Page 1346 - Leverage News Today

Complicating any talk of a prisoner exchange. for more on all of this i bring in molly mchugh, former adviser to the georgias president and staff writer for the atlantic and msnbc contributor and katie phang, msnbc legal contributor a, an allstart panel. russians denied whelan was detained to set up a possible swap for a spy in custody. trying to grab him here in the united states for an exchange. whats your take? >> its really hard to know. 99% likely he has been grabbed for potential leverage ...

The president actually isnt a very good dealmaker. the people who supported him said he was going to go to washington, he was a businessman who would apply business skills and a long history of deal-making to getting things done in washington, draining the swamp, et cetera, et cetera. anybody who knew the particulars and facts of his business history knew that he was repeatedly taken to the cleaner on a lot of significant deals. and the reason was because he didnt bone up on the facts, he lacked...

Will. lets get back to the shutdown were were now into day fife fiend, longest shutdown ever, 21 days. you heard what she just had that back and forth with the congressman and sort of what democrats ever looking for in order to end the shutdown when it comes to border security. whats your take? >> im not sure democrats have any incentive to change their behavior at this point. theyre not getting blamed for the shutdown, yet, that could change. and i think theyre representing their constituents. ...

Work with this president. this president needs to take the border conversation out of this deal, accept the bill that was just introduced, approve it. lets have a civil conversation about this wall. but do not put this on the backs of democrats and american people. for two weeks who are not working. i think therein lies what you guys are missing. >> we heard federal workers say theyre being used as pawns. >> theyre not pawns. i dont think anybodys accusing them of leverage. >> government opened,...

And this is what you said about the leverage and strategy democrats would use to get d.a.c.a. protications. watch. >> i think important thing is the leverage we think we have when it comes to an ultimate deal on the budget and year going to be coming back to that in january, we still have that leverage, i think were still going to press to make sure the d.a.c.a. situation is addressed. >> the leverage you had was the budget and we know the government was shut down to try to get the d.a.c.a. prot...

Then thats appropriate leverage. >> so you talked about border security. what type of border security will you support? >> well, look theres been discussion of how you strengthen investing in our border patrol and i have concerns because they dont have the resources they should. so we could put dollars into that. electronic surveillance. in some places fencing is appropriate and frankly there, are places along the border where you have that combination of measures. so lets look at what has been ...

Guilty for spying against the u.s. and faces years behind bars. i want to bring in our guest, a former chief of operations at the cia. steve, from what you have read, from what you have read about paul whelans case, a military veteran, in the security business, goes to russia pretty often, on russian social media sites and the timing with the maria butina case, what does your gut tell you? >> my gut and my previous experience in the intelligence agencies, in the intelligence community here in th...

Ago? >> if this was a real discussion about border security instead of the president being stuck on idea of a wall, which is something that doesnt make sense, then we could have that kind of a leverage discussion. but the wall is a nonstarter. its a nonstarter practically, in term oz of good pallacy. most americans understand if you want good border security, you need a combination of efforts. some physical barriers in some places. but theres a lot of other measures thad need to be taken. lets t...

>> youre saying months and possibly a year for this shutdown. do you have in mind a safety net for those who need their checks? >> well, the safety net is going to be having a strong border because were going to be safe. many of the people youre discussing i really believe that they agree with what were doing. >> do comments like that make it harder for the president to hold this line when he seems to lack concern for the workers who arent getting paid? where is the empathy? >> well, president t...

Security as part of getting the government open, but not wall. the wall is not going to be a barging chip for purposes of opening a government because its not a policy proposal that makes any sense. lets focus on the things that hopefully theyre focusing on today in these discussions, which is things that can actually strengthen border security. but thes for the last three or four weeks, all hes been wanting to talk about is the wall. forget about the politics of it for a moment. as a policy mat...