hello i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture as north korea threatens more missile tests and the drop administration ramps up the belligerent rhetoric are we heading toward war on the korean peninsula. of the korea policy institute in

just a moment and as they try to sell their wildly unpopular so-called health care bill republicans are unintentionally making the case for single payer health care explain how in tonight's rumble with scott rear and christian. donald trump and the leaders of south korea and japan issued a joint statement today urging new sanctions on north korea that statement comes just days after the north tested a ballistic missile but experts say is capable of reaching alaska and as the trump administration has started openly talking about the possibility of war on the korean peninsula cable news of course is flush with cartoon portrayals of north korea and its leader but what's really behind the latest bios about of tensions and how can we make peace in the two koreas once and for all joining me now is humanly

managing editor of zoom in korea and fellow at the korea policy institute here only welcome to the program or long about having me it's great having you first off i want to talk about this missile the so-called lost song fourteen and please correct any of my mispronunciations how significant correct ok thank you how significant of a threat does this actually represent to american security and how does it threaten american interests. yeah i'm going to quote david sanger of the council on foreign relations he wrote this week in the new york times that. north korea's i.c.b.m. the fourteen is a threat to u.s. interests not because. the north koreans will actually use it to launch a preemptive attack against the united states so then why is a threat to u.s. interests i think there are two reasons for that number one he says it's because now north korea has an effective form of deterrence so in the event the u.s.

decides to take military action north korea actually has a way to strike back and fourteen can actually strike the heart of the u.s. pacific command that is located in hawaii and so what that means is that the united states can no longer threaten north korea with regime collapse and believe it around and that actually changes u.s. strategic calculus in the region so for that reason washington is very nervous number two if north korea's missile program becomes an example for other countries to follow in the future that actually challenges the nuclear nonproliferation regime which let's face it is essentially. guaranteeing that only the five permanent members of the u.n. security council and nobody else can have nuclear weapons that's the real reason why washington things north korea's i.c.b.m.

is a threat to its interests all of that hasn't worked out so well i mean you've got. is really. i mean these are not permanent members of or maybe the army i don't feel. all right nuclear proliferation seems like it's gone beyond just the un security council. yeah you know the united states accuses north korea of violating un resolutions and then urges the u.n. to punish north korea by piling on more sanctions but let me explain a few reasons why that's a hypocrisy number one there is actually no international law that says that prohibits countries from testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles in fact the united states routinely test ballistic missiles so there is no legal basis for the u.n. resolution that condemns north korea's missile and nuclear tests and the u.n.

security council especially the five permanent members which all have nuclear weapons they have no legal or moral authority to decide who can and who should not have nuclear weapons the second reason is that north korea is not in violation of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty article ten of the n.p.t. says parties have the right to withdraw from the treaty if extraordinary circumstances jeopardize the country's supreme national interests what happened back in one thousand nine hundred three after the fall of the soviet union is that the united states announced that it was going to read direct its nuclear weapons that were aimed at the soviet union towards north korea and that it immediately started military exercises right at the north korean border involving tens of thousands of u.s. troops and b. one b. and b. fifty two nuclear bomb or. naval vessels that are equipped with cruise missiles

north korea determined at that time this is a threat to our supreme interests and so they gave notice to the u.n. we are withdrawing from the n.p.t. and they have. followed press proper procedures as outlined in the treaty to withdraw from from the n.p.t. the united states on the other hand is in violation of the n.p.t. which says nuclear weapon states should reduce their nuclear arsenal and move towards complete elimination the united states right now is spending billions of dollars each year to actually modernize its nuclear arsenal so and then the third point which i think is the most important point is that north korea actually has a policy of no first strike which means that it will not use its nuclear weapons preemptively for an office of purpose it will only use it defensively the united states notably does not have the same policy and its war prep plans in korea

actually include preemptive nuclear strikes against north korea and they routinely rehearse this scenario and so for all of those reasons we should know that u.s. sanctions against north korea are not legal you know this you know the pickle characterization of north korea and kim jong un in the united states is that it is a out of control rogue nation run by a crazed dictator who routinely starves as own people runs his little potemkin villages that look like they're actually functional stores and businesses and things when in fact it's all you know it's just this giant military bizarre hero worship cult and and and therefore these crazy people should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons i mean that's that's my understanding of essential of the argument that probably the average person on the street in the united states

would make and they might react to the things that you're saying by saying wait a minute are you showing for north korea i mean to this sounds like they're not bet on reasonable how do the how do you reconcile these two visions essentially of the state. well i think what i would say to people who characterized north korea as being belligerent because it continues to fire off you know ballistic missiles is by asking you know let's just imagine that north korea does give up its nuclear weapons it stops its tests and says ok we're going to lay down our arms what would happen next. i am pretty convinced that if north korea had not developed nuclear weapons that the united states would have invaded already and i think that's the lesson that north korea drew from watching the experiences of iraq and libya. and

so to me i think if we are really concerned about global peace then which i assume most of your audience members are and i think the real question we have to ask ourselves is how do we then create the conditions in the world so that countries like north korea because there may be other countries in the future so that they don't have to turn to a nuclear weapons to do their sovereignty and i think that's where the real conversation needs to begin this just sounds so rational president moon the brand new president of south korea campaigned on basically were approached on i'm not sure he ever used that word or its equivalent but you know coming up with some sort of a reasonable peace agreement with north korea. and increasing communication economic activity you know family meeting you know basically normalizing their relationship to the extent that it's possible. is that is that essentially can is

is his world view first of all which seems to be shared by a majority of south koreans they just you know overwhelmingly elected him is that is sensually consistent with what you've been saying up to this point and and if so . so you know how does the south respond to the to the to the rhetoric that is completely contrary to that that we've been hearing from president trump you know it seems very confrontational number one and number two how does south korea intend to pursue some sort of operation like that some sort of you know reconciliation particularly i mean given that today they joined japan and in calling for sanctions . as you mentioned was elected through mass protests that brought out millions of people week after week for five months that eventually led to the ouster of the previous president so his election

was really a mandate by the south korean people for systemic change including a very different approach toward into a korean relations. i think that so far. policy pronouncements have been very confusing let me explain why. you know he came to washington last week and signed a joint statement with trump that is all about strengthening the u.s. are ok alliance now he's in europe saying south korea with negotiate a peace treaty with north korea these two things don't make sense number one. at the end of the korean war in one thousand nine hundred fifty three the armistice which is a temporary cease fire that was signed that was signed between the united states and north korea that means those two countries are still in

a state of war so replacing that with a peace treaty also has to involve united states and north korea as the primary parties so unless in is able to persuade trump to take a very different approach to north korea whatever he's able to negotiate in terms of a peace treaty is not going to be very meaningful number two. the u.s. and south korea are bound by the mutual defense treaty which says in the event of war south korean troops have to fight alongside the united states and the united states still has wartime operational control so u.s. commanders would command south korea and true. in the event of war so strengthening the us are ok alliance is actually a very hostile policy towards north korea they rehearse regime collapse scenarios

routinely they fly nuclear bombers. over the korean peninsula they train special operations teams that are ready to take out the north korean leadership so one chain has to decide is he going to strengthen the u.s. are ok alliance or move towards reconciliation peacefully with north korea i don't think you can have both things at once which is what he's talking about so i don't think that you know as long as that policy stands i don't think he will get very far off and dangerous time he only thank you so much for being with us tonight thank you coming up republicans say they want to give americans choice when it comes to health care so why don't they support single payer. krishna tonight's rumble right after the break.

i think the average viewer just after watching a couple segments understands that we're telling stories there are critics can't tell 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 with a company in the environmental business polluting a river that causes cancer and other illnesses they put all the risk all the dangers out there. american public those are stories that we tell everyone we can you know want their work in. there's a real irony going. away from the people and there is always. always

the next three. or area now to hold still surveillance you feel you have already while those who need to do so then trying to use the social new oil are always on my story it's garbage and real. all the food we took. every. experience. you can get out of the old world. according.

to greg sure republicans right now realize it but as they try to sell a tax cut for the rich disguised as a health care plan they're accidentally making the case for single payer health care what's wrong. with the president is wrong or scott greer deputy editor at the daily caller and doug christian political commentator thank you both for being with us tonight great and you both with us so was support for trump hovering around twelve percent. republicans are now trying out a new poll tested frank luntz type talking point we're not taking away your health care they say we're giving you the choice to drop it or to pay extra to keep it it's all about freedom of choice the latest example of this came on thursday when texas senator john cornyn responded to a reporter on twitter who accused him of forcing twenty two million people to lose

their health insurance by saying not lose choose so if the issue is choice isn't that actually an argument for single payer you get to choose any doctor you want any hospital you want any specific kind of therapy you want you have a million choices well this is just another sign the republicans are losing hugely on the health care issue and these kind of arguments are convincing anybody i mean it's only playing well with their donors and the people are already convinced this is not what trump even want to i want to you can choose you can choose and even with trump running on his campaign he ran against this type of behavior this type of rhetoric you know he did promise no cuts to social security and health care are to medicare excuse me but medicare and medicaid he made all these say we're not going to get in these cuts you want even though all the g.o.p. is like oh we have to make these cuts we have to balance the budget we have to have more money for wars is like no we don't want to have this and even what some is rather key indicated that we're going to have health care for everybody that sounded a lot like single payer so this talk about choice that's not really can you convince

anybody this is just another thing that they're trying to shore up support for this bill that as you said only has twelve percent support among the american public so you don't see an optimum no i think it's a terrible idea i mean g.o.p. is wanted to commit suicide in twenty eighteen by passing this bill remarkable of your thoughts i agree with you totally on that i feel that in fact this is about a feeling to the donor versus the donor class versus the voter class and when and then g.o.p. has to make up their mind who is going to who they want to be on this and the. her class has actually a stake in this i mean obamacare the medicaid expansion and the subsidies for working class people are paid for in large part by a three point eight percent additional tax on capital gains income a capital gains you know if you if you work with your body or your mind for a living your top tax rate could be thirty nine percent you know surgeon making

four hundred thousand bucks a year is paying thirty nine percent on the top you know on that last hundred thousand more or less but if you make your money using money which pretty much banks and billionaires do and then your top tax rates only twenty percent and this three point eight ten percent tax only kicks in after you've earned a quarter million dollars of capital gains then it kicks in so we're talking about a three point eight percent tax on capital gains it takes their top tax rate from twenty percent to twenty three point eight percent only after they've made a quarter million dollars it's a very small percentage of people but they're mind bogglingly rich people and that's why it's generating billions of dollars to support health care for all of us but apparently these mind bogglingly rich people are very offended that they might have to pay twenty three point eight percent tax when all the rest of us at the pay up to thirty nine percent how do the republicans square that circle well the g.o.p. is just so stuff in this idea with we're not raising taxes for anybody no matter

how popular support is or no matter what this money that is comes from these tax cuts is going to pay for their stock on this they know noon no to no tax raising we don't want any of that we had on the way with those three point yes actually it's and there is this overwhelming negative reaction when news broke that the infamous steve benen was proposing having a tax increase on the wealthy in order to pay for tax cuts for the middle class and working class there is outrage among a lot of these could sort of donors and conservative activists that somebody would even propose that somebody especially in the trump ministration somebody so close to the president would propose but this is an idea that a lot of americans think is common sense. would be much more popular than the g.o.p. health care bill remarkable. someday the g.o.p. is going to have to figure out a way to square the circle to actually figure out how they're going to make put a health care proposal i would feel that figuring out with democrats how to put something together would be of more efficacious solution i think first they're

going to have to go back to the one nine hundred eighty and when george herbert walker bush was running against ronald reagan and george herbert walker bush came right out and said the idea that cutting taxes will increase government revenue is crazy it's voto economics and you know it's just it and it's never been demonstrated to be effective in fact there's a pile of evidence to the opposite sam brownback in kansas in the last four years so any i donald trump sham election integrity commission so-called election integrity commission is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to republican voter suppression efforts mother jones just published an in-depth article about the deceptively named american civil rights union are you a right wing legal group based out of virginia and run by some guys in the bush justice department that has been orchestrating voter purges in rural mostly black and hispanic districts all across the country is here you sense the letters to these districts accusing them of having more registered voters than actual residents the implication being that there's some kind of fraud going on it then

bullies these small impoverished communities into signing court orders the slash away at their voter rolls doesn't this go to show that we need a voting rights act that actually covers the entire country i mean we pretty much already protect voter rights as we already have laws in the book when we have there is some of the abuses that are coming with his efforts to come back voter fraud but i would say when we always talk about this we forget the numbers that when they did a study in the two thousand and eight election there was a you know a few million non-citizen voters who are on these rolls this is a claim study this isn't just from something from their heritage foundation. something even worse more nefarious lead right wing than that that said that we have about i believe it's two or three million non-citizens are voting that's a pretty big deal because that's been agreed that i want to go just a second. there you know because of the motor voter laws i'm sure that there are some people who are not citizens who are on the ball on the rolls just because they checked the box not realizing that they were registering but that can account for

about three million there has to be any of that though it could easily there are less than what i was saying scott you can see that but that doesn't mean that they're showing up to vote and it's entirely reasonable that a that a county with ten or twenty thousand people end up with over time you know fifteen or twenty five thousand people on their voter rolls and the reason why is really really simple. seven percent of americans move every year if you if you're familiar with compound interest if you take seven percent over a ten year period you double your money if you're making several three and so yeah in fact here's the formula this is the actual math formula for and if you just plug the numbers in if you take it you know one hundred thousand people in a county and seven percent of them move in or move out every year for a decade and you don't and you know when i moved here from portland i didn't call up oregon and say i'm not there anymore i'm probably still on their voter rolls it doesn't mean i'm going to commit fraud you're going to end up with two hundred thousand people on the voting rolls and no fraud it's just the way it is it's

cooked into the system and these guys are pointing at something that's been this way in america for one hundred fifty years and say oh my god it's fraud well there's of course that but there's also the number that there are at least eleven million illegal immigrants living in this country yes most of them don't want to have to take the risk of voting many have the odd how but and we we had do not have number of them in the last there is neither to me but there is that every seven in the last eleven numbers in two thousand and you can say it says about the two or three million at least with this number so you're saying that out of the at least eleven million illegal immigrants none of them are voting even though their ability to stay in this country is determined by politics and by who they vote for you. saying the none of them are tempting would you know it's like if you walk into a number of you know i went to macy's and saw a nice piece of jewelry that you liked would you just stick in your pocket walk out these are people why not because you're a little it's not years in prison it's two to five years in prison for voting if you're not a citizen there's nobody who is going to get enough to do it there's still the risk if there if the other alternative is being deported never having the opportunity

come and say that's not the best it's either how is that not enough there's a little moment of the majority here i mean they did a large number or it was going to george w. bush fired seven federal and prosecutors because out of one hundred federal prosecutors these seven people refused to make their top priority finding so-called voter fraud the other ninety three of them spent six years and seventy four million dollars looking for the people that you're talking about and they found none of them they found a total of thirty two people and more than half of them had voted for republicans most of them who were engaged in so-called voter fraud were filling out ballots for spouses who had dementia i mean that was the that was the most common form of voter fraud the united states and that's most of the best live in are not in a deep red states i would say that could be happening in the states where both the illegal immigrants decide such as there is no such thing that i realized i mean this whole thing comes back to purging the voter rolls that's what it really comes back to jim crow it comes back to literacy tests because those have been are not it

is it is putting a little i'm saying it's from that hair and i bring it back home types that is. how is having to track down your birth certificate differ i have an employee who does not have it who is a young guy he's under twenty and he does not he cannot get his driver's license because he can't get his birth certificate from the county in california where he was born because they require id to prove that he is who he is and he's trying to get his birth certificate saying it is damn driver's license and he's been doing this journey to the us where you are the half we can reform we can reform that to make it more efficient to i mean i'm in the process from iran oir from this guy it's. it's crazy and you know he's he's a he's you know a low income person who grew up in washington d.c. who is and this is a common you know and i mean his friends had the exact same thing over a year to get my birth certificate because i was born a military base same thing ever i've also experiences bureaucratic mess but there's ways to reform that so people can have this identification more easily i mean i've

experienced this as well i think but there are ways to conserve totally against any reform whatsoever they want to make it harder and harder and harder to get to get the the necessary identification a vote to make it really really hard for old people people in nursing homes people who no longer drive in fact in many states now even if you have a driver's license so you're seventy five years old you haven't driven for three years you still have your driver's license but all my god it's expired you can't vote what kind of sense does that make well also this whole thing is about just just pulling off a small percentage of of the mainly democratic voters so that you can get more likelihood of students with older people in absolutely big so i mean it was a republican pollster who told me he said you know if we can just you know if we can just pull just a little bit we have a greater chance of winning right and then those people show up at the polls and they're given a placebo ballot you know that doesn't kowtow to so-called provisional ballot and they think they voted they tell the exit poll they voted and that's why the exit

polls show the democrats are winning but the republicans actually and we're out of time scott thank you both for being with us appreciate it 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 it. all the feelings of guilt. everyone in the world should experience the job and you'll get it on the open road. the old according to just. welcome our world come along for the ride.

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