game changer so how do we reconcile the good with the bad with us today we have the right bishop gene robinson is vice president of religion at the shit to quiet institution that's a nonprofit education center in dallas texas home on a sunday a man is founder and president of the institute for islamic research and in new york rabbi danny rottenberg is rabbi in residence at that network of jewish leaders welcome to the stream everyone it's really good to have you. i feel truly blessed today excellent having your hair i want to show you a picture this is mom and this is on the texas border and the and on a van in mt can you tell us where you were what you were doing and what you were feeling. so we as a group of faith leaders are actually went down to mccallan texas in the immediate aftermath of the family separation policy and unfortunately what we saw down there were warehouses that have been converted into immigration detention centers that are now housing children literally in cages and we managed to intercept a bus of children that was coming out of one of those warehouses we realized even

>> gene robinson is with us, gene?l meet, convene in a few days really and so what will the new democratic majority in the house that you will be a part of do to hold the president accountable for this erratic foreign policy moves and their potential consequences? >> certainly. so we will reestablish our rightful role as the article 1 institution that the founders created. congress has an oversight responsibility. so we will be providing that oversight, calling in administration officials to account for decisions in syria. the pending withdrawal of troops in afghanistan. we're going to be doing things like, you know, holding hearings on deployments of active duty personnel to the southwest border, the results, the impact, the continued impact of separation of families at the border. so there's a host of issues that we will be able to press the administration on, hold them accountable, using the power, the inherent power, that congress has that the republicans have abdicated and that's oversight of the administration. >

game changer so how do we reconcile the good with the bad with us today we have the right bishop gene robinson vice president of religion at the shore to quad institution that's a nonprofit education center in dallas texas. the man is founder and president of the kean institute for assignment research and in new york rabbi daniel rottenberg is rabbi in residence at that work of jewish leaders welcome to the stream everyone it's really good to have you. i feel truly blessed today excellent having your hair i want to show you a picture this is mom and this is on the texas border and. can you tell us where you were what you would doing what you were feeling. so we as a group of faith leaders are actually went down to mccallan texas in the immediate aftermath of the family separation policy and unfortunately what we saw down there were warehouses that have been converted into immigration detention centers that are now housing children literally in cages and we managed to intercept a bus of children that was coming out of one of those warehouses we realized even though you could sell not picture th

so gene robinson, as we get more and more developments, it seems every day there's something new from the special counsel or from prosecutors. it makes it all the worse that republicans dismiss everything out of happened. they say he's doing a good job. the president is doing a good job so let not look into this. it's one thing to say i don't buy michael cohen as a witness. let's see the other evidence. it's a completely different thing to say i don't believe any of it. >> yes, it is. and let's not forget we have the president and on tape committing one of these two election campaign contribution felonies that he has confessed to committing. so there is no question as to whether or not he did this. and i don't understand why republicans would say he's a known liar. they have a recording of it happening. so this idea that they're going to continue to stick by donald trump, not even a discouraging word about what is clearly criminal conduct by the president and his circle is a bad, bad political strategy that is likely to, you know, make 2020 even worse for them. >> we can't even ask th

so right now where at the end of today's program i have time though to say to the ship gene robinson rabbi. solomon thank you so much for being on the show today i thought i learned so much not just about the last year but also what you're going to be doing for twenty nine thousand strangers to us at the stream so we're at the end of today's program and i always online you can find us at a stream on twitter until the next time take everybody. and there's nowhere to hide is the easiest way to solve this time allow u.n. observers who you invited into the country earlier this year to finish their job i haven't said it's a right wing conspiracy or anybody's conspiracy. do you think we're going to see some kind of sea change in the u.s. relationship with saudi arabia we have an obligation there's a journalistic integrity and then in this case it was betrayed totally up from al-jazeera i thought this conviction that everyone has a deep reservoir of thomas realty and if you can give them the opportunity wonderful things start to happen sometimes the simplest solutions are the most impactful

eugene robinson is pulitzer prizewinner for "the washington post," and all msnbc analysts. gene, you see the numbers there. some movements obs -- on the numbers and others saying until hell literally freezes over. >> right. so i think you're analysis is correct that nancy pelosi will be speaker, will come in with her own agenda and her own priorities and her own sense of what's important and it won't be the same as donald trump's. and why would she at this point take anything mick mulvaney says as holy writ or indeed any deal that gets negotiated as holy writ given donald trump's record of simply going back on deals that everybody else thinks are made deals? and so i don't quite -- to me that is the huge stumbling point to anything. there's no incentive for democrats to move knowing that trump is going to pull the rug out from under the whole thing at the last minute as soon as anne colter has indigestion. >> it makes it sound like he's not a good negotiator. >> i think you ought to read the art of the deal and some guy named trump got his name on it, too. >> there's something t

. >>> and, gene robinson, this sounds way too familiar. remember when the russians were dropping bombs claiming to be fighting against isis with us when all they were willing doing were killing assad's rebels fighting against assad, and now you have erdogan who is either suckered the president or got a willing president to leave syria and so now instead of, again, fighting isis, just like the russians, they're going to start killing others, in this case they will be killing kurds, the very people who were pushing back against isis. >> yeah, i mean, you could -- there's a lot of arguments about proper u.s. policy in syria, what our policy ought to be, but i think there's near universal agreement that the worst thing to do is to cut and run all of a sudden on a whim the way president trump has decided to do it. as david said, it puts the kurds in a terrible position. president erdogan, like other authoritarians around the world undoubtedly has had drawn up a detailed psychological profile of donald trump and what buttons to push and how to p

gene robinson, what do you make of -- the headline is beto o'rourke and double digits in iowa. >> whoa year ago who knew anything about beto o'rourke. and that tells you the extent to which he broke through into the international consciousness with an incredible run in texas. and it shows he's going to be a factor. he's going to be a factor in this. and he's someone that potentially democrats could fall in love with. democrats fall in love. republicans fall in line. they can fall in love with beto. >> beto o'rourke had a town hall on friday. sounded like a presidential candidate. >> i want us to be big and bold and not to succumb to the smallness and pettiness and decisiveness that defines so much of the national conversation today. so that's what we're up against right now. and it's more than just one person. it's all of us making this decision that we're going to live to our potential and to our promise. >> everybody from ted cruz's campaign has said donald trump better take this guy seriously. >> he's a really good messenger. that's what the democrats need. there's a lot of folks.

gene robinson, the way he's talking there, and we'll see, but the way he's talking there suggests thisay be a president who is comfortable letting this stretch out farther into the future than maybe we initially thought, well into january. who knows how far. from the standpoint of democrats, january 3rd, they're taking control of the house for the first time in eight years. they've got plans. they've got investigations they want to focus on. they've got bills they want to try to get through to put republicans in certain positions. how much appetite do you think democrats have politically once they take over the house? how far does their appetite go to have this shutdown issue hanging there, looming there? >> well, look, i think democrats would rather have the shutdown over, but you know, nancy pelosi will be speaker and she will be in a sense calling the shots, certainly for the house, and i think she's very comfortable doing that. democrats i think will continue to pass legislation opening the government and leave it to the senate, which may or may not go along, and then ultimately to

and i can't let that go. >> and gene robinson, for good reason.s was a man who, when he made that decision at 18 to volunteer to go to war, and it was itching for the opportunity to defend his country, he wasn't an immigrant kid out of brooklyn seeing this as a way out. he left andover to do it before he went to yale. a member of the northeast ruling class back when there was one on the east coast. and he left when he was 18 to serve his country and he continued doing it every day of his life until this week. >> yeah. a hero of the second world war in which we were attacked and people volunteered to join the youngest -- the youngest navy flyer, shot down at 20. just extraordinary. when i think of him, i think also of the way he personally carried himself. his personal integrity and his personal relationships. i'm sorry, but you have to sort of contrast it to what we see today. if you say something bad about president trump, you are immediately the worst person and we must try to destroy you. when she was diagnosed with cancer, george h.w. bush cou

this is gene robinson, congressman.e meeting and make their own judgments. one other thing that everybody knows and can see is that republicans have a majority in both the house and senate. so why are you blaming nancy pelosi and chuck schumer for what republicans could just do if they want to do it? >> right. i think that's my concern is why we always focus on the blame. what i want to do is take responsibility. i want to take responsibility and say that border security is so important that we're willing to shut the government down if we can't fund $5 billion of border security now. as you know, we need 60 votes in the senate. we're not going get those 60 votes unless we have some democrats cross the line. we can do it in the house. we'll get it done in the house. we need some democrats to cross the line on the senate side. >> why doesn't the speaker call the vote in the house as speaker-to-be pelosi suggested. why not do that. show the senate the house is serious. why didn't that happen? >> we're willing to do that. a

. >> emily, this is gene robinson.s talked about -- we talked about the return of the idea of the caliphate. is there a danger of the return of the reality of the caliphate, actual significant territory held by isis and if so where would you see that happening? >> great. so i think actually focusing on the ideas is more important here because if you look at the growth of isis and similar groups, looking at al qaeda they are part of a larger movement that has existed for decades, but the difference is that this movement only flourishes and becomes strong under certain conditions. when there's civil wars, conflicts and grievances, conditions of poor governance that's when you see these groups become strong and gain territory. so the problem is that even though isis has lost territory, that movement still remains. so if conditions continue such as the war in syria then i can very easily see the group coming back in sir area particularly the group that has already started to rebuild its insurgency and laid the ground work.

robinson, tim o'brien, thank you. really appreciate it, guys. >>> coming up, yesterday's oval office event gave us sound and fury, as gene was saying, but at least one still life resulted from it. also contained a couple big lies. we'll look at all of it when we come back. >>> last thing before we go tonight, takes us back inside the oval office, where yesterday, most of the coverage dealt with the president's pledge to take personal responsibility for a government shutdown and the still life of vice president pence sitting there in the middle of it all. today, some of the attention turned to the claims the president made about the border and his nonexistent border wall. professional fact checkers in our business disproved his assertions about diseases and terrorists coming over the border. the people of tucson were surprised to learn that illegal traffic was down in their city because of the wall, that's because there's no wall around tucson, that's because they're just under 70 miles away from the mexican border. then, there's what some have called big lies one and two. let's start with number two, the claim that the president's promised wall

robinson, tim o'brien, thank you. really appreciate it, guys. >>> coming up, yesterday's oval office event gave us sound and fury, as gene was saying, but at least life resulted from it. also contained a couple big lies. we'll look at all of it when we come back. ♪ be right back. with moderate to severe crohn's disease, i was there, just not always where i needed to be. is she alright? i hope so. so i talked to my doctor about humira. i learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't