We start with a crowded 2020 race, everybody for the democrats. Cory booker just the latest entrant, the new jersey senator chose today, the first day of black History Month to announce promising to unite a country. Often divided by racial lines. Watch this. Im a direct product of the civil rights movement. I running really not to beat anybody, im running to unite people. Booker by no means the last to announce this month. Next weekend senator Elizabeth Warren expected to make it official. That means eight candidates are already in the race. We have so much time to go. More likely to come as i just said. But for them the window to declare is starting to get a little bit tight. I want to start with my panel, steve israel and carlos robello of florida. We have eugene scott. Congressman israel i want to start with you. Senator booker promising, quote, Greater Unity and radical empathy. How is he going to stand out in this already pretty crowded race for 2020 . Well, first of all, the crowd is just beginning. Cory booker infuses this race even at its earliest stage with energy, excitement and terrific experience. This is very, very early. In february of 2015, which was about this time before the 2016 president ial election. Cnn did a poll, the winner was mike huckabee. Donald trump wasnt listed in the poll. A month later in march, a poll said that under no circumstances would they support donald trump. Theres plenty of time for senator booker to make his case, to travel around the country. Its still very very early. You make a good point. We do have i believe almost 600 days or so till this election. It does seem like theres a lot of excitement surrounding 2020 to say the least. I want to talk about the comparison thats being made right now between Kamala Harris and cory booker. And how theyre going to differentiate themselves from each other. Booker was he nouncannounces the first day of black History Month. He was asked about how hes going to distinguish himself from harris this morning, lets take a listen to that. With a black woman already in the democratic president ial race, what are you saying to black women and other women of color to get our support . Well, look, my life has been defined by black women, anybody who knows our communities know its black women that often lead, sustain, nourish and empower us. When i go to my corner bodaga, i see women who are working a full time job but still need food stamps to feed their families. What do you think we need to watch as these two candidates are competing in places like South Carolina for black voters . I think if youve been following the coverage of black voters in South Carolina, one thing thats going to be really interesting and has been concerning to some people will be gender divides within the black community when it comes to kamala and cory booker. Theres been some males in the black community in South Carolina who have expressed reservation about whether or not Kamala Harris could beat cory booker in primaries in that state and beyond. It will be interesting to look at differences in gender within communities. We remember that cory booker has been under the eye of the black community for a while, even from the Obama Administration. Many voters have expressed concern about his relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, as well as how close he has been with wall street. So these are issues many black voters, especially from the more progressive wings of the party will be asking him about frequently. And we know eugene, that both these individuals, both booker, both Kamala Harris are competing currently for the support of the cbc, the congressional black caucus. What is going to put them over the edge . Is it going to be about the issues they stand for . Many of which are similar, both being very progressive, both being on the Judiciary Committee as we know. Our is it going to be about who can beat President Trump . It really will be about policy. From black activists i spoke with this morning, as well as black former lawmakers, theres joy and excitement about having so many options within the group of candidates. Representation alone and the years after the Obama Administration is not going to be enough to win support. People are genuinely concerned about policy related to criminal Justice Reform, related to affordable housing, related to public education, which the majority of black American Families use for their kids. So people really are going to get into the weeds in a way that we have not seen black voters be able to challenge candidates in the past. Congressmen curbello, one of the areas of focus for booker is going to be prison reform. He talked about that once again this morning. This is a cancer on the soul of our country. And it hurts everybody. When our bridges and roads are crumbling, we invest in the infrastructure of prisons unlike any other civilization in humanity. That means doing like obama did with the 21st Century Policing group to talk about police accountability. It means changing our drug laws, ending prohibition against marijuana. Two things here i want to identify. One of which he talks about ending prohibition against marijuana, which i thought was interesting. Im wondering how popular thats going to be in washington if he wants to run for president on that. Also, the fact that he got obamas name in there. Thats right, look i think that senator booker is a strong candidate, an attractive candidate. But we have to remember that he burst onto the scene as a radical centrist. His work on criminal Justice Reform reminds us of that because he was part of the recent effort to pass the first step back. We have to remember that cory booker made a name for himself by working with Chris Christie in new jersey on education reform. We also have to remember that he made headlines by going on meet the press some years ago and defending private equity. I think for most americans, a centrist is something that would be welcome, however i think in the democratic primary, some of history of work ing with republicans, of taking centrist positions could be an athema at a time when the party has moved significantly to the left. Go ahead. I was going to say as true as all of that is, i dont think bookers running as a centrist anymore. I think in the trump era weve seen him pivot to the left. He has one of the top three most liberal records among democrats. Hes gunning for the base, trying to convince progressive activists he is the one who could move the pendulum to where things are right now under this presidency. I think hes going to have to answer you think thats a smart strategy, eugene, to do that . To move so far left . The base is at the left. We know not everyone is at the base. We know thats what Howard Schultz is trying to communicate. An eventu an advantage he does have, he has a centrist background. Go ahead. Yeah, id like to comment on that. I think eugene is right. You talked about the smart strategy. The smart strategy is to win the Electoral College. For a democrat, the path through the Electoral College is to win states like pennsylvania, the state of florida, michigan, ohio, colorado. Got to win those states. Youve got to win individual counties in those states. Youve got to either overperform or at least win places like Hillsborough County in florida or Mccone County in michigan. So remember this is not a sprint, but a marathon. Cory booker will appeal to progressives, but ultimately hes got to make sure hes winning over swing voters in those swing counties and overperforming in democratic counties in those specific states. You know, cory booker does have a problem in that he had a lot of corporate donations in the past, a lot of pharmaceutical donations. Bernie sanders, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, theyre going to own the Grassroots Initiative when it comes to small donors. Thats what it seems like the Progressive Democratic wing is going to be all about and that could feasibly win them the nomination in 2020. Does he have a problem here, his history with his corporate donations and big donors . Any human being running for the presidency has issues that theyre going to have to address. This is a different election and a different electorate. Despite the fact that everybody running for president has those issues, ultimately theyre going to be running against donald trump who has issues that are far in excess of any issues that a democrat has running for president. Got him elected in 2016, didnt it . We shouldnt overestimate the power of the Trump Administration when it comes to a reelection in 2020. Thank you all, guys. Appreciate it. Coming up, voice of the people. Were going to talk to two radio talk show hosts about what their listeners are saying about cory booker. Plus, not a target. Did Deputy Attorney general rosenstein assure the president hes not a subject of the russia probe. What the president is now saying about it. And jobs, jobs, jobs. Why the new job numbers just out to do have economists scratching their heads. Thats coming up. Economists scg their heads. Thats coming up there goes our first big order. 44, 45, 46. How many of these did they order . Ooh, thats hot. You know, we could sell these. Nah. 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Covered by medicare and most major insurers. Ask your doctor if cologuard is right for you. And the army taught me a lot about commitment. Which i apply to my life and my work. At comcast were commited to delivering the best experience possible, by being on time everytime. And if we are ever late, well give you a automatic twenty dollar credit. My name is antonio and im a technician at comcast. Were working to make things simple, easy and awesome. Welcome back. President trumps longtime associate, roger stone, is due in federal court this afternoon. Stone is charged with lying, obstruction, and witness tampering in the special counsels russia investigation. Stone allegedly attempted to gather information about hacked Democratic Party emails at the direction of a Trump Campaign official. Stone denies any wrongdoing. Pete williams is here with more. Good to talk to you this morning. Whats the purpose of todays hearings, take us through it. This is sort of administrative housekeeping. The judge may set a trial date. That may be the most important thing that happens today. Roger stone has been told he has to show up, presumably he will. He has said all along he hasnt done anything wrong and he repeat that in a News Conference yesterday. I dont possess any knowledge of any wrongdoing by the president of the United States including russian collusion. So when i first said i wont testify against the president , some of you said its a cover up, thats not what im saying. Im saying i will not make up stories, i will not bear false witness, i will not say things that are not true, i will tell the truth. We dont expect him to say anything in court today. This will largely by the lawyers and the judge talking together about timing, scheduling, and that sort of thing. What do we know about the amount of potential evidence the government has gathered for his case . Im glad you asked that question. I think theres misunderstanding about whats involved. Theres something the law called a speedy trial act that normally says after youre charged the trial has to come in 70 days. You can get an exception on that if theres a lot of evidence to sift through. Thats what the government has told the judge, there is a lot of material. That large amount of material is material the government has gathered on its own. Bank records, phone records, emails, fbi case reports, search warrant applications and so forth. Thats separate from the material that was sieged from roger stones house. This is standard, when the government does a search warrant, they also get the laptop computers, the hard drives, cell phones, tablets, that kind of thing. So when the government talks about terabytes of information, theyre saying thats stuff the government has gathered the defense is going to need time to sort there. Pete williams, thanks for clearing that up, very much appreciate it. I want to bring in daniel alonso. Thanks for joining us. The president did this interview this revealing interview with the New York Times. I want to go through some of the things he talked about. He discussed weekikileaks and whether or not he prompted that sort of thing. I want to take a listen to that and then well talk. Did you ever talk to him about wikileaks . No. No. You never had a conversation with him. No, i didnt. I never did. Did you ever tell him for other people to get in touch with him . I never did. As we know, we are trying to figure out who this Senior Campaign official was that directed roger stone to contact wikileaks to find out when the next release of the emails was going to be. We dont know who that was. He in that sound bite was denying that. As investigators are scouring through these terabytes of data Pete Williams was talking about from roger stone. What exactly are they looking for . I think theyre looking to see in the immediate case, which is roger stone, theyre looking to make sure they can prove he knowingly and intentionally lied. Its not enough he says now i made a mistake. You have to find more communications or other things that could prove that he was lying when he denied having information, when he denied the foreknowledge in front of congress. In terms of the broader investigation, theyre looking to see if they can corroborate communications with the president , with the campaign. I question though that that stuff is not necessarily criminal. Roger stone is in the dock because he lied about it not because he had those communications with assange. The president told the times he was reassured he was not a target. The president suggested he had not talked with rosenstein directly. The lawyers ask him, they say hes not a target. First he says rosenstein told him hes not a target, then he said rosenstein told my attorneys im not a target of the investigation. Could the president actually have have assurances that hes not a target of the investigation . Is that something that would even be said about the Mueller Probe . Its said all the time between prosecutors and defense lawyers. It would be highly unusual for the Deputy Attorney general to tell somebody who was involved in an investigation theyre not a target. Target is a term of art in the justice departments lingo. It really means youre basically somebody who the department has focused on, somebody theyre looking to charge. Its pretty much the last step before youre a defendant. Much more common is the term subject, which is somebody about whose activities the department is looking at. Theres talk about don jr. The investigators have phone records showing that donald trump jr. Spoke with two Family Friends who used blocked numbers, brian france, the chief executive of nascar and the investor howard lorber. The president tweeted about this because he wanted to identify what went on here and the revelation of these two individuals. There was a lot of conversation as to whether or not don trump jr. Made a phone call to his own father. He said just out, very mysterious don jr. Telephone cars after meeting the media and dems said were made to his father, me, just in case we didnt know that. Were just conclusively found not to be made to me. They were made to friends and Business Associates of don. Really sad. Can we assume mueller already has the phone logs to these conversations, knows what was said between don jr. And these individuals . This doesnt negate the fact that the president knew about the trump tower meeting either. Of course not. Right . This is a couple of pieces of evidence. There are no phone logs that would say what was said, but it would say how long the conversations were and investigators asked the participants what happened, presumably theyve done that. Sure, mueller probably knows this. Nobody knows what mueller has. The fact that these two phone calls didnt happen between father and son, okay, thats a piece of evidence. The governments supposed to seek the truth in this case. Thats what theyre doing. It doesnt mean there werent other communications. It just means those communications, it true, were not with the father. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Coming up, everybody, new numbers show job growth picked up for the 100th executive month. Not all the news is good on this. Well break all of it down. President trump now says the gloves are coming off. In his battle with House Speaker nancy pelosi, what it means for a looming Government Shutdown that is just 15 days away. Well be right back. Way. Well be right back. Hey, darryl hey, thomas. If you were choosing a network, would you want the one the experts at rootmetrics say is number one in the nation . Sure, they probably know what theyre talking about. Or the one that j. D. Power says is highest in Network Quality by people who use it every day . This is a tough one. Well, not really, because verizon won both. So you dont even have to choose. Why didnt you just lead with that . Its like a fun thing. vo chosen by experts. Chosen by you. Get 50 million songs now with apple music included, on us. On both ios and android. Its the unlimited plan you need on the network you deserve. Welcome back, everybody. A new jobs report is out today shows that 304,000 jobs were added in the month of january, far outpacing estimates. There was a slight uptick in unemployment. Here to dissect all of this, our own ali velshi. This is the number everybody talks about, 4 . This is the least important number. Its an uptick as you said of. 10 . The Unemployment Rate was 3. 9 before this. This is not the important stuff. The important stuff is the number of jobs created in a months. 304,000. As you said we were predicting around 165,000. This is for january. There are always revisions to the two prior months. November was revised up, so 196,000 jobs were created in november. December was revised down by 90,000 jobs. Still to 222,000. Thats still a very, very strong number. When you talk all of 2018 together including the revisions we were gaining 223,000 jobs per month. Compare this to 304,000, this is strung strong. The bottom line this is good. Thats great. Okay. Wages, this is what matters to most people. As you have lower unemployment youre supposed to get higher waged. Compared to a year ago, wages are up 3. 2 . Inflation is about 2. 7 thats not bad. The u6 is a bigger Unemployment Rate. It contains the official jobless rates but it includes those people who havent looked in the past four weeks because theyre disoriented or disgruntled by it. It also includes parttime workers who want fulltime jobs. That number is 8. 1 . That ticked up by. 50 . Thats interesting to look at. We always want to look at this number as well. Heres where jobs were created. 74,000 in construction, 52,000 in healthcare, 42,000 in transport and 27,000 in warehousing. There are other categories that gained but these were the biggest gainers. Why were the numbers so up . Is there any suggestion, of economic volatility . We always revise the prior two months of numbers. We dont normally get a revision thats 90,000. The trend is whats important to look at here. The numbers are assume the numbers are always off a little bit, but when the numbers show job growth thats low, it probably is and when it shows job growth thats high, it probably is. Even though that was a huge revision in december, 90,000, the end number is still pretty good. 222,000 jobs in a month is pretty good. Were waiting to see what the effect of the shutdown is going to be. It wasnt fully calculated into this thing. We may see this 304,000 going down a little bit. You and i were both working during the holidays. There was a lot of volatility in the stock market. We didnt hear a lot from the president. The president is saying we have by far the strongest economy in the world. When the markets up its him, when its down its the fed. I think president s deserve less credit for the market. Always bringing us the economic truth. Do you like that . Thanks. In that new wide ranging interview with the New York Times, everybody, President Trump discusses immigration, nancy pelosi, and how he plans to fund the border wall. Jeff bennett has the very latest on that, jeff, good morning to you, thanks for joining us on this snowy friday it seems for you. Lets get right to it. What are you hearing about yet another Government Shutdown possibly in 15 days or so . Reporter the president is giving people the impression we could be on the precipice of another Government Shutdown. Because, look, weve got two weeks to go for congress to pass spending bills to keep these affected federal agencies open. And the president in his comments seems to prejudge any possible compromise by saying that anything short of a wall isnt good enough. Hes saying it just as democrats are saying that theyre fine with spending billions of dollars in new government funding for border security. Just yesterday, House Speaker nancy pelosi signaled a new flexibility on fencing but not a wall. Thats not good enough for President Trump. He says ive actually always gotten along with her, but now i dont think i will anymore. Shes doing a tremendous disservice to the country. If she doesnt approve the wall the rest of it is just a waste of money and time and energy because its desperately needed. So the view of the white house is this, the president they say isnt prejudging the ongoing negotiations. Hes being realistic because democrats have already said what they will and wont fund. The view of the white house is that nancy pelosi is the problem. The view among lawmakers on the other side of pennsylvania avenue, and this is based on my conversation with hill aides is that its President Trump thats the problem because hes signaled what is and isnt acceptable to him. The other thing you hear from lawmakers, is that either outcome that would result if the president doesnt sign onto the deal is equally untenable. It seems like were not getting anywhere, jeff bennett. Thank you for that. Good seeing you. I want to get to an exclusive report from nbc news that shows the pentagons concerns about isis. According to two u. S. Officials, without continued military pressure, isis could regain land in syria within six to 12 months. Joining me now is one of the reporters that broke this story, carol lee. Good morning to you. Walk us through some of your reporting on this. Theres a draft report that have two significant pieces to it. Without continued military pressure isis could basically reconstitute and gain territory within a very specific timeframe. A pretty small timeframe in 6 to 12 months. Whats significant about that is that if that were to happen that completely undercuts President Trumps withdrawal strategy. Meaning that one of the things he was highly critical of his predecessor, president obama, about that he had withdrawn from iraq. And so, you know, if he does follow through with his withdrawal and all signs show that that is is happening and theres little to no chance it wont, he risks basically being accused of doing what he criticized president obama for if isis were to regroup and regain territory. So the question is how he threads this needle. Thats going to be in the details of the military withdrawal. Specifically, you know, what the u. S. Does in terms of controlling the airspace there. Can they continue to do airstrikes somehow and who on the ground would then be partnering with them to make sure those air strikes are effective. These are sort of the details of questions that military officials are trying to fill in to essentially meet the president s demand of withdrawing from syria within 120 days now. Carol, what do you make of the mixed messaging were getting from washington on all this . As you know the president is saying we have defeated isis, then you have your report. Weve heard from coats, haspell. I think its another case of where you see the president really wanting something, you know, he really wants to withdraw from syria. He wants to take a victory lap on the fight against isis. And thats kind of butting up against some facts which are there are still elements of isis that need to be defeated. And if that fight is not over, although military officials will tell you that its going to be over soon in a matter of weeks. So he also just wants, you know, the troops to withdraw. So hes, you know in trying to do that theres this tension and hes trying to paint a picture that he would like to see, but that isnt necessarily exactly matched up with reality right now. And its interesting the juxtaposition when you have wanting to withdraw from syria, afghanistan and all options are on the table with regards to maduro and venezuela. So a lot to digest there to say the least. Thank you so much, good seeing you, carol. Coming up, everybody. Another senator dives head first into the 2020 president ial race. Bringing the number of democratic contenders to eight. Well hear from two radio hosts about who their listeners think has the best chance to take on President Trump. Shocking new details revealed in a lawsuit against the maker of oxycontin. Did the billionaire owners help fuel the Opioid Crisis . Well be right back. Help fuel thepi ooid crisis well be right back. For your heart. Your joints. Or your digestion. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in Clinical Trials to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. If your moderate to severeor crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough it may be time for a change. Ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. 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Especially during this time and this isnt just, you know, sort of a political stunt if you will. Well, you cant speak to authenticity. You be who you are and there will be critics all the time. Sarah palin was parodied on snl and it became a reality. Theres power in that as well. I live my life on focusing on the issues that matter to people. Joining me now are the hosts of night life on wbz radio boston and host of the hutchinson report, welcome to you both. I want you both to weigh in on this question. What we just heard from cory booker on the view, really, which is how to be most authentic on the campaign trail. I know that cory booker oftentimes is seen somewhat as a showboat. People have talked about him being a showboat when he was running for senator. He told the story about a guy named t bone who embodied a lot of people he interacted with on the streets of newark but wasnt specific that he had an interaction with him. First of all, its dan rea and the show is night side. Im sorry about that. Of course. No problem. Dan rea. Its a short name but it can be mis mispronounced. I think hell be a formidable candidate. I think Kamala Harris had a great start last weekend. The democrats will have to figure this out. They have to decide whether they want to go with a joe biden perhaps or if they want to go in a bigger direction. The biggest mistake they could make is Elizabeth Warren. She doesnt wear well. Earl . Disagree with that. I think Elizabeth Warren will wear very well. Ill tell you why. I think her economical equity message will play well in those three or four states that are must win. Namely michigan, pennsylvania, and wisconsin. I think she has a compelling message. I wouldnt throw in the towel on her. As far as cory booker goes, i do agree. Hes a compelling candidate, very articulate. Hes been out there, hes well known on a lot of the issues. I think that he will add an element to the race that i think will bring dynamism to it. At the end of the day, i think when youre really looking a it its going to be Kamala Harris, joe biden and Elizabeth Warren. I think shes going to be in the mix, too. The Washington Post says that republicans are really seizing the opportunity to paint democrats as radical. Heres what they say. Democrats are two years largely spent simply opposing everything President Trump advocated or defining themselves lately in ways republicans are seizing on to portray them as far outside the american mainstream. Do you think this strategy works . I dont think it is going to work. Ill tell you why. Lets go back to the midterm elections. The fact of the matter is you did have a considerable number of voters that said, hey, were okay with democrats even democrats that are tracking to the left. Even democrats that call themselves and style themselves progressives. So im not going im not buying that. You know, obviously thats a broad brush to paint. Thats really a smear. I would expect that coming from the gop. I would not minimize the impact of the me too movement, the trend towards the left. Youve got a lot of fresh new faces coming into the political process. I think theyre attractive, i think theyre appealing and i think people want to hear new voices, see new faces. Most importantly new ideas. Speaking of ideas, dan, what do your listeners want to hear about most . What are their biggest concerns out there they want to hear from candidates running for president . Theyre concerned irrespective of which party they belong to, who is going to be a better president for them. I mentioned earlier that Elizabeth Warren will not wear well. I think Kamala Harris, the republicans should be concerned about. President trump numbers have not gone down. They have held at 40 or so percentage points. He has held those numbers under a withering attack. If theres some sort of smoking gun that comes out, hes obviously in big trouble. Absent a smoking gun, the continued drumbeat of criticism of this administration and ignoring the successes of his administration will come back to haunt the democrats in 2020. Thats assuming President Trump decides to run for reelection. Even though he said in his New York Times interview he has every intention of doing so. It seems the president did agree with you on Kamala Harris. He would say the best opening so far would be kamala. A better crowd, better crowd, better enthusiasm. Some of the others were very flat. What do you make of the president s enthusiasm for Kamala Harris . You know ive had dan, first and then you, gene, you weigh in. Thank you very much. I think hes being very respectful as he should be. Donald trump would love to run against lElizabeth Warren. I think joe biden and Kamala Harris would be a compelling ticket. Im not writing off Elizabeth Warren. Wait till you get to know her better. Youll change your mind. Ive known her its the coastal divide, guys. I like that. I think its the coastal divide. We cant talk over each other. Even though you have a super bowl in the works in a couple days. You did mention the super bowl. Obviously im in la. Obviously, you know, all over the place people are saying can the rams do it, were happy to be there. We love that. Well see. I have to tell you, theres a lot of enthusiasm that ive never seen before like that in a city like la. Weve never had a football team, you know, up until the last two years. Whats the point split . Well, at this point in time, needless to say in la everybody is saying well beat them by two touchdowns. Thats not the point spread. I think it will be a very close, very hard fought game. Again, well see. Dan . Well, let me just remind earl the rams are from la originally. They only went to st. Louis for a few years 21. Folks who dont like the patriots across the country, we understand you dont like success. Ill give you a reason all you msnbc listeners, brady, belichick and bob kraft are also friends of donald trump. So for the msnbc viewers, i expect youre going to be voting for the rams. Rooting for the rams. Were rooting for the patriots. Number six sunday. There you go. Thank you both. I wish you the best of luck with both your teams, of course with whoever youre rooting for for 2020 as well. Coming up, everybody, bombshell revelations from the lawsuit against the maker of cox eco oxycontin. The family made billions. How responsible are they for the countrys Opioid Crisis . E they e countrys Opioid Crisis . When did soup become this . At panera, we treat soup differently. With vine ripened tomatoes, signature cheddar, simmered to perfection. With big flavors, not artificial ones. Enjoy 100 clean soup today. Panera. Food as it should be. Welcome back. There are new disturbing details from the Massachusetts Attorney generals lawsuit against the maker of the opioid painkiller oxycontin, Purdue Pharma, and the family behind it. The lawsuit alleges the Sackler Family pushed the drug despite knowing the dangers and made billions of dollars in the process. Nbcs kate snow looked into the Sackler Family. Here is what she found. Reporter you may not know the Sackler Family by name. But you know oxycontin, the drug their company, Purdue Pharma, made famous. Late thursday a complaint became fully public, painting a picture of the powerful, wealthy family using aggressive sales tactics to make billions off the highly addictive drug, adding that they had a plan to stigmatize people who become addicted. Most of all, the sacklers cared about money, says the Massachusetts Attorney general. According to the document, the sacklers voted dozens of times to pay out purdues opioid profits to their family. In total, more than 4 billion. That as Government Data now says up to 29 of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain misused them and more than 130 americans die of opioid overdoses daily. Unbelievable. I want to bring in journalist barry meyer who has been covering the Opioid Epidemic for years now and also is the author of painkiller empire of deceit. Barry, thanks so much for joining us, appreciate it. So this is basically saying that the company was aggressively pushing this dangerous drug on the American People without informing them of the addictive nature of these opioid drugs. That is astounding to me. And making billions of dollars off of it. We know from the beginning this company engaged in criminal behavior. They pled guilty in 2007 to lying to patients and doctors about the addictive nature of oxycontin. What were now seeing, at least in the evidence thats been presented in this lawsuit, is what was an apparent or an alleged strategy by Purdue Pharma to get doctors to prescribe this drug at the highest possible dosages, knowing full well that those were the most dangerous dosages. Because at that point we already knew the addictive nature of drugs like oxycontin. Because when oxycontin first came onto the market, and correct me if im wrong, there was a time when we didnt necessarily have the intelligence to suggest that there was this addictive nature out there. But then we knew. At the point at which they were pushing this drug, we knew, we had all the information to suggest that, right . Right. When Purdue Pharma first rolled out this drug, they claimed that because it was specially formulated, it would be less addictive than other pain killers. But in fact it wasnt, they knew tf it wasnt, and they lied to doctors about what they knew. They pled guilty to that. We also know that when you prescribe these drugs at high dosages and put patients on them for long periods of time, they become extremely dangerous and potentially addicting. It now seems that was their sales strategy, to get doctors to prescribe these drugs at high doechl dosages, because the stronger the pill, the more profit the company and the sacklers made from these drugs. Now the Sackler Family is being implicated. They once said they were not involved in the daily practices of Purdue Pharma but now its suggested that they were very much involved, down to an email. Password charade, if you will, for all these years is that this company was just a benevolent overseer of the company. In fact what we now know is that they were involved in the daytoday activities of the company. They were micromanaging according to this lawsuit and these documents, the sales and Marketing Activities of the company. I just want to put this on the record, though, purdue in a response to the lawsuit has said none of the documents cited by the ag support her fictional narrative that the company was only interested in promoting higher doses. How strong do you think the massachusetts case is here . I think its very interesting, and the purdue response is also interesting, because they say that, you know, they only promoted high dosages, you know, of the painkiller. Well, theyre not denying that they did promote high dosages of the piainkiller. So in fact theyre acknowledging there was promotion of all dosages of the painkiller including the most powerful ones. Thank you so much, barry meyer, important work. Well be right back, everybody. Well be right back, everybody. Memories. What we deliver by delivering. The company who invented car vending machines and buying a car 100 online. Now weve created a brand new way for you to sell your car. 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The Trump Administration abandoning a 32yearold arms control treaty even as the nations top intelligence officials warn that Vladimir Putins russia is a major threat to america. Russia has jeopardized the United States security interests and we can no longer be restricted by the treaty while russia shamelessly violates it. If and when they dont, at first, pull your punches. If they persist, pull the plug. Its still trust but verify. Born to run. New jersey senator cory booker jumping into an already crowded field with eight democrats, including four in the senate. Now vying for the chance to take on donald trump. Whats happening right now is people are thinking were going to win this by demonizing each other. What im going out there saying is we have common pain in this country but weve lost our sense of common purpose. And rolling