Facts need to come forward, and no charges have been filed. What do you make of it . Bob brady is a very sophisticated player in this game, and i will be surprised in the end if he crossed the line, to be honest with you, in terms of doing something that is illegal. It does show, though, the need for a more robust twoparty system. And it would be the same if the republicans were controlling the situation in any particular. Its healthy when you may win an election, you may lose it, and you have to kind of fight with the best talent, but im gonna be surprised in the end bob bradys played this game a long time if hes crossed any lines. And there was reportedly a conversation alleging that he tried to get a witness not to talk, and that witness, we now understand, off the record, is former mayor wilson goode. Allegedly, hes person number three listed in the case. What do you think about that . I think maybe theres smoke where theres fire. Bob bradys been chairman of the party since 1986. Hes been playing this game for a very long time. But the folks that are listed in the reports are ostensibly the brady bunch. Im mean, these are the people who are the closest to him, who give him the most advice, and when hes executing a political agenda, these are the people he relies on to do that. So i think theres gonna be a lot more investigations going on with this probe, but i do know that the people that are listed in the indictments or in the articles are the people that are closest to congressman brady and the folks that he does rely on for those types of activities. And its including Senior Municipal Court judge jimmie moore, of course, is the person in question. Right. So, let me just take exception a little bit with what youre saying there. So, first of all, the only person thats been charged is ms. Cavaness. And her association was with judge moore. Right. And she was made part of the Brady Campaign in, i think, an effort for party unity, which, as we all know those of us that have followed political campaigns thats something that you always want to get committed to early on if youre gonna try to move an opponent out of the race. Importantly, jimmie moore had five fec, federal election commission, violations on his filings. The Brady Campaign had no election violations. So i think these are significant facts that sort of get lost. I mean, we in philadelphia, have developed a form of political ptsd. You know, whenever there is a headline about political corruption, people just go, oh, my god, here it comes again. Well, and with reason because, just in recent memory, congressman chaka fattah, kathleen kane, who was our attorney general for the state, seth williams, the former d. A. Weve had a long list just in recent memory. That doesnt even go way back. What do you think, ed . Well, im with brian on this. First of all, i think bob brady is a very cautious man, very experienced. I dont see him having placed himself in a situation where he could be the subject of any kind of litigation or prosecution, i should say. And, look, campaigns do this all the time in some form. You have someone who is running. You try to figure out, how do i get them out of the way . You want to stay within the rules. But to another point brian made about a party being in power for too long you get a little sloppy. Yeah. You think that you dont have to be too adherent to the rules close enough is good enough for government work. We dont have to stay right where the letter of the law is. And the fbi wouldnt stick its neck out and some of these allegations would become public in the light of day, unless, as you said, there might be something to it. I mean, they dont just lambaste people without some oh, no, no, theyre serious people who are sworn to do the right thing. So if somebody stepped outside the bounds, theyre going to pay a price, but im with brian. Im gonna be very surprised if bob brady not that others didnt maybe cross a line, but im gonna be you know, when your opponent youre trying to get them out, youll help them retire their campaign debt. Thats done all the time. Right. Governor wolf did it with kathleen kane. Right. So that parts not illegal per se. Its the reasoning behind it or the method. Not kathleen kane. And in the almost 20 years that congressman bradys been in office, he has never had a real serious opponent in the democratic primary. And until the last redistricting, that was a Congressional District that was overwhelmingly africanamerican. Youve had a number of africanamericans in this area who have looked at that seat as one of opportunity for them and have thought about challenging him, but, for some reason or another, whenever it comes down to election time, theres never an opponent against congressman brady. I think that there is some political machinations there, and, again, i think the fact that they have listed his closest Political Consultants means something. Well, but its also jimmie moore was actually a friend and ally of congressman brady, and brady was the guy who helped him get elected, despite the fact that he was not endorsed by the board not once, but twice. So its not that theres no relationship there. And, also, i think that, when you look at sort of the bigger picture, i think the press the correlation of what has happened so far and the press coverage, i think theres a divide there. You read the headline, and then you read the story, and the divide is quite substantial. And can i just so much ado about nothing so far, in effect . Well, not nothing. Theres something because somebody pleaded guilty to something. But its much ado about lots of things no charges, nothing pro so i think that doesnt merit front page above the fold. And so far, both of the Major Players have denied anything, so theyre already and if i could just amend an error i made here, which is you meant tom kane. We know. No, no, not. Katie mcginty. Oh, okay. So sorry. No worries. All right, lets move on and talk about allentowns mayor and readings mayor two other officials also, alleged, had corruption in their backgrounds. And the allegation is paytoplay, that they were selling their cities, allegedly, bigcontract projects in their cities to get some political gain, either Campaign Contributions or tickets to games, for heavens sakes, other things like that down the way. What do you make of those kinds of allegations . Well, you have to establish the quid pro quo. So, remember Bob Mcdonnell, governor of virginia, was convicted of corruption . It was overturned because they couldnt establish, you give me this, and then heres what ill do for you. So thatll be the key to look for. Its not just what the politician received, its what they did in return for that gift. I agree with that, and, in fact, that was the driving force behind the Bob Mcdonnell appeal to the Supreme Court, in which the Supreme Court came down on the side of that there was no improper behavior. So that has to be proved. And theyve done a fairly extensive investigation, so well see. But you also have, out of this reading and allentown situation, i guess, 11 guilty pleas so far in terms of things. I dont think theyre as sophisticated perhaps. You know, thats kind of our farm team, like the reading phillies are for the philadelphia phillies. [ laughs ] absolutely. Allentowns our thirdlargest city in the state, but, still. Yeah, but its the farmteam system, i guess, and they got to the level of sophistication to not cross that line, but 11 of 16 people have already pled guilty, so i think thats something. To brians point, when you have folks who are the Political Consultants, advisors, the folks who are designed to execute on these elected officials wishes and theyre turning over and theyre being indicted i mean, the fact that they indicted mike fleck over a year ago i think means a lot, because he was the consultant for both the mayor in reading and the mayor in allentown. And another thing to keep in mind, as you have this large number of people who fall within the gears of justice, they, in an attempt to save themselves, have to give something to the prosecutor. And that usually means theyre going up top. Thats right. Its a fouryear federal investigation, a 50count indictment. This is not any small matter. Theyre playing for real over here. Yeah. And do you think that, in the end, well see some fire where there was smoke . Well, the feds dont expend that kind of effort where isnt something going on. And to brians point, the number of people who are now caught up in this, its in their selfinterest to give up whoevers above them. Sure. Save their own skin. cause instead of getting x years, youll get half as many years. Thats right. But it could take a while, as we saw in the congressman chaka fattah case 10 years of investigation behind the scenes. He called it a witch hunt, but, in the end, he was convicted. So it may be a slow well, i mean, mccord still hasnt been sentenced, right, here in pennsylvania. No. Not yet. I was gonna say, similarly, in the chaka fattah situation, you had one of his top deputies turn over, and thats what kind of led to the investigation and led to the and the prosecutors have an unlimited budget. Right. They dont have to worry about running out of money. Theres another loud voice in the sanctuary city issue, which, of course is front and center for philadelphia. We are a sanctuary city, and our mayor has said well continue to be. Attorney general jeff sessions, just this past week, said funding is gonna dry up very quickly for sanctuary cities. Its a major theme by our new president. Mayor kenney says, actually, the citys gonna lose financially either way. If we do or if we dont, were gonna be losing money. So you really have to factor in, according to the mayors point of view, which is the worstcase scenario. Are you giving up the people, in his eyes, and then youre not getting the benefits of having them here but you can measure the amount of money youre gonna lose. But i feel like, in the long term, were gonna be 1. 7 million is the measurement. Right. So heres the thing, though you cant have cities and states making foreign po dealing with the international borders. I mean, i admire somebody, and if it was father jim kenney and sister jenette kenney, id but hes a mayor. Its government. We have a system. We have a federal government, we have a State Government and a local go local governments and State Governments cant make decisions on our borders. And i think its arrogance and its stupid and its cro and im no big fan on grabbing people off the street, but the idea that we arrest somebody and we cant ask them their immigration status come on, guys. Well, just on the subject of whether or not the mayor is being appropriate, lets just point out the fact that there are a whole lot of policies that are emanating at the National Level that have religious phenomena tied to them, and this is one of them. And, you know, i admire the mayor because he showed moral courage, along with the pope, along with other people in our city who believe that we cannot and should not be subjugating immigrants and refugees to a standard that is just unreasonable. The federal government ought to be working with philadelphia and other sanctuary cities on thoughtful ways of approaching these significant moral governmental issues, because they are intertwined. And some critics would say thats in a perfect world, and now, in the world where philadelphians live, which is the largest poorest big city in america poor youre gonna stand to lose 1. 7 million a year . And you got people who have no job, no home, no food . And were gonna stand it would be nice if it were all perfect. What do you think, ed . Can we afford to lose that money . No, we cant afford to lose the money, and to speak to donnas point, if were concerned about the moral hazard of what happens when you enforce Immigration Law first of all, the question, as a nation, shouldnt we have the right to establish the rule of law and then to objectively follow it . And, secondly, what people fail to recognize in most cases is that these illegals very often wind up being the victims of unscrupulous employers and others principally because they are illegal. So we admit more people legally into this country than the rest of the world combined. Certainly, lets have the discussion if we want to find a way to fix the status of some of these people, but the ironclad rule of government the more you subsidize something, the more you get. You let ilLegal Immigration happen, you will get more and more of it. It will make Legal Immigration that much more difficult. Itll make the crime situation much worse. All right, before we go to break, lets talk about the healthcare debacle. What in the world happened . That Early Morning late night vote where it came up short, that is a trump failure. Anybody seeing that from the outside would say, boy, the president has got to be hot about that one. What do you think happened in the end . Obviously, senator mccain surprised a few folks. He put so much stake in this vote President Trump put so much stake in this vote. He put so much stake in the assumption that senator mccain would vote with him on this vote, and he was left flatwrong last night. Senator mccain, in a very dramatic way, signaled a no vote with a thumbsdown, and when you heard the gasps through the senate chambers, it really sent chills through anybody who was watching it live. Was it personal . I mean, the senator is suffering with brain cancer, so he has a medical situation. My bet is hes not using obamacare to pay for his, so its not personally affecting his bottom line, but is it personal because the president had some notsonice things to say about him along the way . I think look, the vote was so close, and you had other republican senators going, and there were other republican senators, had we got to an actual vote, wouldve peeled off, as well i mean in terms of the larger issue of healthcare reform. But i got to think, at some level, john mccains thinking what he thinks is the right thing to do, part of it is legacy, and if im him, i cant shake the fact that, during that campaign, this same guy, trump, said, i like guys who didnt get captured during the vietnam war rather than guys who got captured. And this is payback in a way, okay . This is payback as it relates to President Trump, and why should he burn the gas for him, for a person whos shown him no respect, as well . But heres also the thing. This is complicated stuff. When youre an entrepreneurial builder, you can decide, you know what . Well add a garden to it. This is government very complicated. You cant be tweeting one thing in the morning and tweeting Something Else in the afternoon. You cant run an organization the way hes doing it, because hes failing. In the meantime, did mccain do himself no favors by kicking the can down the road, saying that hell come back and there should be more discussion . I mean, did he sort of fuzz make some smoke out of an issue where there shouldnt have been any . No, hes saying things that he knows wont happen. Thats the problem. There will not be this grand accommodation he talks to. If there was any opportunity at all, it wouldve been in reconciliation between the house and Senate Versions. And thats why 10 senators on the republican side said, i will only vote for this as long as the house doesnt accept the Senate Version and pass it. They wanted to see this process to continue. Well, it didnt make sense, and thats why i think the tail part of what brian said may be the one that really drove this. Mccain voted to continue discussion. Yesterday, he killed it. Right. One last word, and then we have to take a break. Two important points. The republican leadership, mitch mcconnell, made a terrible political error in judgment when he locked out the three women senators, the three women senators from being involved in the crafting of the bill. And two of them voted against him, and he shouldnt have been surprised. Second point john mccain, as weve all acknowledged, has a terminal illness. And this is a guy who, for his entire political life, has been the maverick. I believe that this will be just as people have noted that, when ted kennedy was sick, he came back. John mccains back to make this part of his legacy. All right, we got to take a break. Inside story continues right after this. Inside story is presented by temple university. Remarkable change isnt easy, but for those who take charge, it comes naturally. Explore temples impact. Visit temple. Edu impact. We buy any car dot com we buy any car dot com we buy any car dot com any any any any did you know trading in your car at a dealer could cost you money . A recent study found consumers who trade in their car pay an average of 990 dollars more. So dont trade in. Sell it. To we buy any car. Learn more and get your free online valuation now at we buy any car dot com find out how much your car is worth at webuyanycar. Com welcome back to inside story. Last week, several blows against transgender rights, specifically the ban in the military against them on troop usage and other points, as well. A new ambassadoratlarge was appointed by President Trump who is antigay, and, in a private lawsuit, they said the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not apply to it. So its been a tough week for people who are lgbtq. What do you make of all of these developments, brian . Well, i think, if this was critical piece of the legacy, president obama wouldnt have waited until june of 2016. It was four or five months before the election that he did this. So this was basically an image thing for him to do. It was something, part of his legacy. We were talking about mccain, and now youre coming back to the other side of it. First of all, lgbtq rights are paramount. How this affects itself into the military, though, is another thing, and id want to be, in the military, kind of understanding it more, but i do think its important to people. Obama didnt do this as soon as he got in. He got this on the way out the door. Oh, one last thing, id like to burnish my legacy, and heres what im gonna do. Well, i thought the one thing that was incredibly important was that the joint chiefs were blindsided by trumps statement that this was gonna be a new policy. And they have since asserte