this was. the worst. donald trump blames congress for derailing relations with moscow accusing representatives of forcing him to sign a flawed sanctions bill and raising concerns of a constitutional crisis in the u.s. . congress of the international association of athletics federations rules all russian athletes will continue to be suspended from track and field competition . venezuelan opposition takes social media to call for more protests as the newly elected constituent assembly opens.

very good evening to you my name's neil harvey your chief r.t. international donald trump has accused congress of bringing u.s. russia relations to an all time low in a tweet the us president said that it's thanks to the people on capitol hill who forced him to sign the anti russia sanctions bill he said that he had to abide by the decision of the lawmakers after their landslide vote last week gave him no choice on why congress can now check trump's deal making potential is by stopping him from lifting until russia restrictions the new law requires the president to attend congressional approval for any such move earlier we discussed the growing political crisis in washington with any patrik. i guess no president would like to be. shoes right now times really are getting tough as they can get

for the president you know being america's top man in charge but at the same tommy think of it not being able to exercise his power and even worse being cornered into making the decisions he doesn't want to make just to keep order and as we've been hearing from the white house spokesperson who's been explaining that very signature under that sanctions bill president signed countering america's adversaries through sanctions act congress has encroached on the power of the presidency and he signed it in the interest of national unity well you can really just look at the latest votes first of all the crucial bill that very one on the sanctions was landslide votes in the house that was a landslide vote in the senate but then also trumps much cherished healthcare bill you know that was the pillar of his white house campaign yet it has been destroyed by the american lawmakers and as we have been seeing both the democrats will that

is kind of obvious but also of course the republican party which is technically trumps party teaming up against the president and giving him quite a drubbing month after month week after week and the criticism and the pressure has been building up what was proposed yesterday is not what this party stands for i worry about the president's understanding of some of these issues. and so race baiting zina phobic religious bigot and a ludicrous pretend hate campaign this president does not care about the united states of america so in these kind of circumstances under so much pressure it is little surprise that donald trump is giving in to the congress and you might argue that this really puts america on the brink of a constitutional crisis. wednesday done trunk reluctantly put his signature to the n.t. russia sanctions bill despite claiming that it's flawed and contains unconstitutional

provisions why they favor tough measures to punish and deter aggressive and destabilizing behavior by iran north korea and russia this legislation is significantly flawed in its haste to pass the legislation the congress included a number of clearly unconstitutional provisions. a number of provisions to displace the president's exclusive constitutional authority and those comments live a lot of questions in their wake the president states that even though he sees the legislation as unconstitutional he signed off on it as president trump swore an oath to preserve protect and defend the constitution of the united states but he seems to be openly doing the opposite upon approving the sanction this bill of course is it is a terrible bill. benefits the people of no contrary not the united states not germany or italy not russia syria not any of the people is the constitutional crisis our government is to where

there are three branches that constantly struggle one against the other. so that in itself is not totally unexpected but i do believe that these side shows are out of he being with the traditions of the united states and how our government functions but what looks like a constitutional crisis brewing in the us is not the only problem trump is facing sanctions that hit russia's energy and defense sector are in theory being america's partners in europe those who work with moscow and those areas so these things can seem to be leaving hardly anyone happy trumps being forced to go against his constitutional beliefs yes worst of elations take it further head america's closest european allies go on the defensive to counter what they see as a measure is potentially in violation of international law when these statements from trump and with the president claiming that he can make far better deals with foreign countries than congress but was measures such as these being passed you may

be prevented from doing just that. washington d.c. . former u.s. congressman ron paul believes that the new sanctions are a big mistake and playlists. the deep state the neo cons and the media are very very powerful and they can put a lot of pressure on the president so they ganged up on him and i thought he had sort of a mediocre position on this i was strongly opposed to it and i volunteered my advice which was totally ignored but he went ahead and signed it i think it was more like a political thing but i don't think in the long run this benefit i don't think it benefits america it certainly doesn't benefit you know peace in the world between europe and russia so i think it's a terrible thing to have happen but there are some those who cote qualified to be participants in the deep state they are determined they are determined almost

obsessed with making sure that there is no friendship between the united states and russia between putin and trump i think that is tragic you know even when russia and the soviet union existed we actually were quite willing you know when necessary to talk and work out some problem but now we're moving in the other direction. one project targeted by the new sanctions is the nord stream to pipeline it's meant pumping gas from russia to europe in two thousand and nineteen and is regarded by europe as key to its energy needs european firms have invested five billion euros in this project the new sanctions are regarded by some in europe as an intrusion into their internal affairs as germany for example said that they could breach international law or if europe in business is a harmed spain's also voiced its concerns i think peter oliver has more now on the european reaction never anticipated to be populist sanctions and well the bill

being signed has proved exactly that extremely unpopular amongst the upper echelons here in europe because the simple thing is if you target russia's energy sector then ultimately you're going to end up targeting those businesses that deal with the russian energy sector and supply in important some cases a lot of that energy from russia here to the european union and we purge from senior figures in the e.u. saying that if this happens in the interests are targeted there will be repercussions we will defend ourselves against an american first industrial policy masquerading as sanctions in any case the law stipulates the u.s. holding preliminary consultations with us europeans before this can happen or we understand that the sanctions were softened somewhat before they went through congress but they haven't been softened and nuff for senior opinion figures young claude younger the e.u. commission president saying that it's if there was any any impact on european

businesses that there would be a response within days now what type of response is still unknown at the nuclear option could be the one not many people would want to go down would be the implementation of sanctions by the european union on the united states or in u.s. interests but a lot of this comes down to gas and energy supply and the amount that europe relies on russia for that of course it's also raised questions over the reasoning behind these particular sanctions because one of the alternate main supply is could of course be imports of u.s. gas. earlier american businessman paul gonchar off joined my colleagues will receive to discuss the new bill why is your up so one happy with these antique russia sanctions well it's a german america's the band leader what's good for america it's do it our way or take the high way trump himself called this spill significantly flawed if that's

the case why did he sign it good question i'm sure you have his reasons you have his hands tied probably your good if you do need it if you don't somewhere there's a law saying he was catering to the american public that they want they wanted to see him sign these sanctions well if that's the case a serious statement of affairs of what is america sort of underlines an intolerance and a lack of desire to get at what the truth is in fact look he was voted into someone different not to be republican a democrat to be an american to safeguard american interests not necessarily our interests in the persian gulf or in iceland or whatever in the u.s. world this sounds i have been tied who it is these sanctions the most they're going to affect russia iran china or even trump himself all of the above all of the above and more. we have left the era of even trying to trust

there is a demonization of the. intolerance as an american i find that to be incredibly . it's a tragic state of affairs. meanwhile a new study into which country people fear the most has produced some surprising results forty thousand people across thirty eight countries took part in i guess the it has the story. the world is a frightening place disasters wars terror and paul the make us a fearful people but fear can be measured who would you say people are most afraid of the usual suspects. who chaney but no none of the people in the thirty eight countries that

polled feel most threatened by the united states this is pew research one of the most respected pollsters in the world doesn't seem to know it's doesn't seem that stable at the moment if it's so world works for the i do understand why they perceive the united states as a threat well i guess it has to do with the tone of our political change and that doesn't surprise me it's very disturbing it's concerning it's scary sort of our image now sort of a lot lot more anger towards us and within us i mean i guess that makes me feel better meaning that we have a strong military someone said it's better to be here than love so it's an old story big bad america big bad russia china we've heard it all before what's striking here is that it isn't america's enemies that increasingly view it as a chief threat its washington's friends canadians for example now see the

united states as more of a threat than either russia or china that is outright animosity within nato and among allies turkey south korea japan spain greece and germany view washington as the most threatening state in the world that's as many. seventy two percent of respondents how's that for friends in europe you have. at least some understanding of the united states behaves in the world that you do not have in the united states you have germany now of closing us sanctions on russia us out of the public this is not the german government this is the german public this is not the swedish government this is the swedish public so you have people who are opposed to war opposed to militarism opposed to nato

expansion of those two u.s. bases in germany expressing their viewpoint and that's you know not typically in news in europe and especially not in the united states. you know you could say that over the last four years trump and obama helped make america great again or at least a great threat. the idea has voted to uphold its ban on the russian athletics federation after presenting a road map to anti doping compliance let's cross live in and speak to parties and us to see a church in our london office now to more bad news by the sound of them for russian athletes to take us through this decision. well neal we have the international association of a flat expectoration basically decide to not reinstate russia's membership now this comes following a bid from the head of the russian flag exporter ation who came to london to really

invite the rest of the countries that are part of this organization to let russia back in unfortunately this did not happen and this comes just one g.b. for the london world championships kick start here were only nineteen russian athletes are going to be competing under neutral flags now the russian sports ministry has described this latest decision as quite unfortunate he said that he is thankful however to those countries that did vote in russia's favor saying that it does show that trust is growing but obviously more work will need to be done on this issue i mean let's keep in mind that all of this of course comes from the back in november twenty fifth deen where russia was suspended from the. following waters decisions to let russia go and of course the very controversial mccloughan report played a huge role in terms of what happened with russian athletes of course if you remember following that report the russian a team was basically banned from the rio olympics and all of russia's paralympians

were banned in participating and this obviously was quite controversial and was a very big decision that was largely discussed at the time now we also have to keep in mind that now what has the world anti-doping agency has a new road map where they have decided that russia is basically specifically the russian sports ministry and the russian olympic committee are going to have to accept all of the findings the full findings of the mclaren report in order to move forward with this situation but this is something that's at this stage seems to be quite unlikely specifically for one reason because where we did see the international olympics committee say that wada itself do not see the findings of the report as sufficient enough to bring success. cases so obviously this is a story that's going to continue for some time yet in the meantime though the bomb russian fleet continues to bring us all the details that funky. now the

newly elected constituent assembly in venezuela getting down to business they spiked a wave of protests sweeping the full story after this break. called the future we don't need. everyone in the world should you. leave and you. will. the old according to just. come along for the ride. you can import healthcare from china it's all very local. cases of price gouging by monopolists in america and as a result people's health is declining and life expectancy is falling childbirth

increasing because of these were not pleased with the lack of competition. welcome back as they mark the first working day for the new constituent assembly in venezuela that was elected at the weekend the vote was followed by violent protest it's now been unrest in venezuela for some four months already with the opposition demanding that president nicolas maduro step down a monday washington impose sanctions targeting the president's private assets in response material claim that he won't be intimidated by what he is called the imperialist power i can speak now to attorney and investigative journalist eva goal

injured joins me on the line eva what do you think about the fact that the national guard as i understand as occupied one of the national assembly halls in advance what would be the reason for that do you think. well essentially yesterday president maduro announced that the newly elected body known as the constituent assembly will be installed on friday tomorrow and they have said they will be doing their inaugural meeting and installation inside the parliament building where currently the opposition holds a majority in parliament not to say that the government doesn't have seats as well but they do this is precisely been one of the major points of confrontation in the country since the opposition won the majority of parliament december of two thousand and fifteen and since then essentially you know the two branches of government legislative and executive have been locked in

a political battle that has not moved forward whatsoever and has in fact caused the current crisis in the country so obviously they're expecting confrontation at that moment because the opposition considers this election illegitimate they consider this whole process illegitimate and so you know there's no reason why they should be deposed of their elected seats in parliament for a new body that essentially is a one party hand selected by the venezuelan president because of the results of the elections to have them in published to therefore take over and begin legislating in the country as well as in forcing laws that there's still a sort of an unclear structure of how this is all going to play out how long it's going to happen by certainly the national guard taking over the parliament is evidence of the fact that they're expecting confrontation. be the one has to go all the current government within the constitution what exactly does the us want to.

well the u.s. has had a regime change policy. against venice well us in pseudo charges was essentially elected president and within a few years wasn't compliant to us agenda there was a two thousand and two who. unraveled two days later that was backed by the united states funded by the united states. and then subsequently you know the u.s. has only increased its channeling of funds from agencies like usaid national noun for democracy amongst others you know cia special missions all kinds of things to try to undermine the venezuelan government first under chavez now and now we're seeing as they're not even trying to cover it up they're just doing it openly expressing you know the fact that either mature or decide to leave or they're going to take him out so i mean it's it's completely outrageous violation of venezuela's sovereignty and i mean it goes against all the promises that trump made during his

campaign of being less interventionist now we're seeing the direct intervention aggression and pure violation not just of venezuela's sovereignty but of international law you can't just say you're going to go in and take out a president who was democratically elected by his people. will that we also use the u.s. talking about the duro in the same category as the likes of bashar al assad's kim jong il it's just here what has been said about the majority show if you join a very exclusive club including mr mugabe. should. go on in terms of the brutal repression of his people and in this case the abrogation of the constitution with the with the cost issue with the with the assembly constituent assembly that was. talking about with the other is this what's going to happen now we're going to see. continued continuously and consistently.

well he's been continuously and consistently demonized by the u.s. since he first won in two thousand and thirteen after which of his passed away and there was a special election that has not changed it's ironic because maduro himself has made public overtures particularly to this administration and donald trump in fact just saying a few weeks ago that he aspired to shake trump's hand you know they have they provided funding to trump's inaugural committee you know they've been engaged in extensive lobbying to try to improve relations and this is what they get in return i mean it's completely absurd and outrageous that the president of venezuela which is still a democracy and he's a democratically elected president would be qualified as the u.s. government is qualifying him when the u.s. allies and has no problems with for example saudi arabia where they're just be having like fourteen people you know a few days ago i mean you know when we're talking about u.s. foreign policy it's based entirely on hypocrisy u.s. has no moral grandest moral ground to stand on in terms of venezuela and and also

these types of sanctions completely backfire mean in venice well actually they're now running a campaign saying i want my sanction give me my sanction because it's seen as now a badge of honor to have the u.s. government what they call the us empire sanction them essentially means ok now i'm seen you know as standing up for my country and defending the sovereignty of my nation so the sanctions are are really just a joke to venezuelans even things we're going to speak to you here in the fools of the universe to go into thank you. in other news italian authorities have seized the boat belonging to a german group rescuing migrants and here's some footage released by the italian coast guard which shows or thought is impounding that ship the vessel was intercepted on wednesday as part of a government initiative is designed to counter the surge of migrants mostly africans who are trying to reach italy coming from libya officials claim that crew

members from the boat were working with people smugglers. you see in several cases these interventions see by the boat were carried out not to save people who find themselves in imminent danger but simply to pick up people or school at it by libyan traffickers. this comes after italy presented a controversial code of conduct to aid groups the code demands that a police presence be on ngo vessels and it bans the transfer of refugees on to other ships phone calls or flags coming from n.g.o.s also forbidden as they could be used to signal when it's safe to send a boat to see the six of nine n.g.o.s operating in the mediterranean have refused to sign the document fully kate part which discussed this issue that italian journalist marcelo martin dulls german left wing politician in the moment europe is responsible for the destructions in africa a lot and look at that it's necessary to open legal ways for refugees but europe

shouldn't leave alone to countries like italy like spain like portugal with a problem but all european countries should take responsibility and so all the people who are. members on this ship and on other refugee have bought as well they just want to save lives because in the last ten years there was more than forty thousand people dying in the mediterranean sea and they just don't want to see the people to i see very clearly that this is not owe you money to. help is not the money to an s.o.s. but it's helping those people arriving in italy and the refugees that are coming they are paying a huge sums to human traffickers this is immoral and i would say that it is true that. the destruction of libya was a mistake of historical mistake but i don't see why a country a single country like italy should pay the price for it so it's

a huge problem neatly and finally the government decided to take some action to stop these kind of fatalities and if you would like more details on that story and any others we've covered this evening simply had to our website click on r.t. dot com i'll be back with the very latest headlines at the top of the hour.

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