -- there's no -- i don't care who the political audience is. he's in a city. he's talking. everybody pays attention to what the president of the united states says and interprets it -- you in the media. he was factually inaccurate, and that probably wasn't even intentional, but it's problematic. and it's a simple issue, but it's problematic when the president of the united states decides not to be factual and we

got to go back and parse his words and his press secretary has to make up for it and redefine it, the vice president of the united states has to redefine, legislators have to redefine what he means. >> and it's emblematic of what is going to be an ongoing problem with his presidency. i mean, the fact that he -- the fact -- just even saying that expression -- the fact that he has not really an affection for facts. >> yeah. >> the fact that he -- you know, we've learned today that the head of the national park service is leaving because he couldn't produce photos that demonstrated a non-fact, which is that the inauguration numbers were not as donald trump would like them to be. so, thematically, this is where we are. we are living in an alternative universe of non-facts with this president. >> well, let's -- let's at least have enough of a memory span to recall that when president obama was selling healthcare, he talked about doctors who were

lopping off limbs and performing unnecessary surgeries. and this was a reason why we had to have the kind of government control over the healthcare system. now, that was just not true. so, donald trump isn't the first president to take some liberties with the facts. i don't think he intended to insult the police. >> i don't think president obama ever said that there were limbs being lopped off. i just want -- >> yes, he most certainly did. go back and check. he most certainly did. >> we can all agree -- we've all been in the political process for a long time. everybody has made misstatements. everybody have said things that are incorrect at the time they state them. but rarely do those people double down on them. rarely do those people over and over and over again... >> george, it does happen. it happened with -- >> not president obama. >> yes, it did. >> president obama didn't make that statement. he made a mistake in statement that you can keep your doctor, but -- he did go back and maybe those correct those situations, but he didn't double down on it. he didn't just keep going out and telling them people that, "what i said was true." and donald trump goes out and

tells them, "that's true," and he knows it's not true. >> guys, hold it. and you know what? i mean, it is true. president obama did similar things. however, president obama was roundly criticized for that by conservatives over and over and over again. and i was one of them. and so donald trump does not get this impunity or immunity from this kind of attack. and what donna said is absolutely right. it's -- it's upsetting, and it's dangerous... >> and it's frightening. >> ...when you have career, you know, foreign-service officers, for example, at the state department who are resigning. i think it is too much here that we're dealing with the hashtag #alternativefact pattern. and, you know, just a tidy little note -- do you know that sales of george orwell's "1984"... >> yes. >> ...spiked after the "alternative facts" statement by kellyanne the other day? i mean... >> let me just wrap up the discussion on this idea about the murder rate. and we're gonna get into the women's march and the protests in philadelphia. but someone on facebook --

laura kelly -- i just ask people, "what do you think about what the president said?" and she said, "as the aunt of a murder victim, one death is too many. today is his one-year anniversary." so, it reminds you -- and we all know -- that these numbers are all people. they were people. >> right. yeah. >> absolutely. >> any murder rate that is high as it is, is bad. the women's march -- we want to talk about, is this sustainable? we saw more anti-trump protests in philadelphia during his visit. we also saw what happened in philadelphia, in washington, other big cities during the previous weekend right after the inauguration. now, some people lauded these marches, impressed by the turnout. we saw some actually ridicule them and are trying to figure out, "what exactly are you trying to protest?" so, thoughts on that. and also, donna, is this movement sustainable? >> i think it is, in part because it's not just here. it's global. i think -- and ed, i think, has talked about this before. there is a rise in authoritarianism around the world. and people of good faith are reacting to it, people in this

country, people in other countries, major cities across europe, as far north as antarctica, as far as -- well, i have my poles mixed up maybe, but you get the point. >> you were upside down at the time. okay. >> but from both poles, we were seeing activity that supports this. so, not only is it sustainable. i think it is gonna become part of the fabric of the next four years. the protests that we saw around civil rights in the late '50s and '60s and the protests for women's rights in the '70s -- i think all of that is gonna come to the fore and is gonna get knit together in a unique kind of set of demands for fairness. >> with social media, everyone's, like, chasing around the bird that flew by, and the attention diverts every, you know, five seconds. do you really think, with the size that we saw of these things, that this is a sustainable movement, we're gonna see more of this, perhaps on tax day? you heard about what they want to do on tax day? they want to ask for president trump to release his tax returns. >> yes!

>> and they want a march on tax day, april 15th. >> can i -- you talked about people who did some ridiculing. i did some ridiculing myself. but the thing is, what donna says is right, that there is a reaction to the rise of authoritarianism around the world. and if the march had been framed, i think, in such a way, in such a manner, i could have jumped onto it. i think a lot of people could have. one of the big problems was, that march was focused so uniquely, i believe, on first world problems of first world women. first of all, there were a lot of women of color who were very upset and didn't feel that they were included. there were pro-life women, women who are today -- who, on friday, went to the march -- you know, the march for life in d.c., who were excluded from that march. and, you know, beyond that, there was a sense that... let me put it this way -- this week, i had an asylum case with

a woman from honduras whose husband had beaten her so badly that she had to take her two children, leave her own country, cross the border, almost get shot, and come into the united states. that is a woman whose civil rights and human rights have been stripped from her. i have a really hard time taking seriously women wearing cute little crocheted toilet-paper cozies that my grandmother used to make and walking out there and saying, "my rights are being violated. president trump is going to --" come on. >> i feel violated by what the tea party does. that doesn't stop them from doing what they do. i think these women have a right to be out there and protesting. can they sustain it? if they could only get 10% of the people who've participated in this process around the country to begin doing things politically in the way -- the tea party doesn't have a huge number of people in it, but they're consistent. they have a clear message. if i were them, i would start registering all of these women in these republican districts -- i'd start registering them in

the republican party and become a force in the republican party, the way the tea party does. the tea party forces competition within the republican party and forces people to do things they don't want to do because they're afraid of them. i think those women could organize in the republican party. >> i think george has a point because the challenge for movements is to get clarity. when you get clarity, then you can get action, and i have -- >> occupy wall street had problems with clarity. >> yes. >> they most certainly did, and i think these protests, although they're impressive for their size, really struggled with message because it was hard to listen to what was being said from the microphone. and much of it are things that we can't say on this program at any time of day. you need to get to the point where people clearly understand. you get that elevator talk. "i know what you're about." then we can into action. the challenge will be to get a clear message that reaches

across strata and then can translate into action. that'll be their challenge. >> i want to talk about... >> and that requires leadership because this was a reaction. not very many times do you get this number of people across the country who react. >> and around the world. >> and when you have to start picking leaders is when you have real problems because then it breaks up. >> we're gonna go back to mayor kenney. he's got this thing with sanctuary cities and president trump, who's signed an executive order that could strip funding from cities like philadelphia that do not share information with federal immigration officials when undocumented people perhaps commit minor crimes. mayor kenney tells action news he's not going to obey the president's order. but at the same time, he says, "if this really costs philadelphia a lot of money, maybe i'll go back and look at this." is this dangerous for mayor kenney to be on the wrong side when president trump could be holding infrastructure dollars away from philadelphia?

>> well, you know, the mayor is grounded in a sense of history. and i think -- and we've said it before. if you don't know your history, you're doomed to repeat it. and he is very mindful of what happened in philadelphia in the late 1800s, the anti-catholic, anti-irish riots, the know-nothings that persecuted immigrant irish. so, this is part of his dna as a person, as a philadelphian. and i think that when you come from that point of view, i think it's very hard to countenance what the president is insisting on. >> well, you know what also, matt? and, you know, the history is important, but pragmatically, the whole idea -- and, you know, again, immigration attorney, so take what i say with a grain of salt. but pragmatically, "sanctuary city" status is a misnomer. essentially, we want safe communities. we have illegal aliens, undocumented individuals living here. whether you want it or not,

they're here when you go into the restaurants and what have you. if a crime is committed in a community and an undocumented individual feels that if they go to the police to either be a witness or to claim that they've been victims, if they think they're gonna get deported and, you know, sent out of the country, they're not going to say anything about it. and so those who are preying on that community are going to have impunity. they're gonna be able to operate. and so the whole idea of sanctuary cities is really more of trying to keep everybody safe. and i know that there are horrible instances of the kate steinles and these -- but statistically, they are so small compared to the amount of undocumented aliens who end up being actual victims. >> ed? george? >> but -- go ahead, ed. >> well, i'm glad donna mentioned history because abraham lincoln wound up in a situation of fighting a civil war because southern states engaged in nullification. they rested on an interpretation of the constitution to say that

they would not obey federal law. you can let that happen because once you start that, the question is, "what other laws..." >> we got to go. i'm sorry, george. you ceded your time. [ laughter ] we'll be right back. you're first after the break. >> "inside story" is presented by temple university. remarkable change isn't easy, but for those who take charge, it comes naturally. explore temple's impact. visit temple.edu/impact.

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♪ >> we are back. thanks for staying with us. pre-existing conditions versus burned-down buildings. during senate confirmation hearings for congressman tom price, the president's nominee for dhhs, pennsylvania senator pat toomey said this of coverage for pre-existing conditions, and i'll quote -- "now, one way to force it is to force insurance companies to provide health-insurance coverage to someone as soon as they show up, regardless of what condition they have, which is kind of like asking the property-casualty company to rebuild the house after it's burned down." now, toomey may not have been very artful about this analogy. i think we can all agree on that. aside from being offended by it because you're comparing people to burned buildings, was it somewhat true about the issue that we're facing with the aca? pre-existing conditions cost a lot of money. and is the nation prepared to continue doing that? >> well, i think that -- i think, one, i think the comment was offensive if you look at it in isolation or you look at it

in the context in which his aid tried to come back later on, in which he said that, "well, pre-existing conditions can be dealt with without mandates." well, when there were no mandates, insurance companies did not... >> sure. >> ...provide for pre-existing conditions. and, oh, by the way, emergency rooms in hospital were overrun with people and states were always dealing with that as a compelling financial issue, which has kind of gone away under the affordable care act. and it's gonna come back with all this. and the insurance companies -- they did not before, without some direction, provide for pre-existing conditions. pre-existing conditions are something that demand attention and require attention. and the prices of insurance went up before... >> the system, you say, though, can save money by treating them with the healthcare system rather than they show up in the e.r. >> absolutely, and they get better care. and they get -- what happens when they show up in the e.r., in the traditional system, is they tend to not go to the emergency room until they're in an emergency condition.

these people who have asthma -- who have asthma all through their lives and don't have healthcare show up when they're almost dead, when they could have been treated along the way. >> toomey buried himself under a big bowl of word salad. and i think it was very unfortunate, the way he characterized it. but what he did was bring into relief one of the most important considerations that the congress is gonna have to undertake as they review what they want to replace obamacare, the affordable care act, with. there was a study recently that looked at the distribution of people that are covered under aca. about 10 of those -- 20 congressional districts were looked at. 10 of them were dominated by republican congressmen. so, i think you're gonna start -- as people start to really do the rubber-meets-the-road work, there's gonna be increasing concern among members of congress, as there should be, not on partisan political matters, but on substantive matters. they will both play themselves out, and that's a really big deal. >> i think paul ryan knows what

they could put on the table, and he's afraid to do it because people -- there's no, you know, a-b-c way to fix this and everyone's gonna be happy about it. >> so, matt -- and first of all, i think the criticism of toomey is very harsh in this case. >> i agree. >> he was talking about the problem of trying to have a system of insurance where you don't -- you don't have the capacity to reasonably assess risk and to bring a pool of money in so that you can manage that risk over time as you're paying it out. to your point, you have people who are in very dire circumstances, who are very high utilizers of healthcare. we have to figure out how it is that we're going to be able to assess that risk and then manage the payment over time. you couldn't do it in the old system because, as george said, insurance companies would just say no. >> sure. >> you can't do it under the

affordable care act because you keep on adding more and more people in the system while you're reducing reimbursements. you've got to find a way to pay for what you use. you've got to use $1 worth of healthcare -- not insurance -- healthcare -- you have to have the insurance that will pay $1. and to your point, it's gonna be a very difficult process. >> is senator booker gonna run for president in 2020? >> well, senator booker... >> we're jumping the topic here. i'm sorry. but a lot of people think he is. >> he's the great democratic hope at this point because the democratic party is unfortunately -- after this last election, they really don't have any bright lights out there who really you can look at and say, "okay, this is a leader." i think cory booker -- you know, i go back and forth between loving him and saying, "what the heck is he doing?" he -- i used to spend a lot of time up in newark. i still do. and i used to say, "super booker!" he would come and save me when i would get my heel caught in the grate. [ laughter ] but he really -- he's brilliant. i watched the -- is it "mean streets"? no.

oh, my god. it's the documentary about his rise to fame, the first mayoral race that he had back in 2002, i think it was. he's smart. he's savvy. he knows how to play both sides of the aisle, as people recently saw. he annoyed conservatives when he criticized -- when he actually testified against jeff sessions, which was unprecedented. and i think he did that because, first of all, he's cory booker, and secondly, he is the hope for 2020. and then with the whole thing about the pharmaceutical companies, when he voted against allowing foreign prescriptions, foreign pharmaceuticals, to come in. >> real quick -- we have 20 seconds. his to wait another four years. >> i think he goes back to be governor of new jersey. do you think he'd rather be

governor and not stay a senator? >> yeah, i do. >> yeah, because he gets to be an executive and he has that in his record that he can run on. >> "inside stories of the week" coming up.

>> "inside story" is presented by temple university. remarkable change isn't easy, but for those who take charge, it comes naturally. explore temple's impact. visit temple.edu/impact. >> "inside stories of the week." we start with george. >> my pastor, reverend waller, started a sermon recently with the observation -- and he was talking about republicans and democrats -- that we're living in a political time where truth doesn't matter. that's a scary proposition. >> thank you, george. ed? >> matt, benghazi and the hillary e-mail scandal have claimed yet another victim. patrick kennedy, the

undersecretary of state, who pulled security from benghazi, who tried to play with the investigation and the e-mails, resigned this week. he was actually pushed out. >> thank you, ed. donna? >> i want to pay tribute to a musical and social legend -- the passing of butch trucks, the allman brothers' drummer. a lot of people know that he was named one of the top 10 drummers by rolling stone, but what a lot of people don't know is that the allman brothers almost single-handedly desegregated music in the south. they were the first rock-'n'-roll band to play in an integrated -- it was an integrated rock band, and they played these little podunk towns. and when they would not let jaimoe register for a hotel room, the allman brothers style was not to pick up picket signs. they busted up the place, and then they'd leave. now, i'm just saying. >> thank you, donna. christine? >> that's great. and now the end is near, matt. the long, sad tale of kathleen kane is finally over, as frank sinatra would say. josh shapiro this week fired

ellen granahan, kathleen's twin sister. so, now both patty and cathy are out of brooklyn heights, and we don't have to deal with them anymore. >> that's "inside story" for this week. thanks for joining us, everyone. for all the insiders here, thanks for joining us, and you at home, as well. i'll see you monday morning on action news, and we'll be back next week with more discussion. see you later. ♪ >> i'm nydia han along with gray hall. >> sky6 live hd looking at philadelphia international airport for those detained after a travel ban will be released today. strong response to the travel ban, details on protest around the world and plans in philadelphia. >> a driver faces charges for a fatal hit-and-run that left two people dead. we have an update on the case. >> those stories and the

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sunday, january 29 i'm nydia han along with gray hall. >> here's some of the stories we're working on "action news." >> travelers detained at philadelphia international airport are set to be released.