for more, we're joined on the phone by ralph nader, longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic and former presidential candidate. his great niece, samya stumo, died on ethiopian airlines flight 302. nader is the author of many books including "collision course, the truth about airline safety." he just wrote an open letter to boeing titled "passengers first, ground the 737 max 8 now." and in new haven, connecticucut we're joined by wiwilliam mcgee, aviation adviser for consumer reports. he is the author of "attention all passengers, the airlines' dangerous descent." we welcome you both to democracy now! ralph nader, let's begin with you. our condolences to you and your family. when did you last see your niece -- your grandniece? ralph: we had dinner together on friday. she had leadership, compassion and vigor all over her. it is the kind of leadership we expect from the younger generation going into the next decades. her commitment was to global andth and prevention not just diagnosis and treatment. she was very rigorous about what works and what does not work in underdeveloped count

there are inspired individuals like ralph nader who is following in the tradition of public interest law. in fact, the kind of lawyers who are working around nader are new public interest harkening back to the late 1890's and the early 20th century. this is overlapping with transparency, government accountability, as a way to move beyond many of the corrupt practices that you see in the corporate world and are slowly being considered in the context of state and government as well. it is an area that requires a lot more work, and ethical and moral particularly we are one. talking about whistleblowing and the subjectivity. one possible to know is another person's right to secrecy. >> thank you for a great talk. i guess this question was touched on to an extent. i was wondering, it is sort of about the importance of whistleblowing. it has a huge impact in the public imagination, the household names, but to what extent is actually changing and reforming the system for either side? an establishment which is in favor for secrecy, or the libertarian who want to open up government transparenc

did you see ralph nader?d. >> yes, and i -- it is, look, boeing is the safety first company. obviously the new york times article is very tough. very tough >> it is so hard to talk about this it is a tragic and -- it is a tragedy and a loss of life and i don't want to disparage other countries and safety and everything else, but i mean pilot training is paramount. i'm still not sure we know it is the faa and boeing or whether maybe it was pilots that weren't completely equipped to fly the plane safely which had a lot of safe flights and other places. i don't know it seemed to be maybe putting the carriage in front of the horse to some extent though it is ralph nader we need consumer advocates, no doubt. you need the balance between the two sides. but i think of boeing as a preeminent american manufacturer that, you know, we have pride in >> i think it is our greatest manufacturer and i think that the reputation for safety, i mean, wow, it is unassailable. if you go to the world war ii museum in new orleans, y

liz: did you see this, that ralph nader's great niece.r, died in the ethiopian airlines crash. >> i did. >> a terrible story. >> it is. multiply ralph nader by however many states we reported here, close to 400, and people are saying why? we just don't know. if you go back to what the pilot said when we first heard about this after the indonesian crash. people would say the mgac software, pilots were saying ways that? we don't even know what it is. liz: ralph nairder told fox business, mark my words, boeing will pay. up next, the fallout is continuing and increasing. a growing number of democrats say they are open -- they want to change the rules. doing things like packing the supreme court. wait until you hear which top democrat slammed that idea as bone-headed. -driverless cars... -all ground personnel... ...or trips to mars. $4.95. delivery drones or the latest phones. $4.95. no matter what you trade, at fidelity it's just $4.95 per online u.s. equity trade. no matter what you trade, at fidelity if ywhen you brush or floss, you don't h

david: long time consumer advocate ralph nader tragically lost his 24-year-old grand niece in deadlye crash last week, he is now determined to turn his family's anguish to action, he is on a merril persol mission to found out what cause the th the boeing 7 too crash. ralph, our condolences. >> just a minute. she had leadership, compassion and intellectual rigor written all over her, she came out of masters global health out of university was copenhagen. feel researcfield research in a, invited to fre to conferences, p compassion, that the kind of leadership you want from younger generation, it is gone, because of what is clearly criminal negligence by boeing, they were pushing a business strategy too fast, to catch up with the airbus. and instead of going to the 7 737-900, they tried to make what they call minor change, increase number of seat to compete with airbus, told airline, you can get this 7 37 with more engine efficiency, more seats and you won't have to change your pilots and you can save money, that is kind of corporate cost-cutting that leads to criminal negligence where

david: that was consumer advocate, ralph nader on our show last night, now first airline indonesia airlineorders of boeing 7 37 max after saying consumer have lost confidence in the plane. joining us george hamlin. president of hamlin transportation. is this beginning of ep ar end e 737 max? >> i think safest thing to say, rumors of its demise are premature, gruda already host postponed the orders of the plane. other question, this beans means larger in general, if you give up on the max, where do you go, how soon can you get a replacement. >> my view point, this is all terrible, a tragedy. when they fix it and they will, because they know how to deal this, they will have a public relations blitz to reassure flying public and customers, airlines will have no choice but to accept that because they would rather that this plan than not. >> that is very true, their two competitors 737 family and a-320 from airbus, order book is full. are in any quantity you can't get them for years, boeing will either fix this or we won't be talking about boeing again. >> george, this is jonas, is this anythin

ceo you are the president founded by ralph nader. ethiopianiece died in crash.he was one of 346 people in those two crashes. feel has what do you to happen with the faa? dickson is donna done deal. ps to be approved. >> you will have to be confirmed. i knew ross grandniece. she was delightful. what was he these revelatory issues, they are often abstract of people don't hit tension. but they failed to realize that actually failed regulation means people are one to die. when you know the person who died, it changes the whole story for you. it makes it real. so it is totally heartbreaking. at the faa, they have outsourced so much of the regulatory oversight to boeing. there is a real problem of how they can actualllly do their public duty again. you heard elwell say, we woululd need 10,000 new inspectors. i don't not about t that but thy will need more. the do not have the capacity of the agency so it will take some time to rebuild the agency. amy: let's move on to the hearing taking place today. the interior secretary and w w you have writtenen this open letter. >

we have the same in 2000 that the independent candidacy of ralph nader.appen. you mention 1992. democrats had a further ross perot was going to split the vote that was asking for change. at the beginning they thought they might hurt bill clinton. at the end he took votes away, but it wasn't really clear until the final stages of the campaign work is going to be. the clinton campaign was desperately trying to get perot out of the race in the spring and summer because they were fearful he was going to split the people who wanted a different course than i would be enough people who felt the country was going in the right direction for george h.w. bush. >> when things are going well, you could make a credible argument that donald trump, but it's all the wacky stuff he does he has a lot of things going his way. the cutback and regulations. it has spurred the growth, bitty torpedo.with the other things he does. you could see the appeal that says i am with the business skill set and i won't go crazy on you. what do you think? >> i think it could. it will require

. >> i don't think -- i think that we're at a moment we have very emotional ralph nader presentationsthink that there is going to be a thorough investigation, boeing will cooperate, do everything i know that i thought the new york times article did make it sound like they were mercenary my experience with boeing and the long-term, done a lot of work on it, is that safety first. i really believe that. but, you know what, we got to -- we need an investigation at all ends to be sure that everything was good and i know that there are a lot of pilots who are upset. a lot of pilots. >> yeah. your thesis on the stock itself changed at all >> i think it is fine. i they will we'ink we'll get ths it is a honest company i am not betting that the catastrophic bear case boeing will come true >> all right we'll keep our eye on it huge impact on the dow on a point basis. >> always. >> even some reports today that should we be on the lookout to any production -- >> durable goods have been heavily influenced gdp a little bit less. but, yes, look at -- it is an asterisk >> opening bell, at the big boar

recently in 2000 and 1996 you had ross perot getting 8.4% in 1986 and ralph nader did in 2.7% in 2000many people attribute that the total to the swing in the election to george w. bush over al gore. especially in the state of florida. these and you will see third parties pop up occasionally, even on 2016 in the margins you might have seen gary johnson or jill stein with a slight or significant impact in some cases. in a closely divided electorate, obviously, even if they don't take a great share of the vote. is a statement from michael bloomberg, when he was considering running, he was a former republican who became an independent, a potential candidate for 2020 taking aim at howard schultz, taking aim at an independent bid. given the strong pull of partisanship and the realities of the electoral college system, there is no way that an independent can win. that is true or today than ever before, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-trump vote and reelect the president and that's a risk i refuse to run in 2016, we can't -- can't afford to run it now. --

it i don't understand how that -- and i'm just wondering is there any -- and i've seen it with ralph nadering, is there any implied malfeasance from any party in this process in your view? >> there is very potentially malfeasance here we don't know. we're not going to jump to conclusions, but we need to see what the evidence holds. we have right now two planes in a period of five months that according to the satellite data had similar erratic altitude changes. and one of the issues of inquiry also was when this change was made, why was it not better reflected in the pilot's manuals? why was not not part of the pilot's training imagine for a second you're a pilot on an ethiopian plane. you're flying a jet. you think it's just like the 737 you've flown for years except now the nose starts going down and you don't know why because there wasn't a signal to tell you the system started steering the plane down. on the old 737, you'd pull back the yoke and it would disengage. so these pilots are pulling back the yoke, pulling out the manuals trying to figure out what's going on with this plane. me