Transcripts For MSNBCW NOW With Alex Wagner 20140804 20:00:0

MSNBCW NOW With Alex Wagner August 4, 2014 20:00:00

Questions and comments and criticism. You can connect with the cycle at facebook. Now with alex wagner starts now. President obama gets the best Birthday Gift he could ask for, congressional vacation. Its monday, august 4th and this is now. What do the republicans in washington, d. C. Stand for . Exactly. The white house saying the president will soon use his executive power to move on immigration. The president is not going to sit around waiting for Congressional Republicans to act. The possibility is some republican lawmakers floating impeachment. I think congress has to sit down and have a serious look at the constitution, that includes the iword. If i were the dnc, i would pay for steve king to go all over america. Democrats have handed the senate potentially to the republicans on a silver matter. Steve king and these guys are knocking it over. They are not showing courage. They are playing to the cheap seats. Republicans are simply strangled by extremism. How courageous is it to go home and tell your base what they want to hear. In the house of representatives, what have they done other than investigate and say no. John boehner may have the gavel but ted cruz has the power. What do the republicans in the house stand for . On this 53rd birthday, president obama can breathe a sigh of relief that at least congress is quiet. Congress started a fiveweek recess friday night after republicans in the house scrambled to pass two extreme immigration bills that were officially dead on arrival. The first getting due process protections and speeding deportations of unaccompanied minors was yanked from the floor and redesigned to please conservatives like steve king, who said of the bill, its like i orlded it off the menu. House republicans also voted to end the president s deportation Relief Program for immigrants known as dreamers, those brought to the u. S. Illegally before they were 16 years old. Democratic congressman Luis Gutierrez summed up policy in three words, deport them all. It is a long way from the rnc autopsy that pro claimed we must embrace and champion comprehensive Immigration Reform. Immigration reform embraced and championed by republican senator marco rubio who now backs an uncomprehensive approach after facing conservative backlash for his work on reform that passed senate last year. If i may, sir, if its not political, why have you thats not accurate, chris. Youre say teenaging it has done in stages. Thats not accurate. Were talking about two separate things. Were not depating what to do. Were debating how to do it. Im telling you well never have the votes necessary to pass in one bill all of those things. It wont happen. On that the white house would seem to agree. Since republicans cant get anything done on immigration, the president is preparing to act on his own. He is no longer willing to stand idly by while the House Republicans block common sense reforms to broken immigration system. The president has directed his secretary of Homeland Security and attorney general to consider what types of options are available to the president. The white house says it is expecting those recommendations by the end of the summer and president will act on them shortly there after. In the meantime back down on the border, the department of health and Human Services said it will suspend the use of military facilities to save money but fewer children are making the crossing. The department faced a flood of 20,000 newly arrived children in may and june, that number was down to 5300 in july. Many of those new arrivals are being resettled pending immigration hearings for which there is a significant backlog, a backlog that Congress Left utterly unresolved as it fled for summer vacation. Joining me no is White House Correspondent at the huffington post, sam stein and Washington Post columnist and senior fellow at the brookings institute, e. J. Dionne. Sam stein, what a day it was and what a monday we have now. Of course. What are you hearing from your white house sources in terms of the true timeline on when the president may take up recommendations from jeh johnson and eric holder . They want to get the recommendations and review them. And everything ive heard has put the timeline at the end of august but probably a little bit after that. Now this could change depending on the Political Landscape at the moment. But it seems like the process is fairly under way. And what happened in the house or what i should say didnt happen in the house and in the senate, an inability to get anything passed probably accelerated the time frame a little bit. E. J. , i was struck by the dramatic events of friday. Actually, really dismayed in a time of derespondent behavior, this was a new low, i thought for the Republican Party in terms of its not even 180 degrees, some other angle of mystery theyve spun, insofar as the repeal of the deferred action for dreamers, you write today about what needs to happen. And suggest solving the countrys problems requires above all, turning theRepublican Party back into a political enterprise willing to share the burdens of governing, even when a democrat is in the white house. How likely do you think that is in a day and age when marco rubio is now for an incremental approach to Immigration Reform . The only solution is for the voters to send a strong signal in the election. I think that the last week may have been a win starting to blow in a different direction. The moment that the bill was the original house bill was imploding on thursday, nancy pelosi had a bunch of journalists in, mostly opinion writers and she was really talking about the great Old Grand Old Party that used to do a lot of things. Its funny to have a democrat saying that of the republicans, but her point was this party has been hijacked by the radical right. Youre seeing that with steve king out there. By the way, i agree with al hunt in those clips, democrats should set up, let steve king be steve King Committee and let him talk about impeachment as much as he wants. There is a frustration with the republicans and i think when the president responded on friday, my favorite line was, we cant even pass plain vanilla legislation, not like spicy radical gumbo, he wants infrastructure, just basic stuff. And thats not even getting done. I think you may be able to sort of talk to voters and say you really want a Republican Party in this state, not the Republican Party we used to know, but this one, to have a lot of authority in washington these days. Sam to extend e. J. s met to for, its poached breast of chicken, not a spicy dish at all. Are we on the foodnetwork . Yes, well meet at the diner next time. Wall street journal writes, exscore rating and gave the country the impression that the highest priority is to deport as many children as rapidly as possible back from wherever they came. A party whose preoccupation is deporting children will alienate many conservatives never mind minority voters. Lets take a listen to this ad that went up recently. Our southern border, chaos and crime, washington made the mess, senator mark pryor voted for amnesty, citizenship for illegals and pry yor voted against a border fence three times and ignores the crisis. I dont know how you square those two ends. You have to consider two different audiences here. The first is the midterm audience. A lot of these house members from predominantly districts where the deal isnt as popular as it is nationally and idea of securing the borders, abstract idea of having a secure border is very popular. That makes sense then. And it happens to be that senate races are in traditional republican states where the message where play. But then you have the wall street journal, which is a reflection of the Business Community and more sensible Republican Party that wants to win national elections. Keep in mind chamber the commerce has been pushing for comprehensive Immigration Reform from the beginning and the disservice that the Republican Party did to itself last friday will be manifested not in 2014 as some democrats predict, but i dont, i think it will be manifested in 2016 when people running for president have to talk about that vote and footage from that evening will be replayed on loop by democrats. E. J. , do you agree with sam . You suggest let steve king do steve king tour of 2016 funded by the Democratic National committee. Could it will this sort of strategy of indignation and ire play better for republicans in the long run and not gin up the left base . I agree this will have a bigger impact in 2016. No question about it. But i think whats important about the meltdown in congress is that democrats are looking at their own base, particularly say voters in their 20s who voted for the first time for barack obama because they thought washington could be different. Gridlock has hurt the democrats among those voters, even if its caused by the republicans because theyve been saying, wasnt obama supposed to change things. I think what was very visible last week is this is not obamas doing. This is the doing of a faction in the Republican Congress thats really taking control of the place. So to the extent that democrats can go to such voters and say you really have to go out this time . You really cant let them just be these kind of radical rejectionist and not say a word until 2016. It may become a motivator to get the voters out even in the republican states where democrats cant possibly win if the base stays home. Sam, real quick, are we done with impeachment talk. Steve king said this weekend, that congress has to sit down and have a serious look at the rest of the constitution and that includes, the iword, impeachment section of the u. S. Constitution. You know, Nothing Happened with the border crisis. The president is set to release executive actions and then furthers the narrative hes an unchained emperor. Does this further does this add many more logs under the fire that burns to impeach the president . Two things at play. Democrats like the impeachment talk and will fan the flames and raise money off of it to the extent they can. I do think that should the president come out with a fairly forceful and aggressive set of actions on the immigration issue, come the end of august or early september, there will be more people like steve king who talk about it openly. Now the Republican Leadership said this is silly and manufactured. But they also said stuff like that with respect to the Government Shutdown and it did happen. While i do agree with House Speaker boehner that this is largely a democratic pushed issue. I wouldnt say that in five weeks time or six weeks time its going to be just a democratic pushed issue. Of chicken vind liu and impeachment. Thank you im hungry. Im starving now. Almost dinner time. E. J. Dionne, thank you as always. You too. We have breaking news to report, palestinian factions have reportedly agreed to a threeday ceasefire. Former israeli ambassador and Human Rights Watchs ken roth joins me next on now. Rewards points verizon just gave me. Ooh, you got a buddy. Im like a statue. I just signed up and, boom, all these points. And theres notsogood more. Youre a big guy. Oh no. Get the good more with Verizon Smart rewards and rack up points to use towards the things you really want. Get the lg g3 for 199. 99. Eachwont have a claim. Wners thats why allstate claim free rewards gives you money back for every year you dont have one. And why if youre part of the other 5 , allstate offers claim rateguard. So your rates wont go up just because of a claim. No matter what comes your way, your home protects you. Protect it back allstate Home Insurancefrom an allstate agent. This is bill. His doubleheader day at the park starts with back pain. And a choice. Take 4 advil in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. Peanuts peanuts crowd cheers palestinian factions in cairo have reportedly agreed to a ceasefire in gaza, if agreed upon by israel. The truce would start tomorrow at 8 00 a. M. Local time and set to last 72 hours. In gaza this evening, israel resumed its bombardment after a partial sevenhour humanitarian ceasefire, during which leaders accused israel of violating its own window with missile strikes on a refugee camp, that killed an 8yearold girl. In jerusalem, two back to back attacks raise fears the unrest is spreading further. First a bull dozer flipped over a bus in east jerusalem, killing one israeli and wounding several others in what israel declared a terrorist attack. A man on a motorcycle open fire in a bus station and soldier was seriously injured. Today is the 28th day of the conflict between israel and hamas. 67 israelis and over 1800 palestinians have been killed. Joining me now is former israeli ambassador to the United States, michael orrin. Do you think israel is likely to send negotiators back to cairo . Were getting word they must have succeededed in destroying all known tunnels in gaza. Do you think theres no impetus for broader ceasefire . Good to be with you, alex, thank you. If the reports are indeed true that palestinian negotiators accepted the egyptian ceasefire, the same offered almost four weeks ago in which hamas can claim no gains by having initiated a war and not going to get border crossings open and salaries for its employees and not going to get a lifting of the israeli m pa ritime blockade, i would imagine israel would accept it because they have been willing to accept it repeatedly over the course of the last four weeks. The question is whether theyll be able to keep the ceasefire. Hamas requested and violated and tonight as you mentioned, Israeli Forces reopened fire after hamas fired 100 rocks into israel. Prime minister netanyahu says israel has no intention of attacking residents of gaza. Given that statement, i wonder what you think the intent is behind air strikes on refugee camps as weve had in the last 72 hours. Israel has no intentions on attacking gaza. Im a citizen of the state of israel but review myself and family as every bit a victim of hamas as palestinians and their families. Hamas started this war and fired now well over 3,000 rockets into israel. And as well as dug tunnels under the border with the sole goal of attacking israeli farms and communities killing women and children. So theres no question of the justice of this struggle fighting against an enemy which has dug in behind the civilian population on purpose as using them as hul an shields and preventing them from running away, it wants israel to create casualties so theyll be condemned and deny legitimacy. Its parts of hamas deep strategy. So what the Prime Minister says he has no intention of striking civilians he means it. Israel is doing the utmost to try to avoid it. In any type of war fair where youre dealing with a terrorist group or any enemy dug in behind a civilian population, civilian casualties happen. On dday, American Air Force killed upwards of 20,000 frenchmen because they were dug in around the germans. So it happens in war. And it is tragic, i view palestinian victims and israeli victims as victims of hamas. Let me follow up. If the strategy of killing civilian is part of hamas strategy, what do you say to those in the west, not actually arab leaders who have been quite silently in support of israel but folks like the french who said israels right to security does not justify the killing of children and massacre of civilians and Samantha Power who called the attack horrifying. Have they been duped into falling along with hamas strategy . Well, hamas does have uses military tactics to achieve immediate strategy. They know rockets cant destroy the state of israel, im sitting with tel aviv behind me. It is Still Standing and bustling. What they can do is get israel to fire back and using civilians as human shields then create casualties and that translates into condemnations you just quoted and that becomes diplomatic pressure to agree to a ceasefire where hamas can claim victory and ugs the ceasefire to open fire again in another year or two. Thats the way it works. Thats the strategy to deny israel legitimacy and ability to defend itself and thats how hamas plans to destroy us. When foreign leaders cooperate with that strategy, its frustrating for us. Certainly when the United States or the french or the british killed numbers of afghani civilians by accident and it was tragic, israel did not come out publicly and say we are appalled by this and demand immediate investigation. The United States investigates this. We understand fighting against a terrorist enemy hidden among a civilian population is very costly and actually it is the people who bear the moral responsibility for the death of the civilians are not the United States and not france and not israel. Let me ask you one more question before we let you go. In terms of the metric by which Prime Minister netanyahu would call this a success, as we said at the beginning of this segment, getting word that all of the tunnels in gaza may have been destroyed. Will that signal the end . Should it . Has israel been clear enough on how this conflict comes to an end . Well, i think tunnels are the goal of the ground operation. If hamas continues to fire 100 rockets at us per day, clearly the operation cant be over and israel has to take measures to defend itself. What you can say would be a victory, if hamas accepts an unconditional ceasefire. Where all of the achievements

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