that is the night the mainstream media is grasping it legal straws looking for a trump russia link as donald trump jr commits to full transparency and the senate delays recess until the third week of august seventh as efforts and sputtered to repeal and replace obamacare and the libyan national army seizes benghazi as the country continues to descend into chaos i'm ed schultz reporting tonight from washington d.c. you're watching r.t. america. good evening friends we start tonight with the media firestorm surrounding the

president's son in his meeting with the russian lawyer back in june of two thousand and sixteen opponents of the president think they smell blood in the waters this is the smoking gun and their hunt for a lead in the trial russia connection has left them grasping in legal thin air substance is a thing of the past and mainstream reporting with the story but tonight we are going to give you the facts as we know them donald trump jr met with a russian lawyer in june of two thousand and sixteen perfectly legal the law the lawyer promised to have information damning to hillary clinton's campaign trunk met with the lawyer briefly saw that she had little to offer and left the meeting the lawyer was not a russian agent by her own admission in an n.b.c. interview donald trump jr meanwhile has committed to full transparency releasing e-mails in agreeing to testify what more would they want on capitol hill. legally

the issue tonight is which election laws the campaign may who violated the little trueness been following the story we turn to her tonight for the details but none of you could have said it better the mainstream media is having a field day with this story about don jr a lot of folks throwing around the terms collusion even treason trying to link don jr who was then working on his father's campaign to some violation of federal elections committee regulations already this morning new york congresswoman grace meng she tweeted this sent a letter to f.e.c. urging it to perform an official investigation into trump campaign's likely violations of federal elections laws so i went through the entire f.e.c. brochure as it pertains to foreign nationals for myself to see what it says about these actions taken by don jr now i won't read the entire f.e.c. website to you but they go on to define such terms as who is

a foreign national and what that encompasses and in that realm how these foreign nationals are prohibited from taking part in any federal level of elections and according to the f.e.c. guidelines themselves it only defines prohibition in terms of monetary contributions or donations and certainly they don't allow any quid pro quo the rules state that there will be no soliciting no accepting or receiving knowingly that's the operative word knowingly by the american side of this description meaning the campaign site so just what is even in question from don jr it's this he released the e-mail chain between he and the media handler of an azerbaijani russian pop star rob goldstone in it goldstone the hammer claims that the pop star and his billionaire father had some sort of information on hillary clinton that would quote incriminate her in her dealings with. shot goldstone goes

on to say this is very high level and etc so don jr appears to be very pleased at this information and we now know that the meeting arranged by goldstone brought a russian attorney natalia vassal and its guy at presumably to discuss clinton information but not the billionaire or his son and as it turns out natalia wanted to discuss the magnitsky act and help ease sanctions on that which affects russian orphans being adopted to the united states but the media continues to label natalia as some sort of russian operative obviously all of the trump campaign statements that there were no contacts with the russian government are now false and. no longer operative as they used to say during watergate. for the russian government. do you have connections to grossly gone. yet you heard it right there

from the horse's mouth and we don't need a translator for that prime example of the press continuing to push this narrative alone without any proof or any other evidence that this poor woman is part of the russian government already guilty in the court of public opinion along with don jr accused of these high crimes where as far as i saw no law existed for him to break but that right there is a classic example of health seeing them allowing their legal analyst jeffrey toobin to go on the air and state that everything the trumpet ministration has said about meeting with russian government officials is wrong calling them liars she said in that interview with n.b.c. she is not a russian agent or russian in the government and there was a severe mis represent misrepresentation about what the meeting was going to be about to don jr now the big question tonight will is where is the president fit in

all of this right now donald trump has been a largely quiet about this i mean i think it's more sensitive being that it is his own son that's being called into question here so he hasn't said too much about it although one thing's for sure that don jr now has come publicly come forward to say that his father was not informed about this meeting that don took this on his own ok now what's going to happen is the opposition party is going to want to know is there an e-mail trail between junior and the president when it comes to this meeting and if there is that would be the smoking gun that a way to say but he said tonight in an interview with hannity that no that's not the case so the legal situation is this from thank you manila for more on this let's turn to lionel or legal middle media analyst lionel the word intent keeps being tossed around by the opposition party in the opponents of donald trump that junior went into that meeting knowing that he would possibly get some information that was damaging to hillary clinton's campaign and it's the intent they're saying

shows the connection and collusion with russia what about that. no intent not to commit a crime the intent to meet somebody and do something that is not verboten you know ed this is become of a joke without a punchline and i'm not trying to be flippant about it but when i hear these these facts i want everybody to think in your mind the word and because when i hear donald trump jr met with this russian lawyer and and she was going to have information and and add i know that there's a certain amount of leeway i know that there is leeway in terms of what people can say and that libels a tough thing but when you have tim kaine saying that this has now traversed beyond obstruction of justice yeah you throw words like treason along i don't know if you can get any more responsible but let me just say here is america definition of a sore loser right now by throwing that out. without any legal damning material

whatsoever but i want to bring up this lionel if i may know solicitation that is a key element here that donald trump jr did not promise anything to anybody in this meeting doesn't that legally clear him no matter what the e-mails say. added legally clears some because nothing was committed let me give an example if donald trump jr hypothetically argue and do as we say wrote do you have the stolen materials can i read the information can we bribe this russian something like that and that would be terrific what this is keep in mind how many people they met with not to mention he also has witnesses with him add in that in that case assuming everything as is bringing it all on for we're all out there is no cause of action there is no crime and it is be irresponsible for mainstream

media to continue with this because and the reason why is two things one ratings go up and number two they have to dispel and do something to dilute the success that this president had at the g. twenty don't forget that because they also are the same people who said there was a russian acting evidence which never materialized ever and nobody is asking where does this occur where is the evidence meanwhile komi is not mentioned at all ed it's beyond mind boggling what i don't really great to have you with us tonight thanks so much with the story for sure turning to health care tonight the struggle continues for the republican party to come to grips and settle on a repeal and replace action that they have promised to americans for years senate majority leader mitch mcconnell announced today the senate will delay the traditional august recess for two weeks to try to get this done the president wants this resolved before the august recess the democrats are willing if the conditions

are acceptable now you say well will you work with your republican colleagues we want to and we have two suggestions first. abandoned tax breaks for the wealthy. abandon cuts to medicaid abandon repeal. and we can sit down and talk about improving health care meanwhile in california the legislative effort for universal health care has stalled believe it or not thanks to the democrats' polls show california residents want universal health care provided by the state although the democrats are standing in the way the bill passed the democratic senate but the assembly leader is holding the bill refusing to take action upset in constituents for more on this let's turn to deborah berger she's the presidential nurses united this burger great to have you with us tonight this is somewhat puzzling because across america people think that the democrats

are for universal health care especially in california what happened here. i think the insurance companies and the pharmaceutical industry intervened with massive amounts of campaign to nose donations and thwarted the will of the people not even allowing the bill to come on the floor for debate and amendments and even discussion so it's really pretty disgusting and despicable what the democrats who say they're for single payer have done ok so not to put words in your mouth but it sounds like they're bought and paid for that these key democrats have been bought off by the pharmaceutical in the insurance industry to the point where california residents are not going to get what they want well that's what it looks like to us i mean it's hard to argue that they've had these influx of campaign donations and then all of

a sudden. the deal for deciding health care for california is off the table and we've worked with these assembly people for decades they've kept. pain none single payer they said when we get a chance we're going to do it and they had their chance and speaker rendition absolutely refuses to let it out of committee and he democrat right and he's a democrat and they have a two thirds majority in the senate so it should and i would think that jerry brown would sign it if it came to his desk well you know he's equivocating on that as well ok all right is this splitting the democratic base in california well it was split before but this is making it even worse and we're very very concerned because . the elections are coming up in twenty eight hundred twenty one thousand and we

think that it's going to cause serious problems in. being any kind of progressive and you know a fornia in the democratic party so the enthusiasm behind this and the impetus behind this was i believe correct me if i'm wrong the bernie sanders campaign made this a paramount issue. he was strong it was a strong debate in california this is somewhat of a holdover of the enthusiasm ok here come the republicans are going to take away obamacare doggone it we're going to get universal health care in florida in california is that pretty much how it went down. pretty much though the california nurses association has been supportive of single payer for decades you know and we actually got it to the governor's desk twice and it was vetoed by arnold swartz an acre twice and and then the dams actually voted for it and said yeah we're all for

single payer but when they actually have the majority in the senate and the assembly and the governorship they suddenly say that there's something wrong with it well i think americans should take notice the power of the pharmaceutical in the insurance industry. that they could even sway democrats to talk a good game on the road about universal health care you see the power of what they're doing in california it's not just the republicans there were burger i appreciate your time tonight thank you thank you for more on all of the topics we've covered thus far in the program let's turn to our political panel tonight rory reilly contributor at the hill joins us tonight and also breadalbane partner at the past storm group who has been with us for some time so because of that rory thank you for being with us for the first time so i'm going to give him the class d. slow pitch softball here ok all right third try to be male i'm sorry is this. the end of brad ed yes this is the beginning of the end there

is no question in mind by this point with everything that we're seeing and with everything that we know that there is a pattern of behavior that lead me to believe that high crimes and misdemeanors was in fact perpetrated by people within the trumpet ministration and that it is now incumbent on congress to act so you believe well let me ask you do you think this goes to the president are you thinking do you think i can do about this meeting i do i think that there has been a that the proof point in terms of the way that donald trump jr and jared kushner and donald trump sr have interacted together that there is very little light between them that they are all in this together ok really what do you make of that we've got to we've got an indictment right here on the program tonight well i certainly think it's the beginning of something i don't know that i agree that it's the beginning of the end i think that there's so much information out there that we don't necessarily know what to do with as of yet so i think it was great that trump

jr released his e-mails he's trying to be transparent he's trying to be cooperated i think that that's more than we saw for example with the d.n.c. and some of the issues that they had with their e-mails and we haven't seen any conclusive evidence or any laws have been broken yet at the. point but what do you what do you think's happening with these investigations to get all these people saying they're willing to testify but we don't see him coming up to capitol hill how long does it take to formulate key questions well as a former capitol health after i think that part of it the problem is that there are so many different priorities competing with this right now and you were just talking about health care for example that seems to be taking a lot of the wind out of the sails some of these investigations so there may very well be questions that have drafted i think that in light of some of the other issues we have going on and quite frankly i think the issues of health care and what we're going to do there is more important all right brad what do you make of mitch mcconnell delaying the recess this is like moving the line i mean washing seriously i mean as a former hill staffer i'll tell you i heard the collective screams of just about

every single health staffer hearing that they were going to get to the real situation of sort it's not just a capitulation but to be honest with you i think that they understand that if they were to go home and face their constituents after constantly did over the past seven months with nothing to show for it that they've got big problems they cannot face the american people with the legislative agenda that they have passed sort of the democrats delivered their fix it well i mean i'd like to know and i think it's not incumbent on us to have a fix it plainly just came to somebody to come to the table i mean actually you know you know what my my answer would be single payer medicare for all i know is that as well as i'm going to have no beginning to get it in california. right sure but i mean the democrats don't seem to be saying ok this is what we want to do with obamacare and thrown it back at the at the republicans so i really think that one of the reasons why you're having this issue where democrats aren't doing that is

because so much energy has been placed into repeal and replace by republicans and they've set the bar so far in the direction of taking people off their health insurance that it's time for republicans to first show us that they're willing to come back towards the middle before we actually have a. sation about what to do really what do you make of the delay and what do you make of the republicans not having a concrete plan right now well i think it's certainly frustrating to people on all sides that they don't have a concrete plan and right now i think mitch mcconnell is one of the people who is the most frustrated about this they think he wanted to be further ahead and he wouldn't have canceled the august recess if that's the problem i think the problem is as we have seen they don't have they have people so far on one side who want to see complete repeal and replace we have people who are more moderate on the other who are trying to work with democrats and they just don't have so within the party problem it is a party problem unfortunately and you would think that with so much talk over the years of repeal in place that there would be more of

a concrete plan and unfortunately i think that that is the problem right now what happens will they actually deal with the democrats to try to save a portion of quote that terrible word obamacare you know i think at that point they're arguing semantics if they want to call it something else they think that there are some things that everybody could agree on for example preexisting conditions is one that comes up quite frequently the president i think he's a little bit liberal on this to save portions of obamacare is it going to get done what will the two weeks to nothing i don't think so good no i don't think anything is going to get done frankly look you know you've got guys like cruz in the senate who are completely intractable who sat on the committee that drafted this bill under the cover of darkness to begin with and if they couldn't get what they want to do in terms of their amendments and things while they were actually drafting this bill it happened really rally great to have you with us spread the same thanks so much for joining us tonight reports indicate the united states military wants an

increased presence in war torn libya while it clashes continue outside the city of tripoli meanwhile the libyan national army has defeated extremists in benghazi and taken the city hall a smear as the latest on the libyan crisis. the clashes have broken out east of the libyan capital of tripoli between forces that aligned to the u.n. units and backed government in tripoli it took over last year it's in the government of the police it's been struggling to maintain its control over the capital city now those forces are battling around for instance that all the oil to the film that libyan prime minister for the whale they were pushed out of the libyan capital in may this year and at the time they issued a statement to launch a counterattack and since then have been planning to regroup they refuse to recognize this government of national accord now the health ministry has said that at least clue people have been killed we understand that two of them all civilians they're foreign workers and at least twenty one can have been injured in clashes

broke out on sunday evening at the same time this fighting in libya's second largest city of benghazi where we hearing from little forces there that they closing in on a three year campaign to take over the city now one of this is part of a possible they also has engulfed libya since two thousand and eleven when the from the libyan dictator moammar gadhafi was overthrown and since then they have been various ministers and administrations that has been violent troll of those oil rich countries now the latest developments really expose the vulnerability of those in backed government it has been struggling as i say to take control it has managed to co-opt some of the various groups there but at the same time it's made little progress in terms of really integrating them and providing lost and security in this latest round of violence we see that there is heavy light and medium weaponry being used we know that power lines have been hit people have been fleeing their

homes a lot of residents complaining that their homes have been shelled as been damaged shops have been damaged roads have been closed and people are struggling to make their way back home british vacationers have been asked to watch a video on how to survive are terrorists. before booking their flights abroad the video includes scenes of a hotel under siege a clear reference to the deadly terror attack on british tourist internees two years ago ali boyko has more tonight british police have now released a video showing british terrorists how to react in case they get caught up in a terrorist attack becomes a safe route to get out now this is the best option it are just people to think of the instructions in the same way they think about line safety videos everyone is a we have when you're going to need a plane you get a safety briefing. and if the plane comes out and they're trying to see you that the chances of very unlikely is just giving you the knowledge of what to do and

what not to do if you're caught up in such an attack kind of what's your response to that kind of crazy video. picks treat him you know who are you going on holiday that. may be quite scared to go really at work right but will find it quite scary religious terrorists because on the train. you know it's pretty frightening this internet that definitely would make me wary about traveling the kind that we think everything is about terrorism and stuff like that it just adds more to you know what's going on today to kind of relax not to think about potential terrorist attacks i think it's a bit scary they could just travel in the house and then they're. going to happen next to less safe everywhere there's a fire or a terrorist attack every day so it's like you do worry generally more about even trying to get out to get you know to do sometimes can be worrying kind of

a new reality. would it change your plans this kind of thing watching this kind of video i. wouldn't to tell you from going away. you just have to deal with it. police say there is no specific intelligence that british holiday make is going to be targeted but they still want you to watch the film the thaw packing your beach bags. the department of homeland security says one hundred in five countries will be required to implement enhanced screening of airline passengers and electronic devices airlines have one hundred twenty days to comply this comes as the t.s.a. continues to introduce invasive security policies here at home or to use marine important has the story tonight. airport security two words that can strike frustration into the far end of any travel. with

all the indignity of head to toe searches and long lines that shoeless adults emptying their pockets into the bin scale. the department of homeland security has been rapidly expanding and testing new airport measures to keep america safe unless we all raise our security standards terrorists who see commercial aviation is the greatest takedown will find and attack the weakest link raising security standards recently included scrutinizing the private reading material passengers were traveling with some airports have required books and magazines to be removed from carry ons and placed in separate bins for t.s.a. screeners to fan through the pilot program has garnered backlash among critics who worry the measure could quickly become invasive the bottom line is that we as a nation have the right to defend. you know i guess terrorism and the book

screening for me is basically a mitigating a risk approach security consultant. says officials aren't concerned with the content of the reading material but rather because we have seen the explosives come in very different shapes and forms and speaking of those shapes and forms they actually come in sheets and sheets second actually be inserted into a book however possessing the wrong collection of titles and authors would inevitably raise red flags so imagine somebody is going through and they have but they have a karl marx book right they have mine down by well that will be a red flag that will be a red flag that will be a red flag because that would tell me that you as an individual are inclined to this sort of ideology reading. that would be a flag that would just be screened and we would just make sure that there is no. conditions that would take us to the next level of screening or there's anything.

that could harm public safety the t.s.a. says book screening at security airports was designed to give operators a clearer view of what's inside carry on luggage going through x. ray machines u.s. officials say the initiative is no longer being implemented or tested at u.s. airports but agents still reserve the right to instruct passengers to remove paper products from their luggage if an x. ray image appears obstructed or clutter in the meantime biometric technology including fingerprint readers iris scanners and facial recognition has been introduced at various airports throughout the country u.s. officials say the invasive tools are being tested to ease delays and reduce stress for travelers. improvements that many fear at the expense of privacy. my family. and that is our news tonight follow me on twitter at news with

ed like me on the facebook page. i'm ed schultz reporting tonight from washington thanks for watching to see you back here. for breakfast yesterday why would you put those sure ok. now i did did you do to look. there's a real irony going. to let the thing that are responsible boys and the people and there is always well that's what it was it always. seems you know little or no wholesale surveillance you see all you have already and well as soon as you. the instructor has used the social media like a boy like always our lead story goes it's garbage real.

all the world's and all the news companies merely players but what kind of parties are anti america play r.t. america offers more r t america offers. many ways the.