back with me is editor of politico and white house correspondent sam stein.ident is expected to make comments about the situation in iraq, the future of nuri al maliki who that be a thorn in the administration side recently and had a difficult record with the people of iraq. to what degree do you think the u.s. has leverage in terms of his future? >> that's really been the question. we've been very open for the last number of weeks that we have vote of no confidence in maliki and all of the reporting out of baghdad that i've seen suggests that we have been working very hard to come up with alternatives and try to make it clear that the united states is not supporting maliki anymore. the problem is coming up with a viable alternative. there's a sense that maliki has exacerbated this conflict and driven the sectarian divide in iraq and united states and obama initially made clear he wasn't going to intervene in part because he had no confidence in the political situation. >> this is not the first and presumably not the last time this administration would like t

and in washington senior political editor in college, sam stein. how are you doing today, sam? >> i'm good. ready for class. >> you think you'll be going to red sox playoff games again this year? >> no. >> not at all. it's looking kind of ugly, yeah. >> pretty bad. >> harold, i'm glad you're here. i'm glad you're all here. >> why is it dark in d.c. but light in new york? >> it's always dark in d.c., be honest. >> it's unbelievable speaking of depressing situations. you guys are going to have to explain this inversion thing to me, because i don't get it. i don't understand why american companies can take their companies overseas, gain all the benefits of being here, and dodge taxes. the white house doesn't understand that either. and they plan to crack down on american companies that are dodging taxes. not avoiding taxes, dodging taxes. and this of course adds another layer to the debate over presidential powers. president obama announced he's going to act as soon as possible to stop what is known as inversion. that's when companies move their headquarters out of america so they

sam stein, an absolute mess up there on capitol hill on both sides., it's not false equivalency. harry reid made sure he would kill the bill when it got to the senate and republicans said why pass a bill if he is going to kill it any way? >> yeah. go back three weeks ago when this was a huge humanitarian crisis where the president needed to see it with his own eyes and gl down to the border because of the severity of the crisis and action was needed asap. now neither chamber will pass the bill and maybe the house will do something but either way it's not put into law and a huge indictment in the sad state of our political system and even self-proclaimed crises can go unsolved. i will add this because i think it's worth adding. yesterday or i guess two days ago now, the house of representatives sued the president or voted to sue the president for taking executive actions. john boehner's statement yesterday after the vote ordered the president to take more executive actions. there is a disconnect there, obviously, that should be noted, i think. >> yes.

sam stein, what a day it was and what a monday we have now. >> of course. >> what are you hearing from your white house sources in terms of the true timeline on when the president may take up recommendations from jeh johnson and eric holder? >> they want to get the recommendations and review them. and everything i've heard has put the timeline at the end of august but probably a little bit after that. now this could change depending on the political landscape at the moment. but it seems like the process is fairly under way. and what happened in the house or what i should say didn't happen in the house and in the senate, an inability to get anything passed probably accelerated the time frame a little bit. >> e.j., i was struck by the dramatic events of friday. actually, really dismayed in a time of derespondent behavior, this was a new low, i thought for the republican party in terms of -- it's not even 180 degrees, some other angle of mystery they've spun, insofar as the repeal of the deferred action for dreamers, you write today about what needs to happen. and suggest solving the coun

> in washington, senior political editor and white house correspondent for the "huffington post" sam stein

sam stein obtained recordings that showed the power and financial reach of the koch political networke first time i was introduced to this group a year ago, august, in new mexico and i was not [ inaudible ] . >> cotton went further at describing the influence of the koch political arm. >> sam stein points out that, quote, cory gardner told attendees his race would likely be described by the presence of third party money, an obvious pitch for generosity from the well-heeled crowd. coordination between donors of the money and the campaigns who benefit from that money simply does not exist, that it's a non-issue. do we believe that's really the case? here to discuss the influence of the koch brothers heading into critically important midterm elections we have bill scher and andy crowell senior reporter from mother jones. we did reach out to the koch representative. we were unable to reach them for comment. bill, i'll start with you. according to the "huffington post," cory gardner said third party money would probably support his candidate. is this is a violation of citizens united? >> i

that was never in the cards. >> sam stein, there is nothing that makes me sadder democratic on democratic this is hurtful. it is pretty stunning in the middle of the military operation to be reading headlines like this where you have his last secretary of state calling him a failure and you have the president call his last secretary of state and possibly next democratic nominee for president living in a fantasy world. failure versus fantasy. but i think probably, the most stunning part of that a lot of ways hillary clinton could have done that, but as we say in the south, she was just sticking a sharp stick in his eye when she brought up that really embarrassing quote about don't do stupid stuff. that was a blind side right there. >> i don't know if she called him a failure per se but she did stick it in the side. >> his policy in syria was failure i. this is what everybody has been waiting for on what plank would clinton try to distance herself from obama and it makes sense that it's foreign policy at this juncture because of what is happening across the globe. obviously, the headlines a

kristen anderson, a republican pollster and msnbc contributor, sam stein political editor. >> first day of vacation. >> first day of vacation and look at this. i like to spend my vacations getting up at 5:30 in the morning, too, so glad we have that in common. i'm trying to, you know, figure out what to make of these votes last night. on the one hand i guess the first thing i'd start with is, and maybe, kristen, you're good to answer this as a republican, somebody thinking ahead to the fall, the whole idea here, right, for republicans, they knew that whatever they passed was not going to go anywhere in the senate. the president wasn't going to sign it. the idea was to say, hey, we passed something, we led, we tried to lead. i'm wondering if the way it went down, having to pull it off the floor, 24 hours of recriminations and screaming headlines and people like me saying, oh, gmy god, they are ruining it, do you think that anybody takes out of this, yeah, republicans did something, or do they take out of it i messed up down there? >> they're the ones that stayed in town. and the senate w

sam said also earlier, sam stein, huffington post sam stein said the president is not going to give oursident to say this is exactly what we're going to do. >> we're going to lead on this. >> we're going to lead on this and take it all on ourselves, that's not happening. chuck todd, absolutely fascinating what chuck said. why don't we bring in the columnist for "the washington post" david ignatius. chuck todd told us that wasn't just the president pushing back our allies who are waiting for us to attack, that was the president pushing back his own administration because as kim ghattas said some people are saying there's only one man in the white house left to convince that we need to have air strikes against syria. what are you hearing on the ground in d.c.? >> joe and mika, i think the president is genuinely confused about how best to respond to this really monstrous outbreak by isis in iraq and syria. >> genuinely confused. have you ever heard a president state that confusion in a press conference? >> well, it was rare. it was a disastrous sound bite because it summed up what people h

joining me now, broin bo brian d sam stein. there have been discussions from many corners but congress, which actually has the power to maybe change the on the ground reality has been kind of quiet, you know, when we talk about deescalating the militarization of local police, how likely do you think that is? >> it depends on how the rest of the ferguson crisis plays out. there's more momentum behind it than there was two weeks ago because we're seeing how much militarization of local police actually backfires. but i think that the likelihood of a vote to end the 1033 program is very remote, even in this current climate, simply because a vote to end that program is so easily vilified and put out of context. what you're more likely to see is a set of hearings, make a few studies into the matter. i know leader pelosi indicated that she would support something like that in a huffington post article and president obama would be interested in having a conversation along those lines. having a conversation launcheding a study, doesn't

. >> sam stein? >> i mean, i agree with the general sentiment there.re is a fair criticism that the administration sort of -- overlooked the significance of this problem up until very recently. but the problem here is the complexity of the iraq/syria border and, of course, our bizarre relationship with bashar al assad that thomas talked about earlier. >> i don't know whether we cozy up to him but it sounds like we are going to ignore the board. >> this is laid out in "the new york times" piece. if they start a campaign against isis in iraq they scurry across the syrian border and then we have questions not only the tactical operations that we can pursue but the legal officials we can pursue. can we target them in a country we don't have war authorization. >> i think the complexities from the sound of the press briefing yesterday, a lot of those complexities are wiped away and thrown out the window and on the ground when you have a general saying, listen, if you want to get rid of devices you have to go into syria and assad is saying, great, the united