Turned for legal pot . Or might Jeff Sessions opposition be a big bummer, man . First, the president drew laughter and applause yesterday when going after what he recogas as fake news. Thats not new. What made it note worthy was where he said it. He was speaking to graduates of the fbi academy. These are individuals graduating from a tenweek program which is an accredited semester of study from uva. The episode reminded me of an appearance the president made at the cia headquarters in langley. He said then that visiting the cia was his First Official stop and he thanked them for their service. That was appropriate. As he stood in front of a wall memorializing officers killed in the line of duty, the more he spoke the more political he sounded. He defended his inaugural crowd size and even bragged about the number of times hed been on the Time Magazine cover. And he went after the media. As you know, i have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth. [ laughter ] [ applause ]. Right . Many commentators noted the inappropriateness of the remarks in this context as well as the favorable way in which they were received. I always call them the dishonest media, but they treated me nicely. [ laughter ]. Followup reporting revealed that because the event happened on the weekend, the audience was comprised of agents willing to come in on a saturday and that the first few rows were filled with noncia personnel brought by the president and his staff. Cbs reported at the time that the makeup of the crowd includes 40 peoplevited by trump, pence and pompeo. Yesterday the president went to quantico. Again, wonderful that the president would offer his praise to those in Law Enforcement, even where leaving the white house hed said this its a shame whats happened with the fbi. He also used the word disgraceful, apparently referring to senior fbi official who is exchanged antitrump and prohillary clinton Text Messages and did so while working on last years probe of clintons use of a private email server and again during special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into possible collusion with russia. The president , i think, is justified in his anger about an agent apparently swapping texts with his mistress while both played important roles in federal investigations. But when the president got to the fbi, just as hed done at the cia, he treated the crowd like it was a campaign event. Like at the cia, that was a mistake. And equally reprehensible was their response. But as i look out in the audience today, i see many young, bright faces. To them and to many other Young Americans watching at home of which there are many you see theres the fake news back there. Look, everybody. [ laughter ]. When he heard how well that comment was received in the room, he doubled down. No. Actually, some of them are fine people. About lets see whos back there. About 30 . [ laughter ]. Heres my point. The president again violated the time and place rule that many of our parents instilled in us. Weve come to expect this from him. But equally troubling is the laughter and the applause. This cannot be the new normal. These were not kids. The folks in that room adults in their 40s and 50s. The intel and Law Enforcement communities need to remain above politics and to be perceived as beyond approacrapproac rapro. Tom fuentes ran the fbis international program. Tom, is my concern warranted in your view . Well, in a way, michael, i think it is warranted. However, i would like to maybe clarify the audience makeup here that was doing the laughter. You know n thin that room there probably 800, 900 people including family members of the Police Officers attending that course. Very, very few fbi agents at all in that ceremony. Its a graduation for the state, local and foreign Police Officers who attended the semester of education from the university of virginia. But their families are also in the room. And what we forget is that when the media seems to constantly criticize Law Enforcement officers or immediately take the negative view of a Law Enforcement action, including Police Officerinvolved shootings, that affects the families. Those families were in the room and they feel very strongly about the negative coverage that police in general and in some cases members of their own department specifically get. The children go to school and they get harassed. People know that their father or mother is a Police Officer. They take abuse. The parents, the cousins, everybody thats close to that officer in their family is affected because being a Police Officer is not a job. Its a way of life. Thats true for all of them. At this point, the attendees of that course are Senior Executives of state, local, Foreign Police agencies, as well as a couple of federal agencies and even the u. S. Military. And they really do resent what they think is a media bias against Law Enforcement. I hear you. I understand that. I guess youre saying im asking too much if i wish for them to disassociate the president s comments about fake news from the bias they see in some of the reporting. Theyve got to be perceived beyond the president often says put the cameras on the crowd. Youre making me wish the cameras were on the crowd yesterday so we could see who was providing the laughter and the applause. Im worried about the diminution if theyre perceived as picking sides. We dont know about the cia whether other family members were there or only employees of the cia. In the case of this graduation, there were almost no fbi employees in the room. Really the audience is predominantly family members or friends of the graduates of that course. For them to spontaneously feel that the president is agreeing with them that the coverage is often negative in an unwarranted way, they do feel that. They would be sympathetic to the president calling the news fake news. And it may not be appropriate for him to say it or for them to laugh, but i think that does express how they really feel about the reporting that often, you know, is done in connection with Law Enforcement activities. I get your point that the composition of that room was largely not fbi personnel. But now let me ask you a distinctly fbi question. When the president uses words like disgraceful and i think we know hes referring to the text interplay between those two agents, but when he uses it in a broad sense, what kind of harm, if any, does that cause to the morale of fbi personnel . It is harmful. The president needs to be more specific. What occurred on the seventh floor at fbi headquarters regarding the former director comey, Deputy Director mccabe, agents and others was absolutely disgusting and reprehensible and he has a right to be absolutely disgusted with that. But thats not majority. Even im talking almost all over fbi personnel world wide are doing an incredible job. Unfortunately theyve also been tarnished, not just by the reporting thats coming out about the comey and others in their investigations, which that reporting is true of the damage that theyve done. But i think the president should just what i would like to see is distinguish more of whos at fault here. The fbi one of his comments on the white house lawn, i believe, was were going to rebuild the fbi. They dont need rebuilding. They need somebody to exert leadership at the top of that organization. Ill go all the way to the attorney general. I think attorney general sessions has been an absentee landlord with the department of justice and with the fbi. Dont forget he was recusing himself from the russian collusion case and a couple of specific investigations. At any given time the fbi has more than 20 or 30,000 investigations world wide. Where is he in leading that situation . Where is he on leading the executive management that does need to be straightened out . Thats whats missing here from the attorney general, the Deputy Attorney general. And were yet to see what director wray is going to do now that hes in charge. I think when its a shotgun blast approach using the words at the t tatters or disgraceful thank you. I appreciate your analysis. Thank you, michael. Tweet me smerconish. Investigate who laughed and disciplined them the way the agents who sent the Text Messages were demoted and take off muellers investigation of collusion. Theyre clearly not fit to be fbi agents. To tom fuentes point, that room is comprised of far more than fbi personnel. I just had a visceral, negative reaction watching this live on tv. I thought, who are these people to be joking and laughing along with that criticism. I was offering it has an american that doesnt want to see the politicalization. Richard, why dont you say my thick head . Are you not unsettled, richard, by the prospect of the Intel Community at the cia even if there were ringers that room or Law Enforcement who are the thin bl blue line out there protecting all of us being perceived like Everything Else in this world along partisan lines. It used to be that partisanship used to end at the borders. Up ahead, are the chicken littles about Net Neutrality going overboard with their sky is falling scenarios . Later, does a recipe for a cinnamon roll make a Sexual Harassment apology any more palatable. Work keeps me busy. So ive asked chase sapphire reserve cardmembers to find my next vacation. 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Its the most awarded network ever. Thats why more people count on it. Id like a giant singing rabbit in a rocket ship, please. Shes a shrewd businesswoman. vo give the gift of iphone 8 and get one on us with verizon unlimited. Only on the best network. Might all the worries about the death of Net Neutrality be overblown . The fcc voted to end the neutrality rules for internet providers, which had only been put in place since 2015. The fccs 32 Party Line Vote opened up internet providers to the free market, marking a major victory for the Te Telecommunications companies. Is this the dire situation most have painted it to be . Joining me is robert mcdowell. He served as commissioner of the fcc from 20062013. He was nominated by both president s bush and obama. Robert, i want to briefly talk the three cs. Content, cost and competition. I need you to dumb it down for me. Ive got this stove pipe. It comes into my house, it delivers my internet. If my Internet Service provider also controls content, wont they seek advantage over other content providers and impact my bandwidth . Excellent question. First of all, thank you for having me on. This is my first time on cnn. Thank you for this inaugural moment. Sure. Thats at the heart of the debate. The question is really what laws best apply here, whether its the 20 years of the Clinton Gore Administration policy of using three federal statutes versus a fourth statute that the Obama Administration tried in its last two years. And so when you have more competition in the broadband space and the Fastest Growing segment of the broadband market is mobile broadband, were seeing people cut the cord or shave the cord or never corders going straight to mobile broadband and going to over the top video. Downloading preloaded video or sometimes Live Streaming on their mobile devices. Thats actually shaking up this whole ecosystem in a wonderful way, in a way thats very good for consumers. Thats part of the competitive counter balance to the monopoly argument. If you only look at the market as a cable pipe into your tv thats bolted into your wall and your living room and youre sitting is down for appointment television, if thats the only way people are looking at it, thats not the complete picture. Whats in the denominator of whats competition here is wireless and unwireless. So its actually a great time to be consumer broadband and content. Im optimistic. Maybe the original sin in the view of the detractors was when the Internet Service providers were also allowed to control conte content. Right. Whats an interesting argument there is some Internet Service providers are vertically integrated. Obviously your company is trying to get bought by at t you have comcast, nbc universe, verizon owning yahoo and aol. The question is, is there an incentive for them to have their content viewed by fewer eyeballs, fewer people or more eyeballs and more people . The easy answer is your content is more valuable if more people are looking at it, right . So you want your content to be on more platforms. You want people watching your show on this wherever they are. Theres actually an economic for them to shut out other isps content. If it becomes a war of attrition, its mutual direction. Wireless and unlicensed wireless, its going to be a wonderful time to be a consumer. All right. As a consumer, am i going to pay more . So per bit per second youve been paying less. Especially the wireless space, youve been seeing broadband prices drop precipitously. Just a year ago, we didnt have all the major wireless carriers offering unlimited data plans. As of the First Quarter of this year, they all offer unlimited data plans. Per bit per second, in other words, the volume of data you get and how fast you get it, the price for that has actually been going down per bit per second. Grow youre getting more for your dollar than you did last year or five years ago or when the iphone debuted ten years ago. The third c, competition. You know the criticism is that in this new era no one whos sbentrepreneurial will be able compete with the giants. What the fcc reversed yesterday was an order that went in place in february of 2015. Before february of 2015, you had a legal construct. I dont want to get into the weeds unless you want me to on the laws. But you had a legal construct that was adopted in the clintongore administration that worked quite well. It was flexible and nimble enough for the lightning fast innovation that happens in the marketplace. That used three federal statutes. And yet the ftc is a great op ed by obamas first chairman of the ftc john lebowitz. It actually outlined why the fcc is going to continue to do a great job. It was kicked off the beat because of a legal quirk in 2015. Now its going to be back on the beat. It manages competition in all sorts of hightech and complex areas of our economy. They have a budget of 315 million. They have 640 lawyers. What they do is they rove around the economy looking for bottlenecks and anticompetitive behavior and sue companies. Theyve sued an a, the and, t t comcast and theyve had 500 violations of privacy law against isps and edge providers too. Plus doj is involved in this space as well. Theres a lawsuit involving your Parent Company