A look at the days top news and headlines. Plausible, innocent explanation although i cant see one here for building all these offshore accounts and funneling money there to escape reporting it to the irs. On the other hand, i dont think the manafort defense is working. His defense is essentially this he is batman, hes blaming robin for all the problems. And thats just not going to work. Dana like the jury is not going to buy that let me ask you a few things that other possible, you know, big shot lobbyists in washington, d. C. Are rethinking some of their own practices at this point. That is a great question, dana. I think one of the things people overlooking is that manafort is not the unusual one in a way. He is unusual in that he tried to hide the money and not report it to the irs. Its not unusual in the way that he is making the money. He, like a lot i think this is partially why trump campaigned against quote, unquote, the swamp. There are lobbyists. A lot of people who just receive these payments from corporations, foreign governments, and its unclear what theyre doing
exchange for it they look like theyre whats called Influence Peddling. They are trying to get our government to do things in exchange for the payments. It looks extremely sorted. I dont blame people. Thats why i think the jury is going to have very little sympathy for manafort. The American People have become sick and tired of Inside The BeltwayInfluence Peddling for large amounts of cash. Dana let me switch topics with you. I wanted to play for you a sound last night from Rudy Giuliani talking about whether the trump team will advise President Trump to sit down with Robert Mueller anin that investigation. Listen. We offered him an opportunity to do a form of questioning. He can say yes or no. We can do it. If he doesnt want it do it, he knows the answers to every question that he wants to ask. Is he going to ask them, did you tell Comey To Go Easy On Flynn . The president will say no, i didnt. Dana john it, seems that the president s team has a consensus against the president sitting down with mueller. And thats probably i i didnt make it up out of thin air. I wish i had. Dana im sure you didnt. Thats why i wanted to ask. Well, im not that popular professor as you think. Five or six students ever listen to me at any one time. I think the precedent to look at is the Ken Starr Investigation of bill clinton. And if you remember, the Clinton Lawyers and ken starr and white water prosecutors, one of whom i might add was Brett Kavanaugh now nominated for the Supreme Court engaged in a great deal of to limit interview in the end president clinton backed down from the interview. Even though he could have said much like mr. Giuliani is suggesting i dont have to cooperate. Im not going to answer. I think clinton did the right thing. He is the head of federal Law Enforcement as president. He should cooperate because it sends a message throughout the whole legal system. If the president is going to cooperate, how is the Justice Department going to get people on the inside of mafia or drug cartels to
cooperate with the government. I think the president is not just a private citizen. He is the hid under the constitution of all Law Enforcement. He should comply with his own prosecutors. If he thinks mueller is doing a terrible job, he can fire mueller and replace him with somebody else. But he still should comply. The last thing he wants is for mueller to go to the Supreme Court and ask for a subpoena to force the president to testify which would trigger a constitutional crisis. Dana and then we would have to have you back because you teach constitutional law at berkeley. Im sure there is more than five or six students. There is seven of them and i am one of them. Congressman Chris CollinsFighting Back indictment insider trading. He is proclaiming his innocence and vowing to fight them. The charges against me are meritless and i will mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name. I look forward to being fully vindicated and
exonerated. Dana collins also staying he will stay in office and run for reelection in november. Officials say the charges relate to alleged inside information about an australian farm suited call company where collins served on the board. The u. S. Looking to the next Military Frontier as the Vice President announces why we need a space force. Well have those details. Plus, a big win for Union Supporters in missouri have some celebrities help in the repeal of a righttowork law. The name is deceiving. The bill will not give you the right to work. Instead it gives big business and outofstate corporations the right to pay you less than they do now. Managing blood sugar
oh yea, me too. I have cheese and uh these herbs. P3 snacks. The more interesting way to get your protein. Feeclaritin and Relief Fromwsy symptoms caused by over 200 allergens. Like those from buddy. Because stuffed animals are clearly no substitute for real ones. Feel the clarity. And live claritin clear. Its so hard to believe but its all coming back me. Baby, baby, baby. All you can eat is back, baby. Applebees. When the guy in Frontd Down The Highway slams on his brakes out of nowhere. You do, too, but not in time. Hey, no big deal. Youve got a good record and Liberty Mutual wont hold a grudge by raising your rates over one mistake. You hear that, karen . Liberty mutual doesnt hold grudges. How mature of them. For drivers with Accident ForgivenessLiberty Mutual wont raise their rates because of their first accident. Liberty mutual insurance. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty dana missouri voters sending a prounion message at the ballot box tuesday
voting 2 to 1 strike down a law last year letting some private sector employees opt out of paying Certain Union fees. Steven trumka celebrating the vote whether its expanding the labor movement, bargaining life changing contracts, rewriting the rules of the economy or filling the halls of power with our allies unions are on the rise. Missouri is the latest sign of a groundswell. Joining me now is steven law leadership fund. I know you know a lot about the union movement. Do you think that there is a groundswell and a change and that unions are going to try to make a power come back . Well, you know, i have worked with unions and i have worked against unions. And one thing that you can say about them that you cant always say about the Business Community, they play to win. They definitely did that in missouri. They outspent the Business Community five to one. They canvassed a million doors in missouri and they were able to run a very, very aggressive effort to knock out that wall. Dana steven, can you take a listen to an add that was voiced over by john
goodman. Listen. Its been sold as a way to help missouri workers. But look a little deeper and you will see its all about corporate greed. Prop a is being promoted by a network of outofstate billionaires, super pacs and corporate special interest groups. No way on prop a. Get the facts, righttowork states have worse schools, lower quality healthcare and lower wages than states with strong unions. Dana if your Business Community is outspent 5 to 1 and thats the kind of messaging out there, can republicans turn this around . Oh, yeah. I think so. This is one of those rare instances where the unions did win the battle. There have been a lot of righttowork fights where unions have lost because most people know that righttowork actually means more jobs, more growth, more Companies Moving from nonrighttowork states like missouri into states that are in the surrounding areas. And people get that. But unions can win a fight every once in a while and they did and they were smart and they were able to take it to the Business Communitybut i dont think its part of a larger ground swell. Unions have been losing all over the country. The only movement that has been grow sgt. Government sector thats because they have deals with politicians where they are able to basically enlist Government Employees whether they want to be a member of the union or not. Dana although that could be changing too after the Supreme Court ruling of this last year. I want to change the topic a little bit to the bigger picture. The Wall Street Journal editorial today was talking about the senate and the chances of the republicans winning control or keeping control or even gaining seats saying in this political environment, even the g. O. P. Senate majority isnt safe. Only three or four g. O. P. Seats are in play. But the party could lose nevada, arizona, and tennessee. Republicans need to defeat democratic incumbents to hold the senate, which isnt easy in this kind of year. Even just a couple of weeks ago, i would have said that maybe that was wrong. But, the give us another indication of what is happening out there . First of all, special elections are unique in that
you focus a huge amount of energy and activity on a very small target, it produces all sorts of outcomes. They are often hard to replicate whether you have a whole National Election which well be have having three months from. Now the senate is going to be a different sphere from the house. Where on the house Side Republicans have to defend a lot of close Swing Districts including districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. On the senate sidon 00 other hand, have you got a lot of republican seats that are completely safe. We have got three that are potentially at risk, tennessee, arizona and nevada. I actually feel good about our chances in all three of those one area i would disagree ace rarely do with the wall street Journal Editorial Board is i do think we have a great opportunity to beat some democrat candidates in states that are still very much for donald trump, still want someone. Dana like missouri, perhaps. Missouri, indiana, West Virginia, north dakota. These are states where they want someone who will support the trump agenda and they know they have a senator who is not doing that. Dana can i get a last word from you on the importance of keeping the
republicans together . The Koch Brothers network coming out against the president on trade. The president being frustrated about that but, still, pretty much, you know, moving in the right direction. How important is it to you to keep the senate and to grow the senate for the republicans to have these factions actually Work Together . Yeah. I think one of the histories of the Republican Party is that we try to bring in different people with different perspectives. We dont conduct ideological purges the way the democrats do. The Cokes Have Invested Treasure to move the government in a right ward direction. We will disagree on a few issues and few races. On the main well be moving in the same direction and important to maintain that unit if we can. Dana all right, steven law. Thank you. Thanks. Dana California Wildfires claiming another victim. The latest on that next. The u. S. Set to create the space force. How one former astronaut feels about this latest expansion out of this world. And so we will. [applause] dana Vice President pence at the pentagon today announcing why President Trump wants the u. S. To create a Military Presence in space. Pence saying the government intends to establish the space force as a sixth branch of the military by 2020. Kristin fisher is following this for us. Kristin . Hey, dana. Well today the Vice President said look back to The End Of World War Ii when advances in aviation led to the establishment of the air force. There were growing pains back then. But, he believes it was necessary to secure american domination in the skies. And now he believes that its time to do the exact same thing but in space. Now the time has come to write the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces. To prepare for the next battlefield. This leads to all kinds of questions about weaponizing space. Critics have said these proposals could potentially violate the outer space which prohibits Weapons Of Mass Destruction in space. Today, the Vice President made it very clear that the u. S. Is not the one necessitating this change. He blames china and russia for already weaponizing space. He says just last week china claims to have made its First Successful test of a Hyper Sonic Missile which could evade detection by u. S. Radars and russia claims to be developing missiles that could be launched from an aircraft mid flight to destroy u. S. Satellites. As their actions make clear, our adversaries have transformed space into War Fighting Domain already. And the United States will not shrink from this challenge. [applause] so today he directed the pentagon to begin creating a Space Operations force and a new unified combat and commands for space right away. Now, dana, i know you are dying to know if you can join the space force. I asked. We didnt get any specific details about that today. But the v. P. Did say that the space force is not going to be built from scratch. They are going to pick from u. S. Of the space programs
that are already in existence. So maybe your best bet is to enlist . Dana i think i will just have to report on it instead. Kristin fisher, thank you. Thank you. Dana joining me now for more on this is former astronaut Clayton Anderson who of course you would be qualified to report on, this sir. This is somewhat controversial a question about whether or not its actually needed. What it will be used for, what it will cost. I would love to get your thoughts as a former astronaut as to whether or not you think this is a good idea. I dont know a lot about the do tails, dana. Its really hard for me to comment because i want to see the implementation. If it can be done with less bureaucracy, then maybe its something thats plausible. Dana do you think that were behind behind the curve that china and russia is ahead of us this is going to be inevitable and space is the next frontier and we are behind . Well, i think we have a lot of Military Assets that are in space today that help our military men and women all around the globe. So protecting those assets is an important thing to
consider. Now, how you protect them, thats the question. To think forward to star wars and things blasting each other out of the sky, i think were a long way from that. But, i want to see us be the preeminent space nation and if that includes the ability to protect our assets then so be it. Dana you were a part of the International Space station i understand you served with some russian cosmcosmonauts there did it feel collaborative and cooperative . Absolutely it was collaborative and cooperative. I think if i gave the administration any advice it would be to find a way to work with china and get some of their astronauts, into space with us just like we are flying with the russians i believe if we are working together in space the odds of us fighting in space or on the ground are lessened. Dana for those of us that have never been up there in the atmosphere,
basically gravity is holding us back here, also is, it important for us to have some imagination and some creativity and looking ahead, you know, this is space force the president says he wants it to start in 2020. That doesnt mean its fully functioning by february of 2020. It means its a longer range plan. Do we sometimes have a failure to have imagination what is going to be necessary in the future . Well, i think a lot of times we rely on those things that come out of hollywood, right . Some great movies that give as you glimpse o of what it might be to live and work in space in the future. As we know early star trek ideas have actually come to fruition like the communicator and telephone. So, as we look forward, i dont think we lack that imagination. Oftentimes we just lack the funding to bring that imagination into reality. Dana well, it will be fun to watch how this develops and im sure the base will be there. We will have you back because you are an actual expert in all of this. Clayton anderson, thank you. Thank you, dana. Dana this Saturday Nasa is launching a mission to touch the sun. The space agency calls it humanitys first vi