of, like you said, sort of compassionate language about drug users, about people who are on opioids, less so about people who are hooked on crack or cocaine or other things. but all that rhetoric and logic and nice speeches, none of it has been attached to any money. there s been no bills coming out of congress yet that have substantially increased the drug safety net, and we re also thinking about raiding things like the public health prevention fund which funds most of those. that is something we re going to continue to focus on in this show. thank you, jay edelson and van newkirk. you can read my commentary on the opioid crisis in the black community on nbcnews.com/think. up next, back to sports and politics. only hours out from the close of a historic season of the nfl,
it was george papadopoulos and not the steele dossier that triggered the russia investigation in the first place is not in dpute. it s a report ty gowdy even expanded on earlier today. there is a russia investigation without a dossier, so to the extent the memo deals with the dossier and the fisa process, the dossier has nothing to do with meeting in trump tower. it has nothing to do with an e-mail sent. the dossier has nothing to do with george papadopoulos papadopoulos meeting in great britain, also nothing to do with obstruction of justice, so there s going to be a russia probe even without a dossier. trey gowdy earlier today on cbs s face the nation. with me now, van newkirk and a national political reporter from bloomberg of politics. let me start with you and take a step back at the beginning before we look ahead to the potential release of the democratic memo this week. what did we learn from all of this that led up to the
elections, to the primaries, to the actual fall elections, and it s hard to see exactly what the impact of the russia investigation, what this memo, what the dossier are going to have on who gets elected, but i do think they will be probably, aside from the tax bill, those are the only really relevant political things out there. and so you re going to see this investigation become much more of a political nefield, much more of a thing that s going to define how people run and what they rungainst. so i do think you re going to see as we re going into the fall more and more folks get more and more memos and talk more and more about the investigation as a political sort of circus. vann newkirk, thank you very much, and sahil, i m going to ask you to stick around and ask about your reporting on capitol hill. still ahead, another deadly train crash in less than one
invalidated the state s redrawing of congressional districts, calling them unconstitutional, partisan je y engine gerrymander and they show the u.s. supreme court seems inclined to rule for ohio in a legal fight over the state s method for removing people from its list of registered voters. joining me now is van newkirk, journalist with the atlantic and jack torre, d.c. bureau chief for two ohio newspapers, columbus dispatch and dayton daily news. van, let me start with you. one of the fights that we ve had over the last couple of decades and has really come to more focus the last couple of years is the right to maintain voting rights. i was at the supreme court. we had protests when hearings
crisis a public health emergency. as president trump called for more federal action without directly for more resources. but critics have noted the difference in the top-down sensitivity and compassion with which this epidemic has been handled versus the racialized criminal justice focus that turned the crack epidemic of 30 years ago into the root of today s prison industrial complex. still with us, eugene scott of the washington post. and joining us now, dr. natalie azar, msnbc contributor, and van newkirk, staff writer for atlantic, who says the president s plan has left some crucial questions unanswered. let me go back to you first, eugene. i remember 30 years ago when