Good to see you both. It is fun to be back together. You have a great day. Well see you later on today. Good morning, everybody, i am al ali velshi. And i am stephanie ruhle. I have missed you so much. Lets get you started. The growing push nationwide to pay teachers more. This morning thousands in oklahoma are set for a massive walkout following in the footsteps of states like West Virginia and arizona. Teachers are telling me today that it is not only about those salary hikes, it is about the steep cuts to the oklahoma Education System that have been going on here for over a decade. Im not walking out on my children or my students, im walking out for my students. President trump back at the white house after an easter weekend, guess where, maralago. He spent the holiday ripping into amazon, blasting daca and threatening an end to nafta negotiations. Mexico has got to help us at the border. And a lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of daca. And were going to have to really see. They had a great chance, the democrats blew it. The president s comments punctuating a series of combative tweets, arguing the situation at the border is getting more dangerous, insisting caravans coming. An ally of the president using a lot of local news stations to run a propaganda clip. Was this mashup from dead spin illustrates, the results are chilling. Onesided news stories dangerous to our democracy. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy. This is a really embarrassing moment for journalism. Lots to talk about there. And welcome to velshi ruhle. Right now schools are closed across oklahoma, some have been for several days as tens of thousands of teachers from across the state are marching on the capitol in oklahoma city, joining a growing nationwide wave of educators demanding better pay and more funding for their classrooms. Last week the Oklahoma State legislature, and you can see this Helicopter Shot was live, they attempted to head off the unrest, quickly approving a 400 million tax package signed by republican governor mary fallon on thursday. The new deal puts new taxes on gas and cigarettes and would raise average teach ear pay by about 6,100 and allocate 33 million for textbooks along with 18 million for school funding. But its far short of what the Oklahoma Education Association says is needed. Critics totaled the organizations demands at 1. 4 billion every year over the next three years. Much of this to make up for a decade of steep cuts. Adjusted for inflation, oklahoma now spends 30 less per student than it did ten years ago. This means some schools have moved to a fourday week. There are reports of unheated classrooms in winter, outdated textbooks and classrooms in need of repair. A fourdayaweek school week. Oklahoma is not alone in this fight. So lets take a look at how the teachers rebellion is spreading nationally. So far four states are feeling the backlash from educators as they close schools to march for better funding and pay. Three of the affected states, arizona, oklahoma and West Virginia, rank at the very bottom in teacher salaries. All four states pay below the National Average of just over 58,000. The recent wave of protests started in West Virginia where schools in all 55 counties were closed for a total of nine days as a teachers strike there won a 5 raise. In oklahoma, it is illegal for teachers to strike, so educators did their homework on what they could do, resulting in the current walkout and showing unity similar to what we saw in West Virginia. The Oklahoma Education Association is pushing for a 10,000 pay raise over the next ten years. In kentucky right now, Public Schools are shuttere eed in all0 counties as teachers there march on their State Capitol protesting a bill just approved by the state assembly that changes their pension plans. Thats among one of their chief concerns. The bill originally dealt with Wastewater Services before the pension measure was added in. Some lawmakers argued they did not even have enough time to read the added language before voting began. Kentucky teachers are also speaking per student funding and the restoration of School Resource centers. And now protests are cropping up in arizona where teachers have taken to the streets of phoenix, the state capital, pushing for a 20 pay increase. Arizona saw nearly a 25 drop in Education Funding from 2008 to 2015. So remember, theyre asking for these raises after steep cuts have happened. Mariana atencio is live with educators in oklahoma city. Mariana, these teachers are saying that this is too little too late about the legislators attempt at fixing this. What is it that they want to do, that they need to see in order to get back into the classroom . Reporter ali, theyre saying that lawmakers came up short. Youre seeing the Oklahoma State capitol behind me. Thousands of teachers, educators, state employees that are here. This walkout is well under way. Theyre also saying that the steep cuts that were made that have reduced their school week to four days a week, as you mentioned, the class sizes are enormous, what the teachers are getting paid and the amount of teachers. What the legislature did is not enough to fix that. I want to bring in heather here because we know that a quarter of oklahoma teachers have had to leave the state. Youre considering leaving yourself. You Teach High School. Yes, i Teach High School in norman, oklahoma. We have decided to leave. Ive accepted another teaching position in georgia. So its its just its too hard to get by month to month on the salary here. Reporter and i want to show ali and stephanie your sign. Oklahoma number one export is teachers. That is what teachers like heather are facing here. Heather, youre here with your young daughter. What is your name . Ellery. Reporter do you know why youre here with your mom . Because teachers are leaving norman. Reporter you love your teachers, right . The kids love their teachers, ali and stephanie, and theyre here because of them and also people like heather, theyre here not only because of a pay raise for them, they tell me, but because of the steep cuts to the Education System. What was the main motive behind you leaving . We have too many uncertified teachers teaching in oklahoma. And i cant i have two daughters. Ellery is my oldest. Were looking at the front end of a serious teaching crisis and i want better for them and that means leaving the state, unfortunately. Reporter thank you so much, heather. Thank you so much, ellery. I want to give you this view of the Oklahoma State capitol, again, ali and stephanie. The three main points that educators are asking for today, theyre asking for 200 million in additional funding for the state cuts. Theyre asking for 10,000 over the course of three years in salaries and theyre also asking for 5,000 for what they call teacher support staff. Thats the janitors, the people that work in the cafeteria, the mechanics, its the whole School System that really needs more funding and thats why teachers are walking out and theyre prepared to do so for a couple of days until their demands are met. Thank you. Now we want to bring in national Education Association president. Lily garcia, who is joining us on this. Lilly, thank you for joining us. This is a wave that stephanie was talking about across the country of teachers not only frustrated by their own salaries, which by the way when we compare them to other salaries tend to be very low, but the decades plus of cuts to education that are causing teachers to have to take more out of their own pocket and yet still teach kids with fewer resources, with fewer textbooks, with failing classrooms. You know, these teachers and support staff, they dont want to be here. They feel like they have to be here, that they have a responsibility to stand up for their own profession but also for their students. Theyre looking at textbooks that are 20 years old and held together with duct tape. Theyre looking at class sizes that exploded. And it wasnt a natural disaster. This is a crisis that was manmade and it was a decision that people in this state capital made to underfund, to defund Public Schools, really knowing that teachers were going to pick up the slack out of their own pockets. Enough is enough. I want to talk about some of these teachers who are actually leaving these states, picking up, moving their families to other states where they can be paid more as teachers and where they know those schools can provide their own kids with better education. We talk so much about the income inequality divide in this country. If we see this trend happen en masse, its only going to worsen that issue. Its not a coincidence that youre seeing this in the most underfunded, by design, underfunded Education Programs in these states. In West Virginia, in oklahoma. You look at arizona. Look at the places where for a dozen years there was this there was this political ideology that you didnt have to invest in something as essential as a Public School, that you would just underfund it, youd have 40 kids in a classroom, what could go wrong, and youve had teachers who have worked within the system, they wrote letters, they invited legislators to come and visit their schools and see the impact of this dismal funding, and they were ignored. And so theres a tipping point. Theres a point where people say enough is enough. You know, we need to make some noise. We need to make everybody see whats happening to our students because we feel like were going to be leaving a profession that we love and no one is going to be there to take our place. When you say underfunded by design, why would there be such a design . What do people who think that underfunding the public School System, what do they think gets achieved by that . I think what you do is youre saying we want to cut taxes. If were going to cut taxes for big wealth and big business, that means we wont have money for things that the Community Needs like a Public School. What they have relied on over a decade of cutting and cutting and cutting, without saying, now wait a minute, thats money that goes to fund public education, they have seen teachers as the source that would fill in that hole that they have dug. Doesnt that seem absurd . And we pulled out of our own pockets. But doesnt that seem absurd . Theres no other industry where one would expect the employees to fill in the gap. If there was a cut here, no one would say, well, stephanie and ali are going to be operating the cameras on their own. Why is it that these states assumed that would happen . Well, were the only profession that steals from home and brings thing to work, okay . We just give our kids whatever it takes. Im a sixth grade teacher. I bought a classroom set of charlottes web because i didnt have any money for it in my School Budget so i take it out of my familys budget. And i think because weve had those hearts that we will do anything it takes for our students, that you have politicians that go, that sounds good to me, lets just keep doing it that way. These teachers are saying i love my kids too much to allow that to continue. And thats why the battle cry here is enough is enough, do the right thing. Weve done the right thing for a dozen years. We have backfilled that deficit, that hole of Public School funding. Its time for these guys to do the right thing. Lily garcia, the president of the national Education Association, thank you for joining us. You know, if that expectation is there that youre going to take from home to take it to work, then we have to pay the teachers more. Its one or the other. If you pay the teachers more money and they have to subsidize some of this, then you could understand it. But they are among the lowest paid in their profession. Were going to have less and less young people go into the teaching profession knowing that they cant support themselves. This is a tough one and its happening across the country. Well stay on top of this walkout in oklahoma. President trump is calling for tough immigration laws now. His tweets claim that the border is getting more dangerous. He warns that caravans of immigrants are coming to the United States. Hes also conflating that with daca which makes absolutely no sense. Well find out whats behind this latest tweet storm next. You know what youre watching. Velshi ruhle, with velshi and ruhle. To prepare you for the future. Looks like you hooked it. And if thats not enough, well help your kid prepare for the future. Dont hook it kid. And if thats still not enough, well help your kids kid prepare for the future. Looks like he hooked it. Well do anything. Takes after his grandad. Seriously anything, to help you invest for the future. Ally. Do it right. Seriously anything, to help you invest for the future. But he hasoke up wwork to do. In. So he took aleve. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. Welcome back to velshi ruhle. President trump had a new series of combative tweets aimed at mexico and nafta this morning. He started with mexico has the absolute power not to let these large caravans of people enter their country. They must stop their at their northern border, which they can do because which they cant do because the border laws work, not allow them to pass through into our country which has no effect on border laws. He added Congress Must immediately pass border legislation, use Nuclear Option if necessary, to stop massive inflow of drugs and people. Border patrol agents and i. C. E. Are great but the week dem laws dont allow them to do their job. Act now, congress, our country is being stolen. Let me just say Nuclear Option meaning pass a bill in the senate with a lower threshold than 60 votes. But is that lower threshold 39 . Thats the amount the president had support from. Theres so much wrong in those tweets, that was followed by, quote, mexico is making a fortune on nafta. They have very Strong Border laws, ours are pathetic. With all the money they make from the u. S. , hopefully they will stop people from coming through their country and into ours, at least until Congress Changes our immigration laws. All this followed, by the way, his tweet storm and remarks also aimed at mexico and nafta and daca. Mexico has got to help us at the border. If theyre not going to help us at the border, its a very sad thing between two countries. Mexico has got to help us at the border. A lot of people are coming in because they want to take advantage of daca and were going to have to really see. They had a great chance. The democrats blew it. Garrett haake joins us now live from the white house. Garrett, donald trump just spoke at the White House Easter Egg Roll about this. Whats the latest from him . Reporter he did, ali. The audio is not very good but we can show you the tape. The president was sitting at a picnic table with kids when he was asked a question by one of the reporters about daca and he repeated a version of that same line, saying essentially this is democrats fault. Democrats have left Daca Recipients down. This is the kid of thing that makes democrats pull their hair out of their head. Not only did the president end daca in the first place, the president and the white house aggressively lobbied against the one bipartisan bill that came the closest to actually passing the senate, that got 54 votes. It needed 60 but got a majority of votes in the senate that the could have created a permanent fix for Daca Recipients. All that scuttled by the white house. Its tough to see how the congress breaks out of this log jam now, especially with this kind of rhetoric coming repeatedly from the president of the United States. Okay. Well, two things. All of this apparently started with a fox news segment yesterday morning on immigration. Second, the president s comments on the daca program, to say it nice, theyre inaccurate. Theyre wrong. Its a lie the president is sending to how many people follow him on twitter . Millions of people who follow him on twitter, a lie about how daca and immigration works. Reporter the key thing that the president gets wrong is the time frame. His tweets and comments have suggested that anyone coming across the border now could somehow be grandfathered into this program and thats just not the case. To be eligible for daca you had to be under 16 years old when you came into this country and it had to have happened before 2007. So its just fundamentally inaccurate to say people coming across the border now could be protected by those provisions. The president talked about the Nuclear Option and getting these things passed with a lower threshold. Is that possible . You know, is that does that math work . Reporter no for two reasons. First, Mitch Mcconnell has made it very, very clear that he does not want to see the legislative filibuster, which is what were talking about here, removed. He does not want to see that go from 60 to 50 votes because he knows a republican majority is not a permanent thing in the u. S. Senate. If you change the rules now, some day democrats will be in control and its that much easier for them to change policy right back to where it was. So Mitch Mcconnell has said its a nonstarter. Second of all, even if it were to happen, in this case the specific piece of legislation that the president wanted to see passed only got 39 votes in the u. S. Senate. And there is no thermoNuclear Option to allow for a piece of legislation to pass with less than a majority. It just doesnt happen. Last i checked, Mitch Mcconnell is a republican. Yeah. And he doesnt think this is going to work. Garrett, thanks very much. Can i just point out to you, this morning the president has tweeted three tweets on mexico and immigration, one tweet on mexico and nafta, one tweet attacking the media, praising sinclair, one tweet attacking amazon, and one tweet attacking the department of justice and the fbi. That is all of that by just after 10 00 a. M. This morning, making us wonder, whats up . Whats he listening to . What was in his prebreakfast this morning. Lets talk about the tweet on amazon. Hes ramping up his attacks on amazon, accusing the company of ripping off the post office. This is the second direct shot at the retail giant in less than a week. But for fact sake, amazon is not to blame for the post offices problems. In fact many say it might be to thank for some benefits that the post office gets from shipping amazon packages. Emailing, text messages, thats what has people mailing less. Were watching the markets. After a long holiday weekend, the dow down 320 to start the morning. Remember, a lot of talk about tariffs. Stay with us, youre watching velshi ruhle. You totanobodys hurt, new car. But there will still be pain. It comes when your Insurance Company says theyll only pay threequarters of what it takes to replace it. What are you supposed to do . Drive threequarters of a car . Now if you had Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, youd get your whole car back. I guess they dont want you driving around on three wheels. Smart. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car. Liberty stands with you™. 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Call now take control of your retirement today but prevagen helps your brain with an ingredient originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. Welcome back to velshi ruhle. This morning the president took to twitter once again bashing one of his favorite targets, amazon. He said only fools or worse are saying that our money losing post office makes money with amazon. They lose a fortune and this will be changed. Also our fully tax paying retailers are Closing Stores all over the country. Not a level playing field. The president started his latest war on amazon last thursday, tweeting unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state and local governments, use our postal system as their delivery boy, causing tremendous loss to the United States and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business. Lets make something clear. You cant go after one specific company. Two days and four tweets later, he continued the thought. While were on the subject, it is reported that the u. S. Post office will lose 1. 50 on average for each package it delivers for amazon. That amounts to billions of dollars. This post Office Scam Must stop. Amazon must pay real costs and taxes now. My question to you, ali, if he wants amazon to do it, what about every other company that ships things . Hes going after amazon as a proxy for a very different problem so lets break that down. Then hate the game, not the player. Well, hes hating the player and there are reasons for that and it has to do with the Washington Post of the the president loves to swing at amazon but is amazon to blame for problems at the post office and in the retail sector. Lets take this one by one. On taxes, the president is likely talking about sales tax, something amazon doesnt collect from thirdparty sellers. When you buy on amazon, sometimes its from amazon and sometimes its a thirdparty seller. If you buy it from amazon, it does collect sales tax in 45 states where its required to do so. Thirdparty sellers are required to collect the sales tax themselves. The company has support for blanket federal law on sales tax collection on line because right now theres a patch work of local regulations. Number two, the claim that amazon is costing the Postal Service billions of dollars. The reality is shipping and Package Services grew by 2. 1 billion last year, thats a 12 increase. Amazon does get a deal on shipping with amazon. Thats an agreement that is subject to review by the Postal Regulatory Commission every year. Its required to be profitable for the Postal Service. And then theres this claim, that amazon is putting thousands of retailers out of business. This is interesting. A report from the progressive policy substitute found that ecommerce added 355,000 jobs between 2007 and 2016. About 312,000 jobs have been lost at Department Stores alone in that period. So theres no question that brick and Mortar Retail is struggling. As stephanie says, thats a game problem. Part of it is that amazon is the biggest player in the online game but criticizing amazon alone for that isnt looking at the bigger picture. You can say this trend is bad for the american worker. Then look into the trend. But to simply say this is the fault of amazon, i cant find a law that they have broken. Joining us is our friend, steve rattner, who served as the auto czar under president obama. Steve, lets walk through what amazon is doing that is so inappropriate in the president s words, because i remember back in 2016 weve barely seen the president s taxes. But the one time we did talk about it, he was able to not pay taxes because he was able to take advantage of a loss. He said thats what makes him smart. Thats why you should vote for him. So what is amazon doing that the president is saying is so wrong or needs to stop . First of all, i think ali laid out the issues really well. I think its pretty clear to everyone what the president is doing. I think you have to start with the fact that most of this is probably about the Washington Post and not about amazon. Which jeff bezos owns. He owns personally but the president conflates it with amazon and goes am amazon for what the Washington Post is doing. Amazon is complying with all the laws. It is paying federal income taxes, collecting state and local sales taxes in every state except for possibly one which is how the law works. It is not required and cant collect taxes for thirdparty sellers on the marketplace. As far as the post office is concerned, if the post office or the president thinks the post office is charging too little, they should charge them more. Its not amazons fault if they happen to be paying less. As ali said, because they are a volume shipper, they get a special deal. But the post office are big boys and girls. They should negotiate fair rates. And there were other structural problems that caused the post office to lose money and some of them are the way the pension is set up. First class mail is declining and packages are replacing some of it but not all of it. Thats not amazons fault. And they dont have the ability to charge more and lose that shipping. But thats one valid and interesting problem. The getting rid of retailers in favor of online buying is another and separate problem. But thats not really what the president is handling in a sophisticated manner here. No, because we all think, at least i think this is really about the Washington Post. Whats going on in the retailing industry is massive change. There are more jobs being created than lost, we could debate a little bit. Consumers like amazon. This is a world this is an Economic System which consumers get to decide how they want to buy stuff. And we decided we want stuff cheap and want it in a day. And you want to be a prime member. Click here and if you live in new york, you can have it this afternoon and people like that service. They are willing to pay for that. Whats the danger of this, though . Because there are the president has 40 what, 48 or 49 million followers on twitter. He says stuff like this. We can fact check it, but there are a whole lot of people not watching us who will come to believe it. At some point what is the danger of the president . We saw this in the beginning of his presidency, going after individual companies for things that are sort of a different issue. I think its terrible president ial leadership. I think you should lead by example and not singling out companies. But others would say hes speaking truth finally. Others might say that. There are some who probably think that. There are probably some who think that. But look, hes in a different position. Hes the president. Hes not you or me or ali. Hes the president. He should lead responsibly the danger here is that you create some kind of mob effect that goes after whoever it is he happens to be targeting. The other danger i think is that there may be practices with any company that are worthy of critique and analysis. We do it with the airlines when they do bad things and we do it with other organizations, but this creates an us versus them with amazon because the president is criticizing them for things that arent really the things we should be talking about. Right. When there are issues with companies, its not the president s job to go company by company. Theres a process for all this stuff. If you have an issue with the airlines, go to the faa. If you have the issue with fair sales practices, go to the federal trade commission. If you have an issue with the post office, go to the post office. Its not the president s job to elevate this to where bad stuff could happen. Lets go to trade. The president said trade wars are good and easy to win. Now, you could say anyone at the beginning of a war would enter saying that same thing, but we all know thats not the case. The president has said nothing, though hes all over twitter this morning about china. Now saying, yep, were going to hit you with 3 billion of tariffs, specifically on agriculture. There you go. Fresh and dried fruit, nuts, wine, were talking Trump Country here. What are the possible ramifications . Trade wars are bad in the end. Trade is good for the world in that people get stuff cheaper and better because its made somewhere else and in turn we get to export stuff. So trade is a good thing. That said, it is fair also to say that china is the most protectionist for sure. Country in the world and i agree with the president that we should do something about it. Launch a unilateral trade tariff war would not be how i would go about it. The europeans are just as upset about chinas trade practices as we are. We should be getting together and pushing back on china, not by just sort of sallying forth and announcing a whole bunch of tariffs. Larry kudlow has his first meeting with the president today. He certainly isnt in favor of these barriers. But the president is now talking about scrapping nafta. Its important for people to understand that nafta allows cars to be made in a way that a car and its parts will go between the United States, canada and mexico several times before its completion. This is a way of managing trade thats good. It was an interesting thing i learned when i did that, that exact fact. Parts move back and forth across the border, with mexico probably more than canada, but because what automakers are doing is finding the lowest cost way to produce a car so you, consumers, can buy a cheaper car that is just as well made if not better, and thats good for american consumers. Steve, good to see you as always, thank you. Thanks for having me. President trump defending the sinclair broadcast company. They are under fire for making news anchors read identical scripts. Sinclair owns almost 200 local news stations across the nation and theyd like to buy more. Why should you be concerned about what the company is doing and why would the president of the United States be backing one company over another . Youre watching velshi ruhle. If you have medicare parts a and b and want more coverage, guess what . You could apply for a Medicare Supplement Insurance Plan whenever you want. No enrollment window. No waiting to apply. That means now may be a great time to shop for an aarp Medicare Supplement Insurance Plan, insured by unitedhealthcare Insurance Company. Medicare doesnt cover everything. And like all standardized Medicare Supplement Insurance Plans, these help cover some of what medicare doesnt pay. So dont wait. Call now to request your free decision guide. 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And before starting xarelto®about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. Its important to learn all you can. To help protect yourself from a stroke. Talk to your doctor about xarelto®. Theres more to know™. Welcome back to velshi ruhle. Depending on where you live, you may have heard something a little unusual on your local news recently, maybe Something Like this. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media. More alarming, some outlets publish these things that arent true without checking facts first. Unfortunately, some members of the media have used their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control exactly what people think. This is extremely dangerous to our democracy. Now, this is important. You may not know that you were hearing a message that was being repeated across station across station across america with a message that mirrors President Trumps attacks on the media. Well, its courtesy of sinclair broadcasting, which may own a tv station near you. Its a conservativeleaning media empire thats beginning to insert its own perspective into local news and that matters. Even if you arent familiar with the company, youve likely watched a sinclair station before. Simply put, they are everywhere. Sinclair owns 193 tv stations in 89 media markets nationwide. They have affiliations with all four major networks. Heres a map that the New York Times put together last year, which gives you some idea of the companys reach around the country. But sinclair is trying to expand this reach even further. By the way, this doesnt look as big as it is because these are major media markets that cover a lot of the unmarked areas around it. Sinclair is in talks to acquire its competitor, tribune media. Tribune owns 42 stations, including in the biggest markets of new york, los angeles and chicago. The government is weighing that acquisition right now. This is what sinclairs reach would look like, roughly, if it was successful in acquiring tribune media. So how would this takeover be possible . Well, the government requires the Stations Group reach to be no more than 39 of all u. S. Tv households. But theres a loophole. Back in april of 2016, fcc chair reinstated something called the uhf discountin. They involve the different wave lengths used to broadcast television. A large portion of Sinclair Holdings are low power and they are discounted. They dont count as much as highpower holdings so they dont count toward the calculation or as heavily toward the calculation of a stations market share, which means millions more americans can soon expect to see conservative editorials on their local night casts like this guy. Some may even feature him, the former Senior Advisor to President Trump, boris epshteyn. Local news is important. Nearly half of all americans who get their news from television get it from their local station and they deserve to know who or what is behind it. So were joined now by nbc news media analyst eric deggans. Eric, good to see you, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Eric, President Trump weighed in on the discussion via twitter. You know, basically mocking cnn, nbc, calling us a joke and backing sinclair broadcasting. So how could one possibly say that theyre an unbiased news source when youve got the president of the United States pushing them and the other News Organization he pushes is fox news. Fox news is not unbiased. Well, im also tv critic for National Public radio. My colleague spoke with the head of news at sinclair and they insist that their News Coverage is impartial even though they often provide what they call mustrun commentaries to all of their stations that they own that contain political viewpoints that do seem to favor conservative causes. And i think theres a concern that the Station Group may at some point decide to extend those mustrun edicts to News Coverage. And thats what is so concerning about these statements because the primary value of a local news outlet is its independence, its knowledge of the local community, its fairness and its ability to cover the local news the way that Community Needs to have it covered. And if a great deal of how it covers National News subjects is dictated from a faraway owner, theres some concern that their freedom and their ability to be fair as journalists will be compromised and thats why everybody is paying attention to this. But that was always the concern with the consolidation of media with faraway owners and the stripping down of local news. I have to say that concern pales in comparison to the idea that now not only is it not local, but its weirdly biased and designed elsewhere. Thats different from not getting enough local coverage, right . This is a problem on a different plane. Well, what i would say is that this is a concern thats been around for a very long time. In 2004, sinclair was criticized because there was a documentary called stolen honor that it had put together critical of the military service of then president ial democratic president ial candidate john kerry. News reports say they intended to make their Station Group air that documentary. They claimed back then they didnt plan that and they reconfigured the programming into Something Else that they did have a lot of their stations air. But that was a huge controversy back in 2004. So this is something that sinclair has been doing for a while and that people have been paying attention to for a long time. Were going to continue to give it quite a bit of focus. Eric, thank you so much. Hey, lets take a quick look at the markets right now. They have accelerated their downturn. This is obviously the first day lets look at the stocks and well talk about tom steyer in a second. There we go. We are down almost 500 points on the dow. Weve got markets down across the board. Well talk about that when we get back. And were going to be listening to a great conversation that stephanie had earlier with tom steyer. Well bring you that as well when we come back. vo you can pass down a Subaru Forester. But you get to keep the memories. Love. Its what makes a subaru, a subaru. avo get 0 apr financing on all new 2018 Subaru Forester models. Now through april 2nd. For mom, the nations largest Senior Living referral service. For the past five years, ive spoken with hundreds of families and visited senior care communities around the country and ive got to tell you, todays Senior Livingnd communities are better than tever. Ou, todays Senior Living communities are better than ever. 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Thats something were going to want to keep an eye on. What do you think, stephanie . A lot of this is the continued trade war drum beat. Our tariffs on china, chinas response with tariffs on america. Yeah, i mean, once we get into that, that could be a very, very big issue. We got to talk amazon for a moment. Their stock dropping this morning, down around 5 right now. You know, the president taking aim at this company. You know, hes got a lot of control. I spoke to someone earlier this morning who knows about markets. Thats the reason we know his name. Investing is how he became a billionaire. We talked about the markets, but we also talked the state of the government and an initiative hes really been pushing for months now, tom stier, whos interested in a mission to impeach the president. Hes leading a National Movement to build momentum for the impeachment of President Trump. He believes the president is uniquely unfit for office. Take a listen to what he had to say among many thing, including your money, money, money. I think that hes naive because he is assuming that he can command and control other countries. I dont see this as very different from his statement that were going to build this great wall, and the mexicans are going to pay for it. Remember, he did say that. It was like, are you kidding . Now hes insulting another country then assuming that he can control them and order them to do our bidding. Its exact same thing with china. When i look at his tax bill, when i look at this trade behavior, i sit there and think, wow, this is stuff that in the medium term is going to be devastating for the american economy, but in the short run, its going to give us a boost of adrenaline. The fact of the matter is we are absolutely committed to trying to, first of all, work towards the november 6 elections, and second of all, to engage the american people, to understand how bad and how dangerous this president is. And to get rid of him. So the fact of the matter is, this is not a partisan thing. We view this as strictly about being american patriots, about standing up for basic American Values in the face of a lawless and dangerous president. But the second question youre asking, which i think is a fantastic question, is, okay, you dont like this guy, you dont like what he stands for. What do you stand for . I completely agree. I think that is the question in american politics. I actually feel ive spent a lot of time thinking about how do we come forward with a framework for americans to understand how together were going to have a just and prosperous 21st century. I look at american Politics Today as a fight between the ideas of the 1930s and the ideas of the 1980s. Its 2018, and were talking about 2018 to 2050. Its about time we start dealing with the real world instead of last century. The one thing thats interesting when he talks about this impeachment movement, he reminded me, like, listen, if the president were to be impeached, its not like a democrat gets the seat. Its mike pence. He said that the root of this is about the president being unfit. His focus is on donald trump, as he say, being unfit for office. Its not just a partisan thing. There are a lot of liberals who say if you impeach the president , you get mike pence. While they may not agree with his politics, he operates as a more traditional president and could be successful. He says this is a clear and present danger issue. Time for our monumental american, someone who might be deserving of more recognition. Today its new York City Firefighter thomas phelan. During the 9 11 attacks, he was a ferry captain who turned his boat into a rescue vessel and helped shuttle hundreds of people out of lower manhattan. Firefighters say it was a huge part of the rescue operation, ferrying supplies and rescue workers. Almost two years later, thomas joined the new York City Fire department and was promoted to marine pilot, manning fire boats. Thomas died last month. He was just 45 years old. According to the new york daily news, he was still on active duty. His family says he was suffering from a cancer linked to the toxic fumes from grounds zero. Thomas was given a heros funeral march 20th in brooklyn. If you have a monumental american, please tweet us velshiruhle. Im on the move all day long. And sometimes, i dont eat the way i should. So, i drink boost. Boost high protein nutritional drink has 15 grams of protein to help maintain muscle and 26 essential vitamins and minerals, including calcium and vitamin d. Look for savings on boost in your sunday paper. You know whats not awesome . Gigspeed internet. Including calcium and vitamin d. When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids, and these guys, him, ah. Oh hello. That lady, these houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh, sure. Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. Well, thank you for watching this hour of velshi ruhle. Great to be back together. Im going to hug you one more time. I really missed you. I have not gotten to sit in this chair with this guy for like two weeks. Well, im back later today at 3 00 p. M. Eastern. Ill be watching you. Youll be back at 9 00 tomorrow. Well be back together at 11 00. Right now its time for Andrea Mitchell reports. Great to have you back together. Right now on Andrea Mitchell reports, on a roll. The president transforming the annual childrens easter egg roll, which began in 1878, into an impromptu advertisement for his achievements. I want to thank the White House Historical association. It is special, and we keep it in tiptop shape. We call it sometimes tippy top shape. Its a great, great place. Its an honor to have everybody on behalf of the trump family, many of whom are with us right here in the audience. I just want to thank you. This is