world. war you should know that. yes we do have a. future because . of it is the night vice president mike pence tells allies in eastern europe president trump is willing to sign sanctions against russia into law and senator lindsey graham says war with north korea isn't an option as the united states military tests the fad system in south korea. and the opioid epidemic reaches epic proportions in the united states as the report indicates americans are too drugged to work i'm mitchell's reporting tonight from washington d.c. you're watching our team america.

good evening friends we start tonight with us russian relations the last six months have produced no new results after a much anticipated change with the election of donald trump the administration is being dogged by three investigations a mainstream media fixated on trump's failure and a growing anti russia sentiment on capitol hill earlier today u.s. secretary of state rex tillerson said the relationship between the two countries is under stress no one knows what the end game is going to be one thing is for sure the environment for the president to strike a better relationship with russia seems to be fading by the day. last week's vote in the u.s. senate to levy sanctions on russia only heightens the tension between the superpowers any progress made at the g. twenty between trump in putin's now seems obsolete trump is now facing political pressure to sign the sanctions with such

a resoundingly vote in the senate although trump has been quiet about russia since the g twenty meeting vice president mike pence making his way through nato countries is reassuring allies the president is with republicans on russia's sanctions and in a further sign of our commitment very soon president trump will sign legislation to strengthen and codified the united states' sanctions against russia the united states prefers a constructive relationship with russia based on mutual cooperation and common interest the sanctions are strong in intrusive to other countries economic stability relations with germany could be strained it's not exclude it that they also follow that they also follow their economic interests. we don't complain about that unless it does not affect our own interests but right now it really affects our own interest negatively being picked off the plan saying just no it's a very negative form. especially for the energy sector because of the sanctions

under the threat of sanctions especially energy pipeline exports from russia meanwhile the russian reaction to expel american diplomats now signals to trump the kremlin wants to know how serious trouble really is about improved relations and on longer. we've been waiting for quite a long time so that maybe something would change for the better we had hoped that the situation would change but it looks like even if it does change and it won't be in the near future quarter i decided that it is time for us to show you we will not leave anything on on sunday crimea and eastern ukraine are the two sticking points been. u.s. congress to rethink sanctions on russia the president and our congress are unified in our message to russia a better relationship the lifting of sanctions will require russia to reverse the actions that caused the sanctions to be imposed in the first place and not before

lawmakers on capitol hill continue to cast aside the fact the people of crimea voted ninety five percent to rejoin the russian federation in march of two thousand and fourteen despite all this there seems to be better coordination in syria with the two superpowers to reduce the civilian casualties so we're working with the russians we bush achieved one small measure of success by establishing working in concert with jordan to create a deescalation zone as zone of ceasefire in the southwest part of syria which thus far is is holding i think the chief minot of this is civilians are not getting killed and that was our objective is to stop the massive bombing attacks and the artillery attacks that have led to so many civilian deaths the washington post is reporting the president dictated a statement for his son in response to revelations donald trump jr met with a russian lawyer during the two thousand and sixteen campaign reports of the

meeting a merge while the president was at the g. twenty and hamburg earlier this month at visors agreed the president should let his son issue a statement but president trump change the plan a dictated the letter him self a special counsel robert muller may investigate whether the president attempted to mislead the public on this for more on this we're joined tonight by our political panel for the evening partner at the post storm group brad baumann joins us and also roy riley topping conservative commentator great to have both of you on our brand i give you the first shot as you told me earlier it's been a rather eventful day and one for the where's the potential crimes. here it's not an illegal meeting he's the c.e.o. he's the president of the country he writes a statement he could take the military position of it's a need to know basis where is the crime so i think that the crime that we are potentially looking at here is

a an effort by the president of the united states to obstruct the ability for the justice department to do its work there by being an obstruction of justice just like that should you think this is the first shooter drop in all of this because the russian investigations haven't really. harvested anything so i think that this is a continuation of the first shoe that we saw drop a couple of weeks ago when it became clear that in the wake of everyone scurrying around at the white house to lie about the meetings that transpired between folks who were representing themselves as being agents of the russian government that this is again an amped up of the white house and of jonell trumps attempts to subvert the ability for all of us to know what's going on well we know how it's been reported all day long rory should the white house be concerned about this well

i think that they need to be concerned in the sense that it's all that the media is talking about as we've noted there are other important things going on health care tax reform the sanctions bill that you were discussing earlier involves iran and north korea and not just russia some of those i think are more concerns and the fact of the media only wants to talk about russia that's something that i would be concerned about ok but the fact that the president got involved potentially he may have misled people where is the crime what should they be concerned about. well i think as you said potentially misled so in terms of obstruction of justice we have to be concerned about the fine line that exists between bad judgment and misleading the government so in order for obstruction of justice in order to cross that line we have to show that he intentionally misled the government with the statement that he made ok and right now i don't know that we've seen actual definitive proof of

intent he solid point there what about that bread because the president the white house today saying a this is a dad sticking up for his good right so i'll see to counterpoint to the first to rory's earlier point about the media only wanting to talk about russia let's be clear the only reason why the media only wants to talk about russia is because of the dog and determination that trump seems to have to not address it and that's what's really at issue here that back to address the collusion he has addressed the resolution he says there was no collusion guess is it's a fool's errand and it's a witch on all evidence seems to be pointing to the contrary unfortunately what evidence or more likely it's looking more and more likely there is a pattern of behavior among people within the administration who are attempting to subvert both moeller and the justice department's ability to get to the bottom of exactly what happened and that's where we're getting into territory and rory is

right i want to be clear i'm not with the f.b.i. i'm not with the justice department it's not for me to determine whether or not somebody over there broke the law but it is their job you know herman that and they need to be able to have all the information in order to do so during the why are the conservatives in the senate the vote the way it did on russian sanctions when this president from day one has been clear he wants a new start with vladimir putin and russian relations how can he do it under this umbrella. well i think it's going to be difficult we've seen that both secretary of state tillerson and the president have said this is not their ideal path but they've also said that they accepted it in the senate isn't agreeing on a lot of things but they did agree on this and i think that that's why the president has accepted it i think a lot of this dates back to the two thousand and fourteen think sions and the senate trying to send a message about that it's unfortunate that they weren't able to get a more cohesive message in line with what the secretary of state in the president recommended but again the president said that he accepts this for what it is and

that he will sign it roy reilly and brad baumann nice to have you both with us tonight thanks so much the senate has voted to nominate or should i say confirm christopher ray is the f.b.i. director the vote was ninety two to five throughout the confirmation hearing ray repeated that he would strive to keep the f.b.i. independent race served as assistant attorney general during george w. bush's administration he will replace former f.b.i. director james comey the pentagon is reporting highly unusual activity near the coast of north korea the defense department says that they have evidence of an object test by north korean submarine the activity comes just days after north korea successfully launched an i.c.b.m. capable of hitting the american mainland in california the united states air force is prepping to test launch an unmanned i.c.b.m. in a show of force to north korea now one senator is claiming war with north korea may

be inevitable the military has been following that story and she joins us for more tonight gosh is there rhetoric out o. yeah add strong words to say the least coming out of none other than senator lindsey graham just this morning during an appearance on a morning talk show take a look. the only way they're going to change it they believe there's a credible threat of military force on the table the chinese are miscalculating trump and sort of the north koreans he's got to choose between homeland security and regional stability. japan south korea china would all be in the crosshairs of a war we started one with north korea. graham who is well known for his singers and bold stance against president trump says that the president told him outright that there will be war with north korea that caviar is of course if the d.p. r. k. doesn't change course and end their missile and nuclear programs though graham and the president himself have called on china and local allies to take stronger action

against the hermit kingdom it would seem that those calls for help have thus far failed the president tweeted this a couple of days ago he said i am very disappointed in china are foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade yet they do nothing for us with north korea just talk we will no longer allow this to continue china could easily solve the problem and senator graham acros those sentiments saying that if president trump has to choose between the security of the united states and the stability of asia that basically his hand would be forced if there's going to be a ward of stop and it will be over there. they're going to die over there and they're not going to die here in these told me that. that may be provocative but really when you're approaching the united states we're sure allegiance to the people of the united states this me and. is threatening america with a nuclear to missile president trump doesn't want to war the chinese can stop this

but to china south korea and japan you know donald trump is not going to allow this missile just to be but what the senator said doesn't appear to jibe with the more measured words the more measured approach from secretary of state rex tillerson. we initiated a sustained and continued intensified campaign or what i like to call peaceful pressure because the options available to us i think as all of you well understand are limited in particularly if we think we are operating under a short period of time so we felt the appropriate thing to do force was to seek peaceful pressure on the regime in north korea to have them develop a willingness to sit and talk with us and others but with an understanding that a condition of those talks is there is no future for north korea holds nuclear weapons or the ability to deliver those nuclear weapons to anyone the region much less to the homeland so you saw their ad brecksville are so much more measured and

we heard earlier from the president's harshest critic possibly lindsey graham he meant no words that it sounds like another korean war is in the offing ominous words from a senior statesman of his level his words leaving many americans very nervous as you might imagine well the secretary of state did say is dealing with a short period of time that doesn't sound very good let's go to jack rice and i former cia agent he could tell us more about this jack your response to senator graham's comments about war was it reckless or it was just the absolute truth of what we're dealing with there. well it's petrifying it i mean in the end here's what we've got we've got more than ten million people in seoul thirty five miles from the d.m.z. we have more than twenty five million people in the seoul metro area and the fact is is that if there is war there will not be thousands of people who will die there will be tens potentially hundreds of thousands so let's be clear about the numbers if we're going to go down that path and yeah scary jack what about us intelligence

military intelligence those submarine activity if the pentagon has detected some type of jackson from a snort korean submarine who knows whether there is stealth ability is there or not they could park off los angeles or off the west coast and deliver something from a submarine isn't that the real concern for the united states right now without question i mean remember when we're talking about a nuclear weapon this is a two stage piece what you need is the nuclear weapon itself and you need the delivery system if you could actually having a launching space that's just off the west coast you could literally hit any city in america and that really is the illegitimate point that has to be addressed here and what that means to what kim is actually doing in north korea right now what does your gut tell you your background tell you about how much we really know about north korea other than seeing these increased in fish and fish and see in these

tests that they continue to take. well here's what we really know at this point we're looking at least a dozen nuclear devices that they have or any of those small enough to actually put them on the end of a missile right now probably not is the delivery system close yes we've seen at least two tests within the last thirty days we've seen some dozen tests since february more than eighteen different missiles since february that's more than his father and grandfather combined so i mean we don't know the threats out there we know that it's a building and we know frankly that it's going to get worse the real question is if we blink if we push back if we turn this into a war what will a cornered kim do and well let's just said at the beginning of this we have twenty five million people within thirty five miles of that border this could be a massive annihilation like we have never seen in the history of the world and that's a fact well what if the united states were to hit north korea with such incredible

force they wouldn't be able to respond is that a possibility. you know it really isn't because you can't take out the entire country even if you took out the capital which you're serious seeing is a the moving around of the with the weapons themselves and so you can take out all of them which means they would fire this well let's be clear what kim will do is this is that this is a guy who's looking at survival at is a point that's why he sees us he sees us as an international fear and an internal fear he's fighting both of those and i can tell you i think what will happen here is he has no intention of dying alone so if he's going to go down he is going to take as many people with him and we need to know that that's part of the calculus all right jack rice great to have you with us tonight jack thanks so much two leading opposition figures in venezuela are in prison after being removed from their homes by uniformed men overnight the crackdown against government critics

comes after a vote on sunday granting president nicolas maduro nearly unchecked power artie's marina portnoy has the details. well the two opposition leaders taken away are leopoldo lopez a former mayor of a wealthy caracas district and antonio mendez another former mayor under house arrest grainy video posted to mr does most twitter account shows uniformed men in black helmets dragging a man in pajamas out of a building and into a vehicle a second video posted early tuesday on the twitter account of mr lopez's wife shows what disproportionally her forty six year old husband being removed government officials say both opposition figures had violated the terms of their house arrest by releasing political statements in recent weeks mr lopez via his twitter account urged venezuelans to take to the streets blocking roads to prevent the election of the national constituent assembly he also published

a video urging the government to release political prisoners and accept humanitarian aid lopez was released from military prison and placed under house arrest in early july to serve out his thirteen year sentence his attorney says mr lopez never violated the terms of his house arrest conditions what you have to do and if you do that there weren't any restrictions to make statements on his social media accounts there weren't any restrictions to make public statements on the political or social crisis in the country nor did he ever struction to meet with people. has never by legal counsel any complaints the law breached the imposed sentence despite that however you find themselves in the military and i moved to a prison that. the arrest of two well known opposition figures is certain to inflame tensions in the streets throughout venezuela where clashes have happened almost daily between anti-government protesters and the national police more than one hundred people have been killed since april the united states issued sanctions

against president maduro on monday freezing his u.s. based assets and prohibiting american citizens from conducting business with the head of state mr moore is the fourth leader to be personally sanctioned by the u.s. treasury secretary steve maneuver called mr majority a dictator taking part in democratic activities the ever defiant majority called the u.s. sanctions a sign of america's impotence desperation and hate insisting that washington wants latin america to be a lapdog that wags its tail and obeys every command now sunday's vote in venezuela approved the creation of a constituent assembly with powers to rewrite the constitution the body reportedly gives unlimited power to the country's governing leftist party and it has the power to dismiss or dismantle any branch of government while rewriting the country's governing charter france will open to margaret centers you're the port city or of

cali and after a court ruling said that the government must provide you meet conditions for refugees trying to reach the united kingdom or to surely the reports. this comes after the french government seems to be backed into a corner by the french courts which should rule that. decision to not provide clean water and sanitation facilities to the migrants in cali was wrong and they described that as degrading treatment now that's because the french government and the interior minister said they were trying to avoid the stain mistakes again we don't want to repeat the mistakes of the past but we also want to handle the problems in cali the reference there is to the new tourist camp in cali which was known as the jungle and when it started around a thousand migrants were housed there in temporary accommodation such as tents but it grew and grew it became a mecca for people who mainly were trying to reach the u.k.

from by the time the camp was eventually properly cleared around ten thousand people were living there in some really schooling conditions it was basically a camp that was out of control and when the authorities did to close it down last year there were violent scenes as. witnessed this is the front line of the parts of the jungle that's meant to be evicted today now we don't know how close we can get but you can see the riot police here in their shields with their mosques ready for any sort of action that might take place all of these settlements these hot say have been marked for demolition and the bulldozers just in the distance over there are making their way quite quickly through this part of the camp that you can see those fires burning and over there just in the distance there are a number of refugees who are staged on top of their tents they are refusing to

leave and that's why there's a heavy police presence here as we know despite the attempts there to completely close down that camp it hasn't quite been. his there are still estimated to be around three hundred fifty to four hundred migrants who are living in cali and that's one of the reasons why they will be moved to these new center is the problem is though that there's no guarantee that these new centers of them selves become a mecca for migrants and that we could see some of the conditions that we saw in cali reemerging for example k. in paris a center that was opened in the last year has become such a mecca for migrants that every night it's completely full and many migrants are yet again forced to sleep on the streets with every few weeks the police having to clear it yet again when they clear more my clients come and there is nothing to stop that from happening at these two new centers while there is also nothing happening to stop any money quints going back to cali basically this is

a cycle that nobody seems to be able to break close to sixty thousand people have died from drug overdoses last year in the united states a new report finds the opioid crisis is also affecting employment in america are two correspondent actually banks has more. according to the bureau of labor statistics four point four percent of the american population is unemployed to that percentage was last recorded in june of this year so roughly six point nine million americans are out of work so to six show that the loss of jobs and wage stagnation have both contributed to airlie unleashing and drug abuse which then leads to joblessness and hopelessness last year five point six to five point seven percent of working adults didn't not work due to illness or disability and unknown person inch of that was also due to drug use according to data collected from the us current population survey according to the study employers and economists has said

job applicants do not clear drug task now according to chip cutter linked in the managing editor he found a west virginia company recorded up to fifty percent of its applicants either read . teams are failed to take a mandatory pre-employment drug screen federal reserve chair janet yellen says opioid use is to blame for the decline in labor participation rate so one of the biggest barriers to hiring is the fact that many people do not want to take a drug test the opioid crisis is so bad a white house panel recommends a clearing a national emergency the members of the panel are calling this request their first and most urgent recommendation the panel was appointed by trump and is a looking to use many avenues to treat americans battling opioid addiction a final report from the panel is due october twenty seventh team and washington actually banks are. the construction of two nuclear reactors in south carolina has

been put on hold the halter has once again raised questions about the future of nuclear energy in the united states artie's election year zero shops he reports. the two reactors a summer nuclear plant in south carolina were meant to be a game changer in the u.s. nuclear industry in two thousand and eight westinghouse selection corp subsidiary of the top of a company signed a contract to build to eleven hundred megawatt reactors at the already running station in south carolina to be made operational by twenty nineteen and thus rejuvenating the nuclear power industry blighted by aging plants and low natural gas costs now off the billions of dollars spent the project has been halted in march westinghouse filed for bankruptcy and now one of the utilities companies involved in the construction cooper says through we'd see that at best it would be seventy five percent more expensive than initially planned and would be completed several years late in the view of sands you cooper of the much lauded project has

become an economical and it would not want the customers to foot the bill and looking at the numbers it's not hard to see why the initial budget was agreed at around five billion dollars mark then it went up to sixteen billion and considering that nine billion already had been spent on these reactors scrapping the project would save at least seven billion dollars the to react as if completed it would have become the first major construction in the new nuclear industry in decades so a lot of hopes was laid on to this project but now that it's hold there are a lot of questions about the industry's future in general nuclear reactors in the united states to produce a fifth of the total electrical energy in the country by department of energy estimates that by twenty twenty five this number may fall down to eleven percent primarily because of very serious competition from lower priced natural gas and renewable energy sources as well as the fact that we actors are aging and renovating those costs a lot of money as an example of that is our news following on twitter and news with

like me on the facebook page we got in the mood for what it was like watching you bet. your launching an r t america special report. this to me because one that's. basically everything that you think you know about civil society has broken down. there's always going to be somebody else one step ahead of the game. we should not be the normalising. we don't need people that think like this on a plane. this is an incredibly tense situation. and.

i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories that our critics can't tell and 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 public 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.