remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are becoming indistinguishable. thanks. a lot tom hartman at washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture economists in the media are warning the donald trump's plan to slab big tariffs on aluminum and steel could spark a trade war. could that actually be a good thing alaskan alan tonelson in just a moment and renowned physicist stephen hawking says that the trump administration

is pushing us past the point of no return on climate change why is the administration and really the entire republican party so willing to bring on the apocalypse just to help the fossil fuel oligarchy make a little more profit find out tonight so-called liberal rumble with willie or vera travis course. just minutes before leaving for europe where it will attend the g. twenty summit in germany donald trump doubled down on the kind of nationalists rhetoric that helped get him elected in the first place he tweeted the united states made some of the worst trade deals in world history why should we continue these deals with countries that do not help us coming as it did amid reports that he's considering a big twenty percent tariff on steel and other imports trump's tweet got the media talking once again about the possibility of a trade war but what actually is a trade war and would a confrontation with say china over trade policy really be such

a bad thing joining me now is alan tonelson economist founder of reality check blog and author of the race to the bottom why a worldwide worker surplus and uncontrolled free trade are sinking american. living standards alan tonelson welcome back great to be here thanks for having with us so first of all what do we know about or what do you know about this trade plan that trump says he's. promoting or is this just one more rhetorical flourish from the tweeter in chief there certainly has been a pattern i don't say history it's a little too soon for that but there's been a pattern for sure of the trump trade bark being somewhat worse than the actual bite and we might be seeing this in the case of the steel tariffs controversy since the ministration was due to come out with a report about the national security implications of america's steel trade patterns its rising imports its growing trade deficits in steel again that was supposed to

come out last friday it was announced at the last minute that the release of this report which was going to precede the presumed the nouns mint of steel trade tariffs of some kind. that report was then pushed back its release until after this week's g. twenty meeting with the leaders of the world's other nineteen big big trade and economic powers so that's possibly one sign that either the administration is having second thoughts about the whole thing or that they're trying to figure out which countries get hit and which don't i would suspect the latter that's that's probably not a bad bet ok it's my understanding there's a big debate within the administration about the possibility of imposing tariffs and particularly on china right clearly players in this debate over their positions from what's reported in the press and i think this time it's probably accurate

you've got the so-called populous the steve bannon's the steve miller's who is the . the the the chief domestic policy aide you've got to nevada row who has been. having the national trade council possibly wilbur ross the secretary of commerce on the side of much harder law in trade policies opposing them again presumably is the so-called goldman sachs gang gary cohn who was the former chief executive at goldman sachs who now heads the who now heads the national economic council and steve minucci in another goldman sachs alum the treasury secretary of course steve benen worked for goldman sachs too although he was not like you know he was your serial big wigs i was just a trader so well that's interesting as i mentioned that the media is talking about this oh there's one more faction and it's very important that's very strongly

against any steel trade tariffs and that's the national security crowd general mcmaster the national security adviser general mattis the secretary of defense i would imagine rex tillerson former exxon chairman now secretary of state is this i'm sure they hate this idea they see steel tariffs as raising the price of steel raise the price of steel you raise the cost of manufacturing weaponry and word theory one of the largest manufacturers in the world of weaponry one of the largest merger cers of it so it's going to jack up the deal but i have a feeling that they're much more concerned with the prospect that one hears from from all wings of the american foreign policy establishment that whenever america moves to either promoter safeguard its legitimate economic interests which i strongly believe to be the case with steel. that's risky national security wise because other countries might become upset oh geez which is an argument that i simply don't buy if only because when it comes to national security all america's

allies need the united states much more than vice versa and i i realize that's a historical and all the these attempts to for example portray smoot hawley as the cause of the great or russian cause or. world war two are just nonsense but is there an historical precedent for i mean as they started out protections this was this was annulled and sold for sure no there were seventy nine hundred seventy nine hundred three put in place and what plan and it basically stood until at least next strong way i'd see it actually stood in till the one nine hundred thirty s. when president roosevelt. its initiated a series of tariff cuts inspired by cordell hull his then secretary of state with the idea being that that smoot hawley the tariff that the united states had put on . shortly after the great depression actually broke out had made things much

worse we had to reverse course and so i would actually be the start of free trade america to that one nine hundred thirty s. period that's what all the only raise tariffs by three four zero there was so much there were so many factual arguments against it not least of which was it also only affected a very tiny percentage of total u.s. trade flows rain was less than less than but it's a convenient whipping boy yeah so become so back to the historic i mean if the history of the united states has been we were merkin to list in protectionist for the first hundred fifty years or so and then we slowly have become more free trade i don't know what the word is for this you know i guess you know surrendering economic sovereignty. back to us is there has there been a point a time in the united states history where we have returned back to those hamiltonian principles and if so what was the outcome well i don't know if such a strangely enough it came and i was just thinking about this just before tonight's

show because we're at a very similar moment today former president nixon back in the early one nine hundred seventy saw that that the united states was increasingly. the incapable of playing its traditional global leadership role when it came to national security while remaining wide open to every other country's exports especially those of its allies japan and also germany and he essentially imposed. in the one nine hundred seventy one a ten percent patter of which he called a surcharge which was intended to get those countries to strengthen their currencies they were being charged with what we would call today currency manipulation and it largely worked he also though and again this is very ironic brought down the post world war two economic system which was which was

a a very strongly u.s. dollar based system related to the dollars convert ability of the gold were getting very wonky here i know but seventy ought to close that goal right exactly that that was in place since one thousand it's in the late one nine hundred forty s. nixon brought that down because the strains that imposed on the u.s. economy were getting excessive in his judgment and u.s. allies were freewriting economically and also the national security was so if first of all steel in if i was thinking national security. you know in the nineteenth century or maybe in the first out of the twentieth century i think steel sure right now what i'm thinking national security i'm thinking in the united states can't make a cruise missile without ships in china right electronic have so little why are we not looking at you know i mean you walk through government offices in this town and and i have over the years and you see you know models of computers manufacturing

a job you know or in china and you know how can we how can we have national security when our when our critical government functions are being done on computers that are manufactured in china we don't know what's in there even problems clearly you know are the big blind spot that previous administrations both democratic and republican can be legitimately accused of one big reason that steele has been chosen first and i don't think it will be a last is. because steel is just about the only major american industry that has decided to keep most of its production capacity at home whereas the u.s. electronics industry has gone overseas in the last thing and once is trade barriers but there is a very legitimate case a national security case for imposing steel tariffs because even though steel does not play the role in america's defense that it clearly played in decades past

especially steels remain critically important to a wide variety of u.s. weapons systems and even though their production volumes are pretty small they're so vital that you need a larger steel infrastructure a larger steel industry to support their manufacture you can't just expect needs products like that to survive without a larger and without a larger infrastructure and that's what the steel industry has been saying the the other we have about a minute having alan the other big argument against the trumpet ministration doing this is that it will spark a trade war and that a trade war implicitly could lead to a hot war where you thought right well i don't see a trade war leading to a hot war with the u.s. security allies like japan and germany and south korea in theory with china but china is such a rogue state when it comes to economics when it comes to trade policy something

clearly has to be done there's pretty strong bipartisan support because democrats like chuck schumer the senate majority leader have been shining trump you're too weak on china you're breaking your campaign promises you have to do more so i think that if he took more aggressive steps he would get stronger he would get even in this climate strong support and i can't imagine the chinese responding militarily it just makes no sense whatever what and if there were some sort of flashpoint a. in that region north korea this kind of thing sticky the more direct u.s. china flash point is in the south china sea spread the word china has been trying to expand its own territorial reach the u.s. navy has been pushing back things are at a very touchy point right now absolutely great and what a pleasure thanks so much coming up republicans say they believe in local control but they don't actually mean it in tonight's liberal rob with travis corson right

after this break. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories in our critics can't tell me you know why because their advertisers won't let them. in order to create change you have to be honest you have to tell the truth parties able to do that every story is built on going after the back story to what's really happening out there to the american what's happening when a corporation makes a pharmaceutical chills people when a company in the environmental business ends up polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses they put all the health risk all the

dangers out to the american public those are stories that we tell every week and you know what they're working. all. right now. that republicans. are like. my problem with let's look. i. would hope to. put themselves on the line. they did accept the reject. so when you want to be president. some want to be rich. to do it.

this is what the three of them will be. interested in the. republicans talk an awful lot of game of clamping down on welfare queens but the truth is they're perfectly fine with using taxpayer dollars to subsidize people who don't deserve our help just so long as those people happen to be billionaire corporate c.e.o.'s let's rumble. with me for the rides along the rubble are julio rivera editorial director a reactionary times and travis course senior vice president at madison strategies

thank you both for being with us tonight. thank you so much tom great let's get started missouri republicans have lowered the minimum wage that's right lowered it on friday missouri's right when governor eric greitens allowed this show me state's version of what's known as a preemption law to go into effect this law bans cities in missouri from raising their minimum wages higher than seven dollars and seventy cents it was a direct response to st louis having raised its men. of wage to ten dollars an hour st louis workers will now see their wages drop from ten dollars to seven dollars and seventy cents an hour a twenty three percent pay cut study out of the university of california berkeley found earlier this year that low wages cost u.s. taxpayers one hundred fifty two point eight billion dollars each year in public support for working families so here's my question for you guys why are publicans trying to keep working people tied to food stamps and public assistance and you

know i know why corporations like the scam they don't have to pay higher salaries and you and i all three of us are are with our tax dollars subsidizing wal-mart and mcdonald's and all these other companies but i don't get why republican politicians like let's get something straight here a higher minimum wage does not necessarily translate to a better worker outcome and i think there's a philosophical difference here in the minimum wage and entry level jobs and what they mean republicans conservatives believe entry level jobs are just that a stepping stone a way up the ladder an opportunity to work your way out by raising the minimum wage to actually lessen the amount of jobs that are available to these lower workers us in their abilities for higher out outcomes and a lot of times you're pricing them out and you price automation instead of actual workers you know i hear all that and i know that i know the shtick you know and but the fact of the matter is that a majority of the workers in most of these low wage industries are not kids they're not teenagers they're people who have families they're people who are in some cases

working two or three jobs they're adults at number one number two you didn't address why the republicans who are always talking about local control particularly when it comes to racial issues like their schools and you know school integration stuff like that are all of a sudden saying oh no cities cannot have control it's got to be coming from the from the from the geniuses at the state down period and number three nobody nobody address julio your next nobody address my pointing out that this scam has been going on for about twenty years now where. the guys at wal-mart the guys in mcdonald's they figured out if we pay at this level then all of our employees qualify for government benefits which takes them essentially up to this level in terms of total income when you add in food stamps and housing support everything else and medicaid but if we pay just three dollars more than that they no longer qualify as things and now they're going to actually it's on the university of washington did a study using seattle the first city to fight for fifteen as the guinea pig and

they actually found that workers work less hours than they did before the minimum wage increase and actually saw a net decrease in wages in wages i had as i was up here as i sound as i'm sure both so you know more depend on the going to be great amazing less money than here at we're talking about mcdonald's and wal-mart and as i'm sure both of you know that study done by the university of washington did not look at any large employers it was entirely small businesses so nobody pays but they looked at specifically low wage earners who this legislation is supposedly supposed to help and that was when they took away it this legislation is supposed to this this decision this legislation by the governor and the and the legislature in missouri is supposed to hurt it all but a minimum wage in st louis just turned out it was the i know you did not letting me finish in general when you raised the minimum wage obviously they're trying to help the low wage worker but. things are going to the university of washington study actually confirmed that they lost the last nine percent of the total hours. in

a small in a small group well tell us more all that is let's laugh about it that does not indicate anything and plus that's a fifth of what i mean it doesn't take a does that's that's nothing less said of the hours go on will somebody plays in a dress will usually go well jobs employers cut guys are willing to talk about this scam the these where they are letting it all out you talked about the study how the study didn't include small employers right it did not include large employer designing large employers well guess what the small employer. those are actually exempt from this law the st louis wage law you have to make over five hundred thousand and employ more than fifteen employees to actually even be eligible to have to pay this time element of the engineer know why because they know it will drive these small employers out of business small business reasons for backbone zero ish i just got killed way i didn't talk to they saw lawyers anyways though its input but ok so both of you are fine with just blowing up the whole idea of local control city should not have the ability to determine their own fate even if it's

a stupid faith you're both on board with that. not necessarily i mean it just this is something stupid though i mean you kid a city can't make a decision for the employers and for the small businesses in that kind where they go and they do every day it's called zoning if nothing else so he's constantly making decisions about employers i mean that's that's the obligation of him but not on how much they're going to pay people as a minimum no sure i mean washington d.c. has just raised the minimum wage to fifteen dollars here and guess what it is not a reason why did lost over a thousand other jobs he's got you know if you want to keep up with that if a bench really doesn't you're worrying too much at the people i thought the republican idea was the jobs our kids like like teenage daughter is we're not talking about your teenage dollars an hour you know she should be making yet but these are the people that generally work these types of jobs as younger people people entering the workforce people you know that there has been so dave bonked these are not young people entering the workforce these are people trying to

analyze and a lot of them all are and we know a small percentage i drive for a minimum wage job that shouldn't be what your number one you guys are fine with no such thing as low level control unless it has to do with presumably integration of schools and number two you're saying that is just fine with you that the three of us continue with our tax dollars to subsidize mcdonald's and wal-mart all these other big companies in st louis missouri you just lost over the fact that the where the minimum wage is raised these people like make less money than they did before so you're actually well i'm sure that i've heard all they no longer qualify for government benefits and they make less money than they were making no or they make more than ten dollars an hour that's that's you know that's why obama was talking about a ten dollars fifteen cent or whatever it was minimum wage it was exactly the point where employees no longer qualify for government benefits i thought you guys didn't like government benefits and raising the minimum wage to ten dollars we're talking fifteen dollars minimum wage like in washington state this is ten dollars and st louis had already done this it had been in place for years and now the state comes

along and says no you've got to knock it down the side of the truth we've got. on the average days they buy laser knows what. horrors this is something that just was in effect for a little over a month before the injunction came this is the man in place for years it was a twenty three percent boost in their labor cost that they got blindsided with and so you're ok so it's just it's just him seven zero dollars and seventy cents an hour is just fine with you guy just horrified by that that's. that's pathetic because we're evil we're evil republicans right tom listen don't know your shillings are evil billionaires who own these companies you'll see it all right but how many people are out there really supporting a family on seven dollars an hour these are entry level jobs i understand there are some of us know that but you don't have to have the american to do that you are going to say oh yeah jadis shows that they lose ours so we leave it to pay what the market the market demands of the market will pay it will sustain a ten dollar wage and there's no rocker will probably sustain

a four dollar wage and by the way if we do away with the child labor laws you might even get a three dollars i was a twelve year old i realize that's the direction republicans want to go that's that that is the absolute direction of this era and any how in an interview with the b.b.c. this weekend world renowned physicist stephen hawking said the donald trump is pushing us past the point of no return when it comes to climate change. through. the nose temperature of two hundred fifty degrees. why are the petro billionaires who virtually own the republican party willing to risk killing us all just to get a few more years of progress and this is this is all demagoguery it's nonsense the bottom line is if there is a corruption you know somewhere that'll do about a hundred years worth of man me damage the fact is even the c.e.o. don't try to cross the weather channel denied climate change it's not anymore not

in the climate change not anymore have ever been the weather channel and i don't like halloween high magick a new york studios. there was a right now because there were so many models that said that manhattan would be underwater but you know as far as i can tell it's not i have to go to the level of alarmism here it is crazy how do we go from the so-called accepted scientific consensus from those that claim child climate change and really it was global warming but then they had to put it back to climate change and how do we go from cooler point eight degrees celsius rise over the next hundred years to now earth is going to be a two hundred fifty degree with with so if you're an acid rain cloud i just i don't god love over alarmist larry amazing. and even that even though so you guys are going to continue to push the koch brothers are going to get to you guys are both going to continue to push the petrol billionaires the koch brothers on the list if they it's not a nothing to worry about here yeah the planet is warming up appliance in order to follow the laws to be greener just cost businesses money needlessly it makes the

cost of producing cars in our country more expensive the cost of producing everything in our country more expensive what i mean let's let's also wondering what do you believe there and i did say what are you talking about it make what what makes things more expensive. regulations e.t.a. regulations complying with certain standards you know that is supposedly making this huge difference and seatbelts make way to make cars larger and they accepted models of how hot it's going to get over the next hundred years it's a wide range it's between one degree and six degrees these guys have no idea how to play the i guess you see. yes. nate i think you're looking at your legs and are crimes and if you are you ready to grady's yeah i'm not pitching and i'm sure there's even hawkins there that huge. well that's ok let's let's not bring the context in which this was brought up and that was the context of the paris climate accord a voluntary accord mind you one that i knew and could you could leave at any time

if they were if you really want to push change on this the way to do it is to ratify the treaty through the senate and the do it the proper way not the way the obama obama did it which was to unilaterally move something because you couldn't get the american public an american consensus on the issue or your suggestion if you were actually in the status of illinois site as part of the terrorist leaders are not really going to comply yeah actually china is way ahead of their goals for arrows there they're way ahead of china's their goals as laid out their. china is laying down more solar every minute and we do it entirely because what they're building a new coal fired plant every month they have cut back on that they got back to over one hundred plant stuff canceled over one hundred coal fired power plants so. and he'll. miss in a q. here. julio rivera and travis corson thanks guys for being with us and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag your.

what you have for breakfast yesterday why would you put those through. your wife. now i did did you do you take it all. on larry king you're watching our t.v. america question more.

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