After President Trump commuted the sentence of Roger Stone, Robert Mueller writes an op-ed criticizing the president for commuting the sentence. The McCluskeys are back in the news, and a St. Louis couple has guns seized from their home.
00:06:43.120OK, the president was going into an environment with medically frail people.
00:06:47.360He was happy to wear the mask when doing so.
00:06:49.980I think that we ought to depoliticize this.
00:06:53.140People ought to wear masks when it makes sense.
00:06:55.400People ought to not be shamed when they don't wear masks.
00:06:57.920You know, out at a beach where you've got sunlight and air.
00:07:01.300But I think we can all come together, be more successful.
00:07:04.920I'm glad the president did what he did.
00:07:06.940And, you know, the the reaction from Nancy Pelosi and others to try to draw the president into some virtue fight over the masks is quite silly.
00:07:15.880I was on Judge Jeanine Saturday night talking about the need to reopen America's schools.
00:07:25.580In Florida, we are going to reopen schools.
00:07:28.040But across our nation, there's never been a more important time for us to embrace parent empowerment.
00:07:33.860And of course, parents should be empowered with a in-person instruction option at public school with the sanitation and requisite social distancing and testing that is necessary to ensure that that,
00:07:56.440There's a resistance, obviously, from the teachers union, which is historically aligned itself with the Democrats.
00:08:03.520How is that going to impact this whole fight?
00:08:05.740There may be some teachers that need the opportunity to retire early.
00:08:09.320Of course, we don't want people to make choices that they feel are unsafe.
00:08:12.740But I think with the right amount of testing on the front end, with the right amount of, I think, sanitation and social distance where applicable,
00:08:20.700we can keep teachers safe and we can ensure that students are not vectors for the disease.
00:08:25.260And afterwards on social media, there were so many folks concerned and all contorted about the fact that I said that there are some teachers with extended service that should be given the opportunity to retire early.
00:08:39.400I mean, think about it. If you've got some teacher who's like in their late 50s, early 60s, maybe they've got some underlying health condition.
00:08:48.900Maybe they're just a few years away from their retirement goal.
00:08:54.680Why wouldn't we allow teachers to buy into their retirement sooner so that we protect them?
00:09:01.300And frankly, I think that there's a win-win here to create some churn in the workforce and get new people engaged.
00:09:08.640I also think that if there's a teacher, maybe who's younger, maybe who's not closer to retirement, but who has an underlying health condition,
00:09:16.780that school districts need the opportunity to let those instructors do more of their work digitally and online.
00:09:23.000And if you have teachers that are younger, healthier, more resilient, those could be the folks that provide in-person instruction.
00:09:31.600Districts will likely have to renegotiate their union contracts to do this.
00:09:37.080And, you know, you heard Judge Jeanine say, oh, well, the teachers unions, they're opposed to reopening school.
00:09:42.500Look, I have never seen a teachers union in America that has lobbied for more time with children.
00:09:49.560OK, it is usually that they are lobbying in their contracts for less time with children.
00:09:54.960And so it is no surprise that teachers unions are going to try to get all they can get.
00:09:59.720But I think at an arm's length negotiation, you can actually create tools for early retirements,
00:10:06.880for accommodations with teachers that have unique medical risks.
00:10:11.360And you can kind of weave together a tapestry of educators and platforms, whether it's in-person instruction or digital instruction, that will work.
00:10:20.980And that's the type of creativity that we need to demand out of districts.
00:10:24.980And I think it, frankly, helps school districts go back and renegotiate those union contracts that Betsy DeVos is out there saying that their funding could be imperiled if they don't.
00:10:37.140And I think that retirements could be one part of that package.
00:10:41.740And we could also look to sports as a guide.
00:10:45.220You know, in sports, you see the news that Buster Posey, fellow Seminole Buster Posey, New York Giants star catcher, just a phenomenal player, can hit, can defend, calls a great game.
00:10:57.400He is not going to be calling any games for the upcoming abbreviated Major League season because he and his wife have adopted babies, little premature babies that are medically fragile.
00:11:09.200And he doesn't want to be a vector for the disease back into his family.
00:11:13.080And so Major League Baseball has created special categories where if you've got a pregnant spouse, if you've got young children in the home, if you've got a multi-generational family, that you've got an ability to opt out of the season.
00:11:23.600And so I think that if we align people's personal family medical circumstances with the needs in the workforce, you could actually take a lesson from baseball, apply it to education, get the teachers who could teach in the classroom there, have others working online.
00:11:40.720And if there's some that need to move on from the profession as a consequence of these realities that we face, we should not make that difficult.
00:11:48.600Like we should not put a teacher in the position where they got two, two and a half years to retirement, but they're unable to get the full suite of their retirement benefits because of coronavirus.
00:11:58.120That would be unfair. So we can do better. We could solve these problems. Let's get to it.
00:12:02.860Also on Judge Jeanine's show, I got a question about the destruction of our statues and our history. Here was that exchange.
00:12:13.060They're tearing down Lincoln, Winston Churchill and Frederick Douglass. So this isn't about slavery or fascism or even race.
00:12:21.220There is an attempted cultural genocide going on in America right now, and it calls for patriots to stand up and say, this is a great country.
00:12:29.240It is worthy of our pride and our defense. The left wants us to be ashamed of America so that they can replace America.
00:12:37.280I love this country, and I think that we ought to do a lot more to push back against the hate that we're seeing.
00:12:41.980The great irony, Judge Jeanine, is that the organizers of Black Lives Matter who pledge allegiance to the destruction of America have a lot more in common with the Confederate generals that they hate than they would like to admit,
00:12:53.860because it was in fact the Confederacy that initially wanted to kick out federal officials who wanted to destroy America and change it to something different.
00:13:02.420I think America was worth defending in the 1860s, and she's certainly worth defending today.
00:13:07.620And it's true. There was a group of people in the United States of America well before the CHAZ who wanted an autonomous zone,
00:13:16.740who wanted to throw out federal officials, who wanted to reject American values and substitute them with the values of their own,
00:13:25.540which were fundamentally un-American. That group was the Confederacy.
00:13:30.680And so for now the Black Lives Matter organizers to perhaps have more in common with the Confederacy than they would like to admit is a really rich irony.
00:13:39.720I think that the organizing principle of both the Confederacy and the Black Lives Matter movement was to do away with the inclusive, pluralistic, accepting America
00:13:53.540and replace it with America that is defined by identity.
00:13:56.940Now, obviously with the Confederacy, the tools of that identity-based existence were brutal and awful and deadly and were a great stain on humankind generally.
00:14:09.720And in the CHAZ, we've seen, I think, a failed effort at this autonomy and a recognition now, finally, from officials that you cannot block the police or ambulance or other entities from being able to help people.
00:14:28.960It seems obvious. So I guess the left was a little triggered, but I stand by the comparison.
00:14:33.940Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is now political commentator with ABC News.
00:14:41.340This last Sunday, he had a really interesting perspective on the importance of the upcoming presidential debates between President Trump and former Vice President Biden.
00:14:52.360The vice president's struggling with articulating his vision, struggling with answering direct questions.
00:14:58.100And that gives us a preview for what I think will be the most important presidential debates since 1980.
00:15:04.980Because there was real uncertainty, you'll remember, about Ronald Reagan in 1980.
00:15:08.880Was he up to the job? Was he ready for the job against an incumbent who was having difficulties?
00:15:13.540That was a very close race until that debate in 1980.
00:15:16.280When Ronald Reagan assured people, reassured them, that he was going to be OK as president of the United States, that race turned into a blowout.
00:15:24.200Joe Biden's going to have the same opportunity, but the same risk.
00:15:27.740If Reagan hadn't performed well in 1980, that race probably would have gone to Carter.
00:15:32.000And so I think the debates are going to be something, because Biden's hidden so much, that are going to be even more important this time than they were at any time in recent memory.
00:15:40.140And in a way, I think he's right with competence and awareness and alertness and vigor and capability being central themes in the upcoming presidential contest.
00:15:50.200I think that a lot of people are going to tune in to these debates to see how Biden stands up, how President Trump articulates a vision for the future.
00:16:00.840And there is a word of caution here I have for the president.
00:16:05.640It is typical for first term presidents going into their first debate with a challenger to underprepare.
00:16:13.240To assume that each and every day in the presidency is debate preparation itself, and that if you just go out there, walk on the stage, that you'll be able to wipe the floor with someone who hasn't been president for the last four years.
00:16:28.300If you look at Bush's first debate in his election against Kerry, he gets beat pretty bad.
00:16:34.600If you look at Obama's first debate against Mitt Romney, he gets beat pretty bad.
00:16:39.120So let's buck the trend, let's overprepare, and let's go whoop Joe Biden in these debates.
00:16:45.080I'll help you if you need it, Mr. President, though I doubt you will.
00:16:48.260But preparation will undoubtedly, I think, show the contrast between a leader who is ready to drive our country to our highest summits of success and someone who I think needs multiple naps throughout the day.
00:17:02.780President Trump was in my beloved Florida for meetings with Hispanic leaders.
00:17:10.960One such leader is my friend, Maximo Alvarez.
00:17:14.460Maximo is someone who I think understands the true threats of communism and socialism, having seen them in our hemisphere from his perspective.
00:17:23.820Now he's the very successful leader of Sunshine Gasoline here in Florida, a big time business guy.
00:17:30.540Here's the message he had to share with the president and the country.
00:17:44.560And almost 60 years later, I'm sitting next to the president of the United States, talking about the American dream, the only country in the world, no other country in the world,
00:17:53.020that you can start a business from the trunk of your car.
00:17:55.660And within a very few years, with hard work, commitment, and all the core values that we learn from this very culture of ours, we can become very important to our future.
00:18:08.560We can become those people who make the next generation better than the one before.
00:18:15.100Sports and politics are two of my favorite things, not because I'm particularly good at sports.
00:18:23.540Matter of fact, my own sports career ended early due to a complete lack of talent.