the, the hello i am dire in jordan dough. hi, with a quick reminder, the top stories here on out just a rough, rough as defense ministry says a major ukrainian offensive has been pushed back and supposed to have happened along the front line and southern done. the ask. that's when they'll come in from keith. most goes release these pictures of the battle, it says ukrainian forces, some of the heavy losses fight in total over the enemy deployed 6 mechanized into tank latania evans. the enemy's goal was to break to all defenses,

most valuable in its opinion. effect of the front before the enemy did not touching the tasks, it had no success as a result of capable and calculated actions of the people forces east. the green and ami suffered losses of more than 250 people. you know, 16 tanks. 3, i'm with personnel carriers and 21. i'm with vehicles of the pro ukraine fighters of launched a right into the russian border region of belgrade. one of the groups involved the russian volunteer. cool, announced the capture of several soldiers. it says it's ready to hand them over to ukraine, you know, for which is the russian defense ministry says being coach that was repelled for public program. guy was a russian defense analyst. he believes the plan is to force russia to move troops away from the main, fighting to the degree of scope, depressions or force of the rush, it would remove reinforcements, especially sound reinforcing themselves with said that may be the bottom. there are a storm troops will be most of their to belgrade. that means they will be moved out

from the south, where most likely the rio fighting is going to happen in the coming weeks or a couple of months. so that would be maybe the, creating an objective of these small uh, zillow. regroups cannot really achieve a strategic objective by their raids that all of the strategic objectives as the past or the russians, and make them reinforce forces in belgrade at the expense of other places. that have many times as a deal to include sweden in the alliance could be reach soon. these discuss turkey has objections with president, relative type, 31, and it's tumble. how do i choose this reading of hubbard and cody's finances? stilton dug says the concerns of being taken seriously to to your house, legitimate security concerns. no, all the ally has faced more ties attacks. sweden has taken the significant

concrete steps to meet the trickiest concerns. membership will make sweetness safer, but also need to enter key a stronger india's opposition parties, according for accountability of to friday's rail, does all stuff the rain. where's minister says early funding suggests an error in the signaling system. a more detailed investigation will find out if it was a human or technical error. 275 people were killed when 3 trains collided. its ministers from the worlds biggest oil producing nations have agreed to extend oil output cuts until the end of next year. the oh pick plus alliance is facing phoning oil prices and nice potential blocked and supplied saudi arabia's page. the new customer outputs by 1000000 barrels a day in july. at least 15 people have died after reins on least widespread flooding on land slides across hate to another. 8 people are missing. the severe weather has damaged thousands of homes. a bangladesh is facing further electricity

costs. the country is experiencing a heat wave. let's put high demand on power consumption and government's co schools if the temperature is continued to rise, project isn't present. we'll have rallied against the bill. they say would limit indigenous land rights are these stopped the crowd, some blocking the highway and stop follows. the proposed legislation could prevent indigenous communities from obtaining the thieves to the land and the new pill to have the risk of death from certain types of lung cancer. after surgery, the results of a decade long study, you've been released the drug developed by astrazeneca salts, the concept from spinning to other parts of the body. on tens of thousands of football fans in italy have pulled onto the streets of naples to celebrate not police 1st italian lead title. in 33 years, support has gathered in the central public square to watch the teams to new victory over centuries. so those are the headlights, these continues here, not just the are off to the bottom line state you a bunch of what you're bye for now.

the a hi, i'm steve clements and i have a question. what happens when americans lose faith in all their democratic institutions? including the supreme court. let's get to the bottom line. the, it didn't just happen overnight for more than 10 years. americans have been saying that they are losing faith and the people they're supposed to trust. and that includes the people they elected to represent them. the heads of major government agencies like the f, b, i the media, the police, you name it. one of the bigger stories of this year was about supreme court justice clarence thomas, who's facing revelations now of huge gifts from a billionaire donor to the republican party. not small gifts like a box of chocolate or tickets to a football game. we're talking about real estate deals and lavish vacations that

would cost normal people half a $1000000.00. americans also watched as a junior congressman from new york. george santos was charged with deception to win the election last year and enrich himself in the process. of course, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but it hasn't been a good year for public trust. so is this leading to a dangerous situation where americans are losing core confidence in their core government? today we're talking with the us senator from rhode island who has been following the trail of dark money and it's corrupting. influence on government center, a sheldon white house basically wrote the book on this one. it's called the scheme . how the right when use dark money to capture the supreme court sen. thank you so much for joining us today. let me just start out with the biggest bottom line question. can americans trust their supreme court is not corrupt? i don't think so. unfortunately, i think that the record of their decisions,

which almost inevitably move in the direction of the big right wing donors to help get this new majority on the course, make it a very challenge, spotty right now. and i think particularly if you're using corrupt in the sense of the word that the founding fathers used to. um, it's a very unfortunate answer when you had been out very visibly on the floor of the united states senate with, with pictures of senator clare. i'm sorry, just this clarence thomas. up finance. you're harling, crow, and others that had been looking at this relationship in the cozy relationship between big interest and certain court members. and then looking at cases that were being brought. can you share with us the case that you're making about these relationships? well, i think there is going on 2 levels. first you have what everybody's looking at was somebody who you are right now,

which is the extent to which this right wing millionaire group is funding the household of justice thomas his mother's brands. here the young man for whom these guardians tuition payment is directed by a lender leo, the right wing operatives to his wives. and of course, these rather unbelievable family vacations. and that's one immediate set of concerns, but it connects to the larger concern about the extent to which this group of right wing billionaires has basically packed the court with people in their own. choosing everywhere, chosen specifically to rule in their direction and who are doing so is almost perfect. statistical conformity and some of the really big decisions of the court like citizens united and shelby county and about right guys i think are very much tied to it. what side influence?

so i think what you're saying and i want to explain the public is harland crow leads, one of the sets of billionaires that have had a close relationships with members of the court. but particularly clarence thomas. some of these folks have actually paid money. i know of one case of $25000.00 that was paid to jennie thomas, the wife of clarence thomas. the circumstances of that are highly suspect. and then on top of that, you're arguing that this has been a campaign, a concerted campaign to get certain individuals on the court to take certain positions. and they are the same people who might, am i getting that wrong? no, you're getting it. exactly right. and indeed you can go back to i think the sort of key kick off for the campaign was backed under president bush when he nominated his white house council, his personal friend, his fellow, but texas conservative a harry admirers, a woman to fill the seat on the supreme 4th and have been vacated by sandra day

o'connor. and there was a little crude, a shot from the far right. and they obliged this republican president to withdraw his own nominee in favor of a more reliable vote for their interests. and that was sam olibo. and the individual who orchestrated that one over was leonard leo, and when the billionaires saw where he could fall, i think the operation then went to the hind year, and we got the federalist society list. so we got the 3 trump drug drugs, and we got the blocking of garland and we got the rest of the show. and one of the interesting data points out there, senator, is that in 2021. public confidence in the supreme court. was it 36 percent? it's not a great number. it happened to be bigger in public confidence in the congress for the presidency, but it is collapsed in 2022 to 25 percent of down 11. and this is all before the revelations that we've seen now, and i'm just interested in,

can you blame the american people of saying, we're looking at our institutions and saying, we don't trust them anymore. certainly as to the courts, frankly, this influence of dark monies and citizens united, you know, based special interest. you can write $5000000000.00 objects into politics and create this or, or of influence around the course. that's something for americans to be legitimately concerned about. they are concerned about it, they're actually angry about it. and our failure to clean it up, i think, is a really troubling failure. one that will have lasting impacts. we've got to fix that. so what are the, you know, the offer comes to this problem because, you know, i find it various and you and i both travel around the world. we see a lot of american leaders kind of preaching constantly about democracy. what it takes to build democracy, the summit, and for them about democracy, the president biden does what standing does, the united states have its own institutions and like i've been drill democracy is

not voting. democracy are the institutions. but if we don't have institutions that are on corrupt, that are objective and that can, uh, you know, be governed by the rule of law, not by the rule of billionaires or money. i mean, where, i mean i, i hate to just get at it, but i mean, i just find is a very bleak moment. right? i mean, if we send a traditional delegation to another country and that other country was choosing a supreme court justices in the back room of a private organization that was highly part of center, was receiving massive anonymous contributions. we'd be justifiably horrified, but that is how a lot of these justices got on to our supreme board. i think the solution, the best solution is that i think the other federal judges who know perfectly well that the supreme court is misbehaving, are getting really sick of it. and i think there is going to be a lot of counter pressure from the other federal judges to get the supreme court to

fix this when that would be a good outcome. but what is the counter pressure mean? how do they a, i mean they call up and say justice roberts, that you know, chief justice united states, we don't like what's going on where, what is their um, tools of pressure that they can bring to this? well, they have 3, they can obviously call up the chief justice and say, hey, what's going on? this is ridiculous. they could be more complex. there's sort of a traditional marriage, either you keep your claims within the educational branch, but that might break. and then most importantly, there's the judicial conference, which is the administrative body of a senior judges administers the court that overseas the initial rash in its administrative roles. and that body, i think he has just made a very big step to clean out some of the supreme court's self serving mess just and i think they can do a lot more. the, the mechanism is in place. sen, why are democrats so bad at this game?

on their side, when you kind of look at this broad question of organizing, i've been on this show, talked a lot about the republican focus on the courts for decades were focused on roe v wade and abortion issue for decades. and understanding that supreme court seats really matter. i have never seen that kind of vigilance in focus from the democratic side either financially or even politically. and i'm just interested at some point, did the republicans not only through money, but just out maneuver the democrats and focus and why weren't the democrats more of your colleagues more alert to this project pro problem years ago? well, i think if you look at the democratic political environment and we usually engage with a lot of different groups with whom we have an affinity of one kind or another civil rights groups, labor unions, environmental organizations, and so forth. and they all have their own separate uh ideas they have their own

separate plans. they have their own key issues. i think if you look over in the republican side, along with that big right wing billionaire money, there is a lot of organizations and planning and preparation and scripting based. thank you . in the way, i'm not a big corporation does years ahead and they plan for future retro holidays. a laser foundation to be able a decade later to begin to take over the course. and we just don't the thinking those terms were much more momentary and a half a sonic, and they have a plan and they got the dollars to back it up. we saw revelations in the john durham special council pro, but the russia trump connection and it's a pretty scaling treatment of the f b i. and i know the f, b, i is not the supreme court, but it raises again the questions if there's validity to john durham's findings, that in fact the f b,

i used faulty information was put aside here in there. i mean, i'm just wondering, as americans look at those who do not follow this like addicts every day, you know, it seems like the core of our legal system, our law enforcement system is rotten. what are your own views on the john durham finding? and do you think that we've got to somehow have a national reset of some of these big institutions? well, i think that the convictions that special counselor molar obtained based on his investigation and the following report of the inspector general of the department of justice are more reliable than the findings of mister durham who was appointed by trauma and all of a heap of this effort to discredit bestbuy investigation into a trunk rusher connection that has repeatedly been prove though. so i would put that kind of the grain of salt, and i look at barre chords more generally and say, well, the woman who had been assaulted into famed by a former president,

got her day in court and won $5000000.00. a company that made the election machines was the famed by the biggest uh, network in the country and went to court and got a massive judgment against the settlement ultimately. and the family of the children who were murder and understand new york were treated just abominably by this creepy director behind info wars. pretending that this was the fault, just a scheme that had been caught up by the parents. so, but guess have not actually been murdered and that also went to an honest court run and a mass of judgment was obtained. so i think what we're seeing through all of the monstrous behavior in our current politics is the honest court room as to the chase and guess people justice and brings out the truth. that's a very important piece of our infrastructure. let me ask you, you know, about,

about the way in which debate is managed in this country. i mean, you've been very critical of when you called dark money, particularly oil and fossil fuel money lurking behind the system, influencing various people affecting climate change related policies. and you know, in a, in a time where you have russia invading ukraine, we see how energy has become weaponized in this situation. what is, why can't americans or people around the world have honest, above board debates about the need and reality of fossil fuels? the need and reality of climate change, the need in reality to kind of focus on an equilibrium point in these, what is inhibiting a healthy discussion of the equities that the public has in a balance of these tradeoffs. and, and i'm just really interested in these questions of who stopping that debate and how. yeah. well,

i think the fossil fuel industry spends an enormous amount of dark money in politics. and when you're writing checks for 10 or 15 or $20000000.00, you get listen to. and when you stop got a lot of those checks, then you can have a whole party kind of come to c o at your command on. i believe that's what they have done. and when at the same time, you're also running this armada of phone. do you find groups big scientists calling or climate change, or folks, you're running a whole propaganda operation at the same time. it does have a very significant effect and we saw that effect pro. now, sadly, after this is united decision before, lots of bipartisanship on climate stuff immediately upon the citizens united decision. now the unlimited special interest money bo, bipartisanship dead on climate. let me ask you about going back to the supreme court for a moment, it just occurs to me that what we have been seeing and what you've been reviewing

on the senate floor. about clarence thomas is relationships and you know, gift flow, we'll call it. um, are there other justices that have exhibited the same behavior? you and i were discussing recently, anthony and scully, a the late justice scalia. but i'm just interested in his case, but also interested in whether other justices you, you believe have the same issues. the clarence thomas stuff. yeah, i think we're going to continue to look into this some of that we know because some of the justices disclose that. so you see it. but i 1st got interested in this. when i learned about how many hunting vacations justice scalia had taken, obviously we knew to the one where he was under chinese air force to mount a vast and the one where he died. there are about 6 dozen or more others, and they were not disclosed. and the only reason you can not disclose is if it's personal hospitality. and what they were doing was setting up a little bit of a track where somebody went and asked the owner of the state or resort at to invite

scully with a personal invitation. and then they would treat the personal invitation is personal hospitality, even if he never met the owner of the resort before even it was a commercial establishment. so that went on for years and the supreme court put up with that. and that was my kind of opener into this question of how boston books in large us to supreme court justices. and in the case of scully, a lot of political friends around him when he should france political contacts around him. on these trips, people from the gun advocacy groups, people from fossil fuel, industry, republican official. so it really doesn't work. my flight, personalized fatality is you or i might understand it. i'm just sort of interested in this moment and whether you're the alone voice is gonna remain alone voice, or you're creating a movement among your colleagues, both republican and democrat, that are actually going to do something about this. it's really the hallway and

it's appalling to people across the country. you can't house, you know, a municipal official who can have lunch at the diner across the street, picked up by somebody who's doing business with the municipality. you know, the team dollar launch. and then that person finds out that a supreme court justice is taking multi $100000.00 vacations at the secret the house of a politically active right wing billionaire and having his portrait painted with the manipulator of the supreme for him by the right wing billionaire. a crew, no mattress doesn't ring through with anybody out care of your accomplishing or democrat. that's just the database of your and it needs to be called out and it needs to stop. do you engage in any way with chief justice john roberts and do you discuss this with him? yes. yeah. oh yeah. in a variety of ways. first of all, i go over and speak at the traditional conference meeting every year,

and i've taken to discussing this. i sit right next to amazon, so tiny bit awkward, but i think it's important that i'm respectful in the, in my tone and manner of delivery. and we've done a lot of correspondence as way we usually get answers from either the clerk of the court, or, you know, the court's counselor or somebody else. um, but yes, we are at my office and i are regularly engaged trying to focus his and the court's attention on these problems. you know, one of the other transits out there right now, senator, is that college students are not being drawn to the government jobs. they want to, you know, conservative ones are going into private sector liberal ones, you know, in this study that we're looking at are going to non profit multi lateral institutions, etc. but, you know, the idea of going into government service, whether it's in the legal side of things, whether it's and, you know, serving the foreign service. many, many other roles is an area where people are just saying, you know, i'm, i'm going to, i'm going to take a pass. do you sense a problem that, that,

that we have now in the human capital side of government because trust and government has collapse. so dramatically not yet, perhaps because secure in congress. there's still so many idealistic young people who want to come and work. but i'm reading about it particularly in the election enforcement area that the elections areas become so toxic with people attacking people and the media trolling mimics threatening them. that election officials are stepping back and people are increasingly reluctant to become election monitors and get involved in the craziness. and the problem with that, of course, is that when the craziness drives normal people out of one area of government service, it makes it easier for the crazy to take over in that area. we'll look at just one person among 435. but i've got to ask you about the george santos case because this

is a case, a guy who allegedly lied, fabricated a story. rand twice actually for congress. not a lot of people caught it or paid attention and now he's been charged, you know, in federal, federal prosecution with various crimes related to the stories that he fabricated and also deceiving his donors. but when we get into these kind of semi, you know, odd cases does this, you have to put it this way, but this is a fuel, the conspiracy theory crowd and you have worries about that. i don't know. i see a representative. santos is cases one really about the disintegration of local media and a big gap that can exist between the, you know, very immediate, very local media and the national media outlets. because my understanding is that he was actually covered quite well by a very small local media outlets that figured that there was

a lot that was not true. and what he was saying and was digging hard. but there was not the larger newspaper or media outlet, they couldn't dive in and throw the resources out there so that ultimately, you know, the new york times or the washington post or cbs or somebody else could pick it up . so i see that as a signal of alarm in what local media is capable of doing an environment where the big platforms get to basically take all their work and show it to everybody for free. so they can't afford to keep reporters on the be let me just ask you finally, you know, we've got a couple of more cases pending against donald trump that are very serious. one. you about potential meddling in the 2020 election in georgia, another with with special council, you know, jack smith looking at management of classified documents and president trump's role in january 6. again, these are going to be issues where we're looking at, you know, the f b. i are looking at federal prosecutors and you're looking at the courts. do you

have any worry that you're revelations about the corruption of this system is going to undermine the potential for those findings to go into direction they should, you know, we've seen again these 3 areas in which an honest court room made a big difference against the you know, bullying bullhorn and actually brought justice and truth. and i think those cases are going to depend very, very much on the evidence and the presentation of that evidence. by the prosecutors . there may be a lot of skepticism going in. but if jack smith makes a very compelling case about tomorrow, i'll go documents. if the department of justice is able to pull together the threads of the false electors and the phone calls to georgia and the guy in the department of justice, writing the letter about georgia and make a compelling case there beyond a reasonable doubt, i think the public is going to be willing to listen and will accept the evidence that is brought forward. well, these are important issues,

senator and i really appreciate your time this morning and helping our on our audience understand them because they are complex and they are serious and they're not fund. so democratic senator from rhode island, sheldon whitehouse. thank you so much for your candor in for joining us today. thanks, dave. so what's the bottom line? correction is as old as politics. that's just nothing new. they've always been scandals at all levels of government, but until recently, the u. s. supreme court was sort of an escape, it was looked upon as the purest of the pure. but the error of judges being the best of us is now probably over and like so many other pillars of the us government these days. americans trust in the courts. objectivity and credibility is really collapsing and fast. the courts are openly seen as political tools. my guest sen sheldon white house is right to blow the whistle. the creeping corruption of american institutions is undermining the democratic equation in america. bit by bit and making it very hard for us leaders to talk about promoting democracy when their

own is in such disarray. and that's the bottom line. the it was so that this series expose the imperial origins of the drug trade. commerce was fire, fire was good for the former, so these things very much wants to go and opens passage from the far east to europe and the united states. guns need money, only money in these mountains is open. drug trafficking, politics and power. the era of empires is the conflict into done continued some correspondence or on the ground to record every angle. if the story had been ongoing between the hours and the 16th army

beat ages to say that a 100 i'm soothing is refugees. why you have to be registered under what kind of access to this tooth does not get to where it is needed, so it may not get there. and the challenge ahead is your stay without just the rest of the business development. the head of the american, the endo hobbies, the top stories on al jazeera process, defense ministries as a major ukrainian offensive as being pushed back as opposed to to have happens along the front line of southern to nets. let's be no comment from keith. moscow has released these pictures of the bottle. it says ukrainian forces suffered heavy losses, slaves, others being towed to the enemy deployed 6 mechanized into tank latania evans.