to the american people. oh and tell hartman it washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture with tensions mounting around the korean peninsula what must happen to avoid an all out nuclear war last media benjamin in just a moment and how can democracy survive when the president endlessly lies all

attacking anyone who pursues the truth scammer philips and scott ritter in tonight's big picture and. it's been one week since north korea tested its longest range missile ever and despite secretary of state rex tillerson softer approach to the region tensions are mounting in response to the nuclear test south korean president mungiu even gave the green light for the south korean military to complete a missile defense system known as fat or terminal i altitude area defense thousands of concerned south korean residents of turned out to protest the fed missile system every single day for the last year but despite south korean protests the steady drumbeat to war is growing louder within the trump administration takes in senator lindsey graham for example who casually floated the idea of a war with north korea during an appearance on the today show earlier this week

there is an option to destroy north korea's program and north korea itself he's not been allowed president the ability of this man men to have a missile that hit america so what needs to happen to completely avoid the possibility of a nuclear. a war on the korean peninsula let's ask medea benjamin co-founder of global of code pink and global exchange and author her latest article was urgent warning time to hit the reset button on u.s. korean policy available over alter net and the title of your new book on saudi arabia is kingdom of the end just behind the u.s. side economics thank you so i did have a graphic for it on the screen media welcome back thank you we're going to be here so you are just in korea tell us what you want. i learned that the u.s. thanks to lockheed martin which has this billion dollar plus weapon system that is supposed to stop missiles from hitting south korea from the north is

going to be deployed in this little farming village called sun jew where the people don't want it they're saying we don't want to be in the crosshairs edge of putting us in and they've been protesting every single day including blockading the road where the weapons would have to pass through including a twenty four seven encampment including in every night candlelight vigil and including a weekly demonstration that attracts people from all over the country we were there and there were thousands of people there and they thought they were getting a reprieve from the new government who had said all right let's slow things down let's do an environmental impact assessment that could take a year and the villagers thought ok we've got time to really build up our opposition in the meantime with the last test the president of south korea has gone ahead and changed his mind and said all right we're going to complete the system no this president south korea was a walk to

a platform of rough or small for working things out with north korea well that's right he came on the heels of this beautiful nonviolent mass uprising known as the candlelight uprising and he talked a lot during his campaign and even after he got in saying. we need dialogue so people are very disappointed right now among the opponents not only of that but the people who are calling for dialogue and reconciliation but it really is only strengthened a lot of the resolve to keep on protesting in the meantime the question as you as you posed in this segment lead in and where should this go and you know that president trump has said to china you've got to do something you've got to do something well china has actually done something they have proposed a solution which is a freeze for freeze which means the north koreans would freeze their missile and nuclear tests and the u.s. would freeze its war games you know they've been doing war games that have been

bigger and bigger they do massive ones in march they're doing smaller ones in august and the north koreans feel under siege with these mock games that include a mock dropping of nuclear weapons on the north korea and so the chinese have said all right let's do freeze for the freeze which is something the north koreans themselves have proposed in two thousand and fifteen and twenty sixteen so that would be a way to deescalate and open up the dialogue what's the opinion of the south korean government about the freeze for the south korean government has been in favor of a freeze for freeze they've been in favor of negotiations so it's really is you know who within the u.s. administration gets to call the shots unfortunately doesn't look like it's rex tillerson who said let's slow down you know we don't want to overthrow this government we want to have talks but then there's president trump who says just the opposite right so let me get the street there is a path to peace china agrees on north korea agrees on south korea agrees everybody

in the region agrees let's do this it's a path to peace what's the position the united states on those so far no but it was a positive thing to hear rex tillerson say. yes we we want a dialogue but this is not the message that the north koreans are hearing and it's not the message that the world is hearing the world is hearing something very different from donald trump they're also hearing something different from the u.s. reaction to the missile test which is the u.s. doing its own fly overs with b. two bombers the u.s. saying that it's going to encourage south korea to get more of its own missiles and also i think americans don't have any idea how north korea fears feels encircled by all the bases that exist in south korea you know how many bases the u.s. has in the south korea eighty three eighty three really busy military bases in

south korea so yes it is a government north korea that is abusive that it's authoritarian that is unpredictable but precisely for those reasons we have to find a way out and also it is not irrational because they have even said we look around and we see what happened to moammar gadhafi when he decided to give up his nuclear weapons we'll look at what has happened to saddam hussein when he decided to give up his nuclear weapons the only way they feel they can stop the u.s. from trying to overthrow them is to have nuclear weapons so if we went ahead with the freeze for freeze that went into peace talks that ended up with a peace treaty because the one nine hundred fifty three. korean armistice never resulted in peace treaty that would be the avenue to deescalation on this could be a breakthrough that donald trump could take credit for for years is that beautiful red bell either below nobody will give you those so the missile system. we are

installing in this town some juice return to where you were you visited just last week yes. the that missile system is entirely defensive is it not i don't i'm not i don't understand frankly be a. you know i get the objection of the local people we don't want the defensive missile system here because that puts us in the crosshairs i understand that but i understand that across south korea there's been an objection to putting a defensive missile system in an anti-missile missile system. which on its surface seems illogical that i thought before i went and they said we don't even call it an anti-missile system we don't even call it a defense system we call it a weapon system first of all it's a huge radar and the radar is what china of jets to because they say that's really aimed at them for this we need all the way and it's really been there it's made north korea and the chinese decide that they have to then up their weapons and so

it's just part of this escalation of the arms trade so the. the way that many people and not all of them because there are a lot of people in south korea who do think that this is helpful to them but the way others in south korea see it is that we are being used by the united states in their own war their superpower geo political wars that they are looking towards asia they're looking towards china they want to position themselves and we don't want to be caught in that on the contrary we want to finally end the hostilities in the korean peninsula and putting this billion dollar plus system which now with donald trump he's going back on a deal that was made with obama and saying you in south korea have to pay for the maintenance of this thing the many in south korea saying this is not helpful we feel that they are the best way to deter a war with north korea is through

a peace treaty you know do you. and there's an appetite for that in itself oh there is a desire for that in the south they really feel that they have a chance now with a new government and a government. that has been committed to this unfortunately they feel now that a lot of pressure from the u.s. is coming the u.s. is negotiating renegotiating a trade deal with south korea they feel that donald trump might use this if they don't accept that that missile system to then say ok you know we're going to really sock it to you in terms of a trade war with south korea so be done donald trump is flexing its muscle and many people in south korea feel that that pressure is me is what made the new president change his position. moving to saudi arabia if i may or moving up the topic of saudi if your book kingdom of the unjust is you know one of my being one of the

most brilliant summaries of the situation there and our relationship to it that i've read ever and i really trust your opinion on this there are fourteen as i recall young men who are who had back in two thousand and eleven participated in this when the arab spring was happening and there were spontaneous eruptions happening all over the arab world and some were in saudi arabia and they showed up at protests calling for democracy calling for democracy in saudi arabia will cause you to get your head chopped off and these fourteen young men are scheduled for execution can you tell us about this and you know why the saudi government is doing this and what sort of pushback they might be getting as the u.s. said anything about this so these young men are shia this she minority they've been discriminated against constantly in saudi arabia which is majority sunni they are discriminated against in getting government revenues even though they live in the

oil rich part of the country discriminated against in jobs in education in the ability to get to. pray in the way that they want to and so there has been a constant backlash and rebellion in this area the vast majority of it peaceful rebellion and for this peaceful rebellion they executed in the beginning of this year shaikh al nimer who was very much beloved in this community there are a small minority of people who have taken up weapons and the saudis are now. going after them in a town called our media which is under siege and the entire town is feeling the siege in these fourteen young men in fact it's larger than that there are thirty four shia who are facing. the death sentence four of them. were convicted.

of doing quote crimes of peaceful demonstrating at the time that they were juveniles and all of the fourteen that you're talking about from peaceful demonstrations were convicted on the basis of confessions that were done under torture one of them even had a broken shoulder that's right and one of them was on their way to the united states and western michigan university to be a student here when he was taken at the airport and then tortured and now he's so there are campaigns amnesty international has taken on their case but we don't think that donald trump has mentioned this at all to the saudi government unfortunately tragically. thank you so much for coming up a majority of americans support legalizing marijuana but shouldn't we also be working to rebuild the communities destroyed by the field war on drugs i scammer philipson scott greer and it's big picture.

there's a real irony going. to. respond to the point there is always some nights when it's always expensive. still civilities you know you have all meanwhile as you mentioned resources than trump has used social media going on always on a story because it's garbage it's real. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple segments understands that we're telling stories in our critics can't tell you know why. because their advertisers won't let them. in order to create change

you would have to be honest you have to tell the truth party's 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 victuals 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. with the politicians to do something to. put themselves on the line they did accept the reject. so when you want to be trusted. or some want to. have to go right to the press this is what the four three of them can be that. i'm interested in the waters and. i should.

welcome back the president's phone calls have dominated the news cycle this week and at least two of them made headlines because they never happened it's strange that trump is lying about phone calls he's received but isn't it also dangerous to our democracy let's ask tonight's big picture panel. but me for that i'd spend all our scott greer deputy editor editor at the daily caller and amber j. phillips host of the black joint. and member of the movement for black lives and thank you both for being here with us thank you for having me so earlier this week

the media got hold of a transcript of donald trump's phone call with mexican president and rick and you need to know while the transcripts provided a troubling glimpse into how trump is dealing with other world leaders also raised a number of questions such as why a speck sicko's president even humoring the idea of a wall thanks goes former president bush sent a pop fox put it crudely and bluntly on c.n.n. this morning but you can be used. that day for about all. this all. to be there but trump doesn't want people to read those transcripts instead he wants us to remember the great phone calls he's made like the one he took from pino nato graduating trump on his boys on his border efforts or the one he took from the boy scouts congratulating him on giving the best speech they've ever heard neither of which actually happened which brings us to the real question can we have a functioning democracy when the president of the united states is constantly whine

about what he's said and done so we have a functioning the presidency when he knows you can never have a confidential. conversation with the leaders of the world the reason why you that's right why should nato but is not more concerning that we can't have a world leader i mean you might as well just broadcast it live on c.n.n. and these are automatically going to go out which leaders of the world are going to have a frank conversations that are needed for these big issues the reason why the sky you're changing the topic important this i don't care if it's important oh you know we all know that trump is not exaggerate the truth when it comes to get off scott the truth is both of our members are and we have a democracy what our president is a liar amber no we actually can't. pediment to democracy and we've seen this countless times i find it interesting that conservatives are now saying well what about the privacy of his phone calls when we had a continuous conversation about e-mails during the election so i think what we're actually seeing here is this is what it's going to take for us to get

a straight answer out of this president for us for them merican people to get information that they desperately need that is beyond one hundred forty characters of a tweet and that's important right now we're dealing with a big issue when the correct information isn't even coming from the white house at the same time that he's describing the media he's describing activists and organizers so it's literally this is the creation of fascism where we're all supposed to be dependent on just what this one person says as he continuously lies over and over again as i'm sure you're so right continue our in the way we've had continual liars in the white house with democracy preserve. next clinton we've had numerous lie right that does it today but they're not all there are to go we all are that is why the way trump we all dump lies about irrelevant they have some lies about is all this lies about how rigorously lies in every transcript he lies to the world editor about attempt to rethink what is leaking. leaking out every day to every question is leaking every transcript he has with the world leader going to

change that no it's not and the thing is is yes we we might. i want our president to be truthful we don't want to have to be telling these gross lies but we also at the same hard want to know how it is for your station there's all their ways of shaming him for lying rather than likely king every conversation he has with a world leader this is we need. this is a conversation about our president being a liar how do conservatives deal with this how do you how do you guys not have your heads explode he says one thing and then he says another thing he he's had mcmaster have to correct him he's had he's had his press secretary have to correct him he's had a secretary of state taylor's americans who were hard typically which are against the ages if you are consistently choosing this this conversation of party over country when you when you take on the position to be the leader of the free world you are supposed. to be the way that holds this country close in a way that keeps us out of danger because people these things are coming out

because we don't have a trust where the press on what should they do if they care for country of a party. yes we should honestly be craning legislation and policies like the ones we're going to talk about here today that actually help the american people not hurt them although actually i'm diabetic i think you're going to hear what donald trump has done since he has taken office has been to punish the ministration before him with the help of the g.o.p. across the board that is not country over party and that's actually hateful it's going to lead to the lives of many americans lost we know that repealing health care is not. issue that americans like but that is still continuously happening because not even donald trump's party is willing to hold him accountable and relax their policy for anything not even for same lies also a very white supremacy is there's always an excuse for what this person is doing instead of you all stepping up and saying hey like what we have before the election

was the time with mitt romney people actually had a line that they would draw instead of just willfully agree. what this person who you are no isn't the great candidate we knew that were present we knew that he was looking at those of the republican lawmakers then like him but the fact the matter is the primaries like that and then the electorate in our election system if you guys like to move along the washington post recently reported that apple and amazon have taken steps to block the use of virtual private networks v.p.n. ends in china apple removed dozens of v.p.n. app apps from the chinese version of its app store with apple c.e.o. tim cook declaring quote we would obviously rather not remove the apps but like we do in other countries we follow the law wherever we do business and according the new york times amazon dot com chinese partner also sent e-mails to clients and buys in them to eliminate content the violates chinese telecom laws so should companies like apple and amazon really be helping china's government censor content shouldn't

our companies reflect our values no they should be helping them out and all these companies of the same time want to state houses law within the united states are even in europe they immediately try to punish them by boycotting and removing their business but then they'll follow china and saudi arabia every line and every dictate that they determine for them and this is a very disturbing for free speech what if this what these standards go into the united states are into the western world it doesn't just stay in china where the women were the ones who sold to china the technology for the great wall as it were definitely we're seeing the expansion of. support for governments that are again against their people we're seeing this even in our own states when it comes to tack on net neutrality before again going back to our current administration we do need to hold our companies accountable because at any point our companies our brands can be leaders donald trump before he was a president he was a brand and he was

a corporation and that's what has kind of aided him in helping to in my opinion ruin this country so and a follow up to this earlier today turning general jeff sessions announced a new crackdown on government. has. since january the department has more than tripled the number of active leak investigations compared to the number at the end of the last administration and we've already charged for people with unlawfully disclosing classified material or with concealing contacts with federal officers america's most racist people or else he went on to say that the justice department also be reviewing the policies about media subpoenas a move which could have a chilling effect on the press should not government reflect our values of maintaining a free and open press and transparency between we the people in our government yes i would say they need to figure out a way to leaders because this is setting

a terrible present for future administrations are not to like it when a democratic president has this amount of leaks they should perhaps away but there is no bothers the one who has put more leakers in jail than all the presidents combined before them so there is not and there's very little and there wasn't as much outrage as we have here but this i mean leaks are crippling this ministry you might not like the transmission of this happens to democratic measures and like that but it has to come with a different means of amber mullets in the press my side of this is that the leaks are coming from people inside the white house who are looking at what's going on and on the scene right this is not lead to leak information that we need is that leak or is it like a whistle blower i think that's a conversation we need to have along to you know laws about this week i mean they did you know it was necessary for a jungle to be in those type of things were necessary whistleblowers are necessary in governments like this so that we caps and shifts but if that happens that the democrats are going to be fine with that if they just how well no i wasn't fine

with it the entire election but that wasn't the media or the press making when i was a democrat i mean that had to worry about sensitive national security matters leaked and it was crippling their ability to operate would you have a problem with that so people might argue that it's helpful for us to know this but would. you have a problem with that if it was happening to a democratic administration so my frame of thought is what needs to be done to protect people and make sure that they have information so i know the answer would be perfect if in this box of like well if it was the democrats but what i also know is being a black woman in this country that information is key for me all governments have always served my people or my communities so that is what i'm pushing for i'm pushing for transparency and i'm pushing for information because it's not going to come from this white house it's not going to come from the media sources that this administration has approved so we this this information is critical whistleblowers are critical we have about forty seconds there's

a qualitative difference in the leaks during the obama administration the leaks were things like lots out the the n.s.a. you know you know the what the f.b.i. was up to things that seemed like overreach with the trump administration it's lets out what a what a what a dummy this guy is i mean it seems like about half the leaks are about stupid things trump has done. curious what i mean some you could argue with that but i would say that when it comes to his transcripts with world leaders i had something that is a completely different because we've expected all world leaders i mean what i'm so sure about leaks is that it's always a distraction from the real issues that are going on right now that. what's happening in our states what's happening with law enforcement and over policing in communities which is issues that the movement for black lives works on those that is what we need to be focused on and not here well said amber a love your spirit thank you great to have you with us as always and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not

a spectator sport get out there get active tag you're it. it's called the fear we know freedom to. everyone in the world should experience for me and you'll get it on the open road. the old according to a gesture. welcome to my world come along for the ride. yes

it's worth from an agent's pension. the best worst case. with foreman exits out of the bed to wait.