africa uncensored and publish those things that people want to come even if it doesn't matter the us truth is it anyway on al-jazeera. the stage is set in oklahoma for donald trump's 1st major campaign rally in months an event meyer to control the city and concerns over coronavirus it comes as a quarter fuses to block the publication of a controversial book about trump by former national security advisor john bolton. but not matheson and this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up egypt's president warns libya's u.n. recognize government against trying to retake the strategic city of sirte and

august his army to be ready for cross border mission. and convicted of corruption a high profile congolese politician is sentenced to 20 years hard labor. there as president donald trump is set to take the stage in oklahoma for his 1st major public rallies since the coronavirus crisis began for his supporters that's good news but there are major concerns over the timing and the venue it's going to be held in tulsa a city which supported the president overwhelmingly in 2016 but one where racial divisions run deep it was here in $1021.00 where $300.00 african americans were killed when a white mob attacks the affluent greenwood community where the rally follows weeks of montague racism protests across america. and the world in response to the police

killing of george floyd is also a health warning with officials concerned the number of people attending the trump event could lead to a surge in corona virus cases oklahoma recorded its highest 7 day average of new infections in the past week jay gray has more from outside the rally in tulsa. a handful of trump supporters have gathered here throughout the week camping out in the downtown tulsa area they are joined by thousands today attending the president's 1st rally in more than 3 months he's returning to the campaign trail here in tulsa a city and a state that provided overwhelming support for the president as he ran 4 years ago but it's at a time that many think perhaps he should of delayed this visit you've got juneteenth weekend going on right now in tulsa the side of one of the most horrific racially motivated massacres in u.s. history back in 1021 hundreds were reportedly killed an entire area of the city known as black wall street an area where. members of the african-american community

had businesses and homes and it was really a thriving community burned to the ground by angry white mobs over a 2 day period many said that it's an affront that the president would be here on the juneteenth weekend but the other pressing issue here is of course covert 19 oklahoma in tulsa and particularly have shown an uptick in positive test for the virus over the last few days and there's a big concern that gathering people inside this arena behind us as many as 19000 it will become a bit of a petri dish if you will and that it will create super spreaders that will spread the virus through this community and as people leave and go back to their homes and other communities as well there had been pleas from not only health officials here but even advisors to the president to back off on this a bit and wait a bit before holding this rally but he of course decided to press on here so it'll

be interesting to see how the rates change over the next couple of weeks once we see what happened here as far as the rallies concerned. ok steve clemons is the host of al-jazeera is the bottom line which you might have been watching if you've been seeing in the last 30 minutes he's also editor at large for the hill the online political website is joining us by skype from chester and in maryland thank you very much indeed as always for being with us steve you're up the key thing here that we're seeing at the moment these numbers are much much lower than i would imagine the trombetta ministration and the time campaign really wanted to see in tulsa and i think absolutely i think you know as we've been watching you know all day it was hard for those of us that are not. in the scene there to know exactly what the numbers were but when they began to finally in the stadium and you shot huge sections that were unoccupied and now we have the news that the president and the vice president are going to speak not in the state they're taking down where he

was going to appear and now they're going to appear on outside stages so that is a little stevie as forgive me i think we just heard a little bit of music coming in there from the stadium and we're watching some of the pictures are no mistaking him as you're speaking the crowds from what i can see don't seem to be getting much bigger that one would imagine is definitely going to disappoint donald trump because as we know he is a showman he likes playing to the crowd do you think that given your experience of of following his political campaigns in his presidency that that is going to affect his performance tonight. i even we don't know it's hard to speculate about that i think he's going to basically do his best to shrug it off and to connect with those people and praise them for showing up and overcoming concerns about the virus and distance i think it's going to make him even more strident in

what he does say because he's going to say this is virus and people are concerned it can't keep america from being america things along those lines so i do think it's going to help animate him and his message as he tries to shrug off what clearly was a failure to attract tons of people to this rally today i mean all of us have news people out there right and all of us expected something much much more significant as a new punctuation point starting off his campaign again and that's not what they got today or you think is going to be more important to donald trump what he says on the very fact that the rallies being held at all. i think the big thing is going to be what he says i mean right now whether the numbers are high or they're not i think as your previous correspondent said there are a lot of people that are just asking questions about his judgment and his campaign's judgment is it smart to have gone to toll so oklahoma and i say this with knowledge of coal so my family is from bartlesville oklahoma 45 not miles

north of tulsa great grandparents grandparents parents and and this is an area where race relations have been fraught were a long time there's been of course major progress but much more needs to be done but to go to tolson of all places on this weekend after we've all learned about the horrors of the 1921 massacre which was essentially a race from our history books for more than 50 years they did everything they could to keep people from knowing about what happened there and i think that is going to be a question of judgment and i think the other element of judgment is you know we have a major pandemic which is growing in america now as it's falling in every other place in the world it reminds people of lysol day when the president said oh if we can just inject detergent and disinfectant in people maybe that could help solve them it brings back this question of does the leadership of the country right now pay attention and respect science and what we're seeing in the data or not and are

we politicize in that i mean we're seeing people burning masts today and told so they're burning the masts that have been distributed this is a very scary moment in that sense and i think it's going to make people wonder about his judgment so his words are going to be what matters tonight will he be unifying or will they be dividing will they embrace science will they reject science that's what's at stake today ok steve thank you very much as always for being with us i know we're going to come back to you when the dawn tom does todd speaking for some more analysis but for now thanks very much and thanks to. one of new york's top federal prosecutors has agreed to step down after a standoff for the u.s. attorney general jeffrey berman i didn't initially refused to resign vying to continue his corruption investigations into people close to the u.s. president's inner circle as one of the legal battles the white house has been fighting after it failed to block a tell all memoir but a former national security advisor mike hanna reports from washington d.c. . from bolton was president trump's 3rd national security adviser and had

a front row seat to some of the administration's most sensitive then perhaps controversial decisions now he's set to release a book about what he witnessed and it's not good reading for the white house that's why it tried to stop the book's publication but a federal judge has now ruled that while bolton had gambled with national security the administration had not shown how it would suffer harm if the publication of the book went ahead and he refused to grant an emergency injunction the phrase used by the judge was the horse is out of the barn he also indicated the administration may have had greater success if it had brought the injunction at the time that john bolton allegedly walked away from the review process and before the widespread publication of quotations from the book it's been a rocky few days for the attorney general william barr and his justice department. late friday he tried to demote the prosecutor of new york's powerful southern

district court. but jeffrey berman refused to step down they should just tell you that over the last night i have nothing to add to that. this morning i'm just here to do my job just waiting in his office though was a little problem the attorney general confirming that president trump had agreed to fire him with immediate effect on the 33 year old bar. work you know that the bar got by far. but we have a very capable 30 was really not it. says berman's deputy will run the department until the president's new choice is in place and he will now supervise among other cases the investigation opportunities bank that has been indicted on fraud money laundering and sanctions offenses we've had a great relationship in his book john bolton alleges turkish president to one offs

president trying to use his influence to get the charges dropped and the president said to aaron i want one point look those prosecutors in new york are obama people wait till i get my people in and then we'll take care of this and i thought to myself and i'm a department of justice alumnus myself i've never heard any president say anything like that ever highly classified as usual the response of the white house is to attack president trump lashed out at john bolton in a series of tweets pointing to the judges criticism as i quote a big court when he continues bolton broke the law and has been called out in rebuked for so doing without really big price to pay the likes dropping bombs on people and killing them now he will have bombs dropped on him. we. will. say we got to be the federal judge has ensured the public will be able to

read john bolton's allegations in full on tuesday that president trump appears adamant civil or criminal charges against the former national security adviser inevitable economic times mike hanna al jazeera washington. ok let me take you to tulsa oklahoma this is u.s. president donald trump walking into the bank of oklahoma center in the center of tell us he was quoted as saying that something the trumpet ministration was quoted as saying there have been a 1000000 applications for tickets to this event this stadium holds 19000 people in the pictures we've been seeing up to this point do show a significant amount of empty space this is the 1st rally that donald trump has held since the outbreak of the coronavirus in the u.s. it comes at a difficult week for him and his attorney general has been trying to oust a powerful u.s. attorney who's been investigating

a number of associates of the president and also there's been a series of unflattering bombshells released in a new book by the former national security adviser as we were telling you just a couple of moments ago. ok let's go live to our reporter jay gray who's outside the stadium in tulsa jane just give us while we're waiting for donald trump to step up to the stadium and i will interrupt you when he does start talking but just give us an indication of what the numbers have been like and whether or not coronavirus has been playing a part in the fact that people don't seem to be turning up in large numbers there. you know the numbers aren't what we're expected more than 100000 works likely to be outside of this arena the campaign is cancel what was a scheduled speech by the president vice president to what they expected to be an overflow crowd after this rally there is no overflow crowd here as you've been

talking about the arena is not full either and that's really the 1st time since he's done these type of campaign rallies that we've seen some empty seats. tell us about the crowds that were going in there were there was there any indication but let's talk about coronavirus 1st of all because of course that was the key worry of the authorities in this city wasn't it jay that people that this was going to be what was called a super spreader event for that kind of thing what precautions of any were being taken. yeah. well look the campaign handed out face masks there was another company giving full face shields but when you saw all the people going in and when you look at the crowd inside this arena you are wary of any kind of protection here the president clearly not wearing a face mask either he hasn't throughout the duration of the pandemic here that's a big concern here in tulsa across the entire state of oklahoma where cases have really started to spike really climbing at

a pretty rapid rate in fact here in tulsa over the last week on a 100 percent increase in the number of patients with over 1000 admitted to hospital so it's a very big concern is it playing into people not being here well it's hard to tell because the campaign has said that it wouldn't be an issue but again this is not the crowd we're used to seeing today i'm going to stop you there because donald trump has started speaking let's listen. don't don't come don't do anything today it was like i've never seen anything like it i've never seen anything like it you are warriors thank you we had some very big people out so it was she was you would you wouldn't have were when i really do i appreciate it we have just a tremendous group of people in oklahoma and i hear it was i hear from your 2 great senators in your governor that we're doing very well in

oklahoma that's the way it was i stand before you today to get to the silent majority is stronger than ever before all was 5 months from now we're going to defeat sleepy joe biden it was. does he get a pass from these people who. were going to stop the radical left we're going to build a future of safety an opportunity for americans of every race color religion in crete the republicans are the party of liberty equality and justice for all the we are the party of abraham lincoln and we are the

party all the way think of what we've done. we will have close to 300 federal judges appointed in approved by the end of my 1st time that's an all time record all had seen the old. the way i've always heard how important judges are now we know how important they are. they get that over $300.00 around $300.00 by the end of the term. and when we have it of the 4 years we're going to have a big big percentage of the total number of the. 3rd of august and 2 great supreme court judges so we have 2 justices

of the supreme court. justice course of human justice kavanagh i think the only have to. work and we could get a few more yeah we can all hope we've spent over 2 trillion dollars to completely rebuild the unmatched strength and power of the united states military head all and all of that incredible equipment. whether it's submarines or missiles or rockets or jet fighters bombers it's all built in the usa the all her own we pass be

a choice thank you very much jim war where is my sanity war were jim inhofe about i vote for him he's running his way of all hope i will get to him and james lankford in a 2nd or 2 great senators you have 2 great senators so we pass should be a choice so if you are a veteran for years and years they've wanted to do it from most 50 years we got it done we get a lot of things done and ball so if you're a veteran of the and you have to wait on line for one week 2 weeks 3 weeks 5 weeks 7 weeks 2 months. what happens is you go outside to get a private talk you get fixed up and they pay your bill we take care of the bill we take care of the bill and you get immediate service it's never happened before

and our approval rating at the v.a. is now 91 percent that's how it would. be who are the evidence anywhere near that. and v.a. accountability when a lot of bad people in the v.a. people that they knew of our vets people that were sadistic people that stole a lot of bad people you couldn't get rid of them because they were let's say could be unions or could be civil service right let's say let's just say and so you couldn't get it done that was another one for decades and decades they wanted to get it changed and i got it done with those people and your congressman. congressman both for you the v.a. accountability and now somebody treats our veterans badly. and we look at them and

what do we say we say you're fired get out. they got rid of a lot of bad people who own that were there for a long time certain like me in washington draining the swamp i never knew it was so deep. happened a few sad i never do is so deep it's deep print thick in a lot of bad characters thank you. we're lowering the price of prescription drugs making our allies pay their fair share they get a big bargain on drug prices and marketing fair trade watching all dizzy it is 21 minutes off to. see any. this is president donald trump the 1st traveling he has held since the start of the coronavirus crisis in the u.s. this is a tulsa oklahoma i want to bring in steve clemons who's my colleague the host of

our designers bottom line steve we were talking about 20 minutes or so ago find we were waiting for the president to turn up and you said that's what the president says is going to be more important than the fact that this this rally is happening at all you absolutely seem to have nailed it it seems to be a count pain speech how are you judging what he's saying not. well right now when he's running through the roster of the things that he is laying out lining up that he believes he has done you know he's whistling to his is folks that you know they've taken care of their veterans they have you know worked on health care they've you know kind of moved you know x. y. and z. forward to you know move the nation forward so it sounds just like a campaign speech it's going to be heard by a lot of people i'm sure the president would have loved to have overflow audiences but as we've seen we've already seen the overflow stage just be dismantled there today so he's not getting what he wants on the on you know on the on one level of

the optics but using this and i think he's going to give a strike you know he's going to try to make this a home run for at least what his base hears from him tonight one thing that he has not yet to mention of course he may do that later in his speech is the issue of the racial tension that we've seen in the u.s. over the last few weeks he did say republicans are the party of liberty and justice for all they are the party of law and order 9 though you were talking in your to your show that was on prior to this one you were talking to the attorney general of minnesota keith ellison about the george floyd case in your estimation looking and the run up to the election we're going to see later on how big an issue is race going to be in the election. i think it's going to be a huge in the election i think it's going to be defining in this race something is going to be defining for the president and listen when the president says as he did and he's been tweeting that he's the president of law and order this is a president that deployed u.s.

military forces and other troops against peaceful protesters in washington d.c. and one of them deployed nationally a president of law and order doesn't typically do that but that sound of law and order to americans reminds them of over incarceration of black men the treatment and the police brutality that we've seen of people of color and i think that is what attorney general ellison was saying that this is not a black problem this is an american problem and donald trump is is telling his listeners a very different message that has a mostly overwhelmingly white crowd there tonight always good to get your thoughts on this steve clemons we appreciate it thank you very much steve. maybe as you're not deny his government has denounced the egyptian president's threats of military intervention president abdel fattah el-sisi says his army is ready to step in. any forces advance on the strategic city of sirte that's after gianni gianni forces

captured significant ground against one daughter over the past month moaning santa reports from misrata. after a 14 month military campaign orders flee for house to or has failed to take control of the libyan capital the battle for tripoli has exposed how deeply involved foreign actors are in libya. after has been backed by the u.a.e. russia and egypt while cherokee has given its support to the internationally recognized government or g.n.a.s. signing military in maritime agreements in november that proved to be a game changer. the g.n.a.t. has since retaken control of western libya and are now position to the west of sirte they say they will not negotiate with have served and want his forces to retreat from central libya. tricky agrees g.n.a.t. thinks and we support this idea that everybody should go back to their positions

back in 2015 min they had this political libyan political agreement we are certain and you for needs to be evacuated by the hot air force this is the position of the g.n.a.t. but egypt and president of fatah has sisi one of have to smain supporters doesn't agree and the docket. if some believe that they could cross the line in places that matter to us insert or jew for that's a red line. c.c. has called on his army to beep you dared to intervene and he'll do my duty to you i'm certain if we are need of your sacrifices you are prepared to carry out any mission within our home soil or for acquired beyond our border lines while egypt appears to be intensifying its rhetoric on libya as a regional actors are calling for a call algeria hosted the genie's phases on saturday after hosting i give us all of the speaker of the eastern based parliament last week algeria as president of the

boni has said his country's position is neutral and it wants to see a political solution to the crisis the g.n.a.t. turkey are calling for a cease fire and insist the hottest forces must retreat from syria but the language from have to as main supporter egypt suggests that you may not go without a fight now trainer al jazeera misrata. let's return to tell so-called home of our president on the top is talking about the black lives motto movements. are democrat you know that every one of them every want. and i have an offer out i said anytime you want we'll come in we'll straighten it out in one hour or less. was no i may be wrong have what is probably better for us to just watch that disaster was

i flew in with some of our great congressmen who were going to introduce in a 2nd and i said john. congressman what do you think i can straighten it out fast you would just go in no sir let it simmer for a little while let people see what radical left democrats will do to our country. the way that americans have watched left wing radicals burn down buildings loot businesses destroy private property insure hundreds of dedicated police officers. these police officers they get injured they don't complain they're incredible and injure thousands upon thousands of people only to hear the radical fake say what

a beautiful rally it was. the only they'd ever talk about covet they don't talk about when you see 25000 people walking down 5th avenue or walking down the street of a democrat run city you never hear them sang they're not wearing the mask. you don't hear they say as they are breaking windows and running in and then when i say the looters. the n r kids the educators they say what a terrible thing for a president. what a terrible thing. but you don't hear them talking about kobe kobe to be specific covert 19. a hit that game gets further and further away from china as opposed to calling it the chinese virus

. or the i just spite the fact that we are i have done a phenomenal job with it i shut down the united states to very heavily infected but all people from china in late january which is months earlier than other people would have done it if they would have done it at all i say hundreds of thousands of lives we don't ever want all that even a man all when i close it down to europe or on close it down because i saw what was happening and by the way most people said don't do it don't we saved hundreds of thousands of lives when all we do is get hit on like we're terrible and what we've done with the ventilators and with the medical equipment and we're

testing you know testing is a double edged sword. we've test is now 25000000 people. it's. probably 20000000 people more than anybody else germany's done a lot south korea's that they called me they said the job you're doing here's the bad part when you test of what you do testing to that extent you can find more people are going to find more cases so i said to my people slow the testing down please. they task and they tell us we had to test the people don't know what's going on we got this we got another one over here the young man's 10 years old he's got the sniffles he'll recovered about 15 minutes cicadas and up to you got sick. and sick you.

was i was actually with a very nice man very good man even those very liberal the governor of new jersey right we know now listen he said to me something that's amazing new jersey was very heavily hit very hard hit thousands of people he said with thousands of people that died thousands of people there was only one person this is us president donald trump speaking out alive at a rally in tulsa oklahoma the 1st trial same coronavirus began spreading throughout the u.s. the president was also talking about the black lives moto protests which has been. raging across many of the cities in the u.s. saying left wing radicals had burned down buildings and injured police officers as it watching all jazeera.

he extends its sanctions on russia european leaders say moscow isn't keeping up its end of the cease fire deal in ukraine but all the sanctions were looking of what is the nail to end the conflict this isn't such a. hello and welcome to the program. the conflict in eastern ukraine is often cold at europe's forgotten will separatists backed by russia have been battling the ukrainian army since 2014 thousands of people have been killed.