boy that's how it is in the news culture in this country now that's where i come in . i'm ed schultz on r.t. america i'll make sure you don't get railroaded that you'll get the straight talk in the straight news. questionable. hello i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and welcome to the big picture north korea to get their act together they will be met with five. things will happen like they never thought possible

but they're going to be trouble like few days ever have been in trouble in this world the standoff between north korea in the united states continued today with donald trump intensifying his threats towards beyond yon trumps comments came after the north korean government unveiled a plan to fire missiles at a wall according to north korean state news those missiles will fly over japan before landing about twenty five miles off shore of the u.s. small u.s. territory so are we now on the brink of nuclear war joining me now is investigative journalist tim shorrock tim spent part of his youth in south korea writes about u.s. korea relations for the nation and the korea center for investigative reporting tim welcome to the program thank you very much great to have you with us so how seriously should we be taking these dueling rhetorical flame throwing attempts that seem to be coming out of. out of cricket north korea and washington d.c.

specifically trump and right i mean we should be taking them very seriously and this is this is the most dangerous escalation i've ever seen in korea perhaps since you know the north koreans. seized the you know years ago in one thousand. sixty eight the spy ship that they captured you know i mean but this is more even more intense and then i think i think the rhetoric especially from the from donald trump is just incredibly dangerous and scary well i mean he seems to be threatening them with you know nuclear would nuclear weapons and this is this is quite an escalation i mean when when harry truman you know used similar languages and pointed out that this you know the more use of force the world has ever seen was very similar to what truman was saying you know when he was threatening japan with the bombing of hiroshima and nagasaki in but you know by that time you know japan had japan and

you know it attacked the united states and invaded a judge in slaves half of korea in china and you know and killed thousands and thousands of americans in a war and we're not at war and now here they are threatening nuclear weapons well it seems pretty pretty dangerous and truman state it was after hiroshima had been bombed and before now he's basically saying we've done this to you we can do it to you again stop this war right now and they said no we're going to keep the war going and boom off it went which is sort of you know highlights the don't say it if you don't intend to do it and if you do say you're going to do it do it which is you know pretty bizarre coming out of the president the united states i mean kim has been talking like this is father talk like this is grandfather talk like this this is nothing new you know. dictators and little countries tend to go on jeremiah ads against the big guy but when the big guys nuke you if you keep talking like

that he was threatening and he said if south korea oeuvre north korea keeps the rattling. that seems unprecedented to me i read in zoom in korea website about south korea that the north has actually offered to freeze their nuclear program if the. and states will freeze the offshore military exercises that we do twice a year. is that the case to the best of your knowledge and if so why is it not the american press. when you say offshore i don't know what you mean but dominated by the military exercise us into hoping that iran games every year that it would all nervous u.s. and south korea massive war games are the biggest more games in the world and you know of course these are as part of these war games of these these b. b. one bombers that fly in you know come in and they practice bombing runs and that kind of thing they fly through south korean skies like they've been over the last couple days but you know these exercises are massive yes there has been that offer

on the table in the fact that you know the chinese and the russians have both been talking about this proposal you know for the last few days and weeks in fact i mean at the u.n. when the u.n. voted sanctions well this weekend both the chinese ambassador and the russian ambassador you know focused on this proposal of you know freeze in north north korean freezing its missile on in a nuclear programs in return for u.s. and south korea freezing or halting their exercises and you know frankly i think it's the homely you know way forward right now is to have that but so far there's been rejected by the u.s. and of course you know the press rarely talks about it at all in fact the press really doesn't talk much it at all about what north korea is actually seeking it just sort of portrays them as a sort of you know insane you know attacker of the united states whereas the u.s. is this kind of innocent bystander in korea and in the portrayal is is is

completely ridiculous. it's become a caricature so what is north korea actually seeking well if you look at their if you read their statements like for example this week the foreign minister of north korea was had a meeting of foreign ministers from all over asia including secretary of state teller. it was there and he made a statement where he said you know north korea will not negotiate its nuclear weapons and missiles in till the u.s. drops its hostile policy this is a pretty standard line from from north korea but they always say that unless and until the u.s. ends its hostile policy and so when this is reported it was reported this week in this washington the washington post they left out the part about dropping the hostile policy they just said north korea refuses to negotiate its nuclear weapons and missiles and so you know that cause is missing but it's a very important cause because you know when they mated when they cut

a deal with the united states in when president clinton in one thousand nine hundred four two. to put a moratorium on there at the time they didn't have nuclear weapons but they had a plutonium program to create plutonium and create weapons and they froze epithelium program for twelve years under that agreement as as part of the agreement the u.s. agreed to fully normalize political and economic relations with north korea which to north korea meant dropping its hostile policy in ending the entity between the u.s. and north korea and north korea's over time they felt the u.s. backed off on that promise in you know the agreement finally you know came apart during the bush administration for actually for other reasons but the north koreans believe very strongly that the u.s. did not fulfill its part of the bargain to dropping a hostile policy so they still stay on this issue and say you know they will negotiate they may not you know negotiate an end to their weapons but they're

willing to talk about it new denuclearization and. scaling the other missile program but they want the u.s. hostile policy to be ended and the parameters of that hostility that needs to be ended are what not well i think the war games they're talking war games. talking sanctions or talking economic warfare i mean the you know the north korea at the trading with the enemy you know that they've been under a. under sanctions u.s. sanctions in big trade banning trade with them you know for decades and they would like to and they would like to end that so they see this as overall ending ending the hostile policy in fact you know during the late ninety's and even in the early two thousand c.e.o.'s in north korea made a lot of progress you know moving toward that goal i mean you know in the late ninety's. under the clinton mr ation as a seven extension of this agreement there was they came you know inches away very

very close to an agreement where north korea was going to completely end its all of its testing in production of missiles this was in one thousand nine hundred ninety two thousand and you know any sherman who was the secretary of state albright step in at the time later said the u.s. and north korea were tantalizingly close to that kind of agreement and then you know course you know president bush came along and the bush deal cons were against these this agreed framework in principle and they moved fairly rapidly to undo that undo that agreement and so it came apart but the agreement on the missiles you know never happened and that's that's that's kind of a tragedy i think because you know out of that came out of that failure came the next nuclear crisis when you know nuke north korea didn't explode its first bomb

until two thousand and six so you know it was well into the bush administration when that happened it's interesting the. the two dueling narrative seemed to be more because out with them in ninety four it held until george bush basically said axis of evil and blew the whole thing up you know it's kind of sure. and yeah and you know kind of like it's all the republicans fault in the other narrative is bill clinton worked out a deal they totally gamed him for six or seven or eight or ten years and they were actually secretly building new nukes in the background and we never should have trusted them and clinton was naive and you know we need to newcome now or whatever i mean any of these seem to be that the republican and democratic narrative is there. is there a little bit of truth to each want to are is either one just completely false it's a lot of the other all there's a little bit of truth each one but the thing is you know late ninety's late ninety's i mean this agreement ninety four agreement was signed in october of

ninety four november ninety four the republicans took the house took control of congress the first time since the one nine hundred forty s. newt gingrich led the republicans at that time what did they do after they took over they began to attack this agreement as appeasement you can find you know quotes interviews with john mccain at the time saying you know this agreement is just appeasement going back to chamberland and all this you know it's a big sell out you know we're paying we're basically bribing north korea to get rid of its weapons well in fact they froze their plutonium production for twelve years i mean you know it's hard to scoff at that they'd be actually shut it all down and they do know they've shut down their missiles missile production for a long time to the put a moratorium on their missiles so you know that the north koreans started complaining to you know privately to american visitors in around ninety seven that they thought the u.s. wasn't keeping its end of the deal and then that's sort of what led up to these you

don't missile talks in the late one nine hundred ninety s. . but when the u.s. bush administration the issue they took to the north koreans and the reason they backed into the agreement was they they accuse the north koreans of starting a uranium based nuclear program. you know they were they were enriching uranium and they knew that because u.s. intelligence had picked up the fact that north koreans were scouting around the world to buy centrifuges to process your medium to enrich uranium but they never did they never quite proved that they had any uranium facility in fact the north korea didn't admit to having the reigning facility for about nine years until about nine years later when they showed it to. that scientist hecker from the last almost and he came and they had they showed it to him in the two thousand sput so it's kind of a murky history really but i think in reality you know both sides you know broke

the agreement and they and i think that you know i think there's a possibility that it could be put together but you know if trump actually tried to create another agreement with them i can't imagine i can see you know being he would just be attacked and attacked for this just like clinton was kind of preset it didn't sell for him sure brilliant thank you so much for being with us here thank you for shit the conversation coming up is donald trump turning the republican party into an authoritarian party the evidence suggests it might be more on that tonight's big picture annele right after the break. the feeling of. every. period.

and you get it on the old. old according to jess. all the world's a stage and all the news companies merely players but what kind of partners are anti american plate r.t. america. america first. many ways to use it just like to see a real news big good actors bad actors and in the end you could never hear

on. the part. of the world all the world's a stage we are playing. there's a real irony going. you. always. hold still surveillance you feel you have all the while. and trump has used to sell some new oil i always thought it was it's garbage real. as it continues with his talk about fire and sherry and the total destruction of

north korea is a time to take the power to use nuclear weapons away from donald trump let's ask tonight's big picture. for the rights battle our brand pruitt contributor to red state and doug christian . political commentator thank you both for being here with us tonight community so donald trump is not breaking backing down from his threat to rain fire and feria in north korea at a press conference this afternoon in bedminster new jersey he told reporters that this threat was real and not a dare. he does something in guam it will be an event the likes of which nobody seen before what will happen in north korea i mean. you'll see you'll see and he'll see you will see that in there it's a staple thanks to congressman california congressman ted lew and massachusetts

senator ed markey there is legislation in the house and the senate right now that would ban any president this one from using nuclear weapons without a declaration of war for from congress this seems rather reasonable to me on the one hand on the other hand if a hostile power were to throw nuclear weapons at us we might have less than five ten minutes to respond and i can't imagine congress doing anything in less than five or ten minutes so i'm kind of torn on this you know the idea of nukes in donald trump's hands makes me a little squirrelly the idea that we can't respond to a nuclear attack you know regardless of its origin that concerns me tremendously to first and foremost we need to remember that the trumpet ministration if this law were to be passed which it has zero chance of passing in a republican congress would immediately be appealed to the united states supreme court and we'd have a whole battle royale in the courts over what really the role of the commander in

chief is the second thing is that the national command authority is is is currently designed to be able to react quickly and as you indicated congress is notorious for not responding quickly i think we need to have a discussion about you know whether the president is allowed to instantly respond to a threat to an incoming attack versus a preemptive slash first strike which i think is the gray area that needs to be discussed so if he was going to do a preemptive first strike he could we could write the legislation that he requires requires a declaration of congress. otherwise if it's reactive i mean you know i think it's worth having the conversation i agree doug well i think that part of the problem is that it gets down to whether or not donald trump is actually has any knowledge about foreign policy military strategy all this kind of thing it makes me wonder whether we need

a constitutional amendment actually in terms of will to be qualified to be president not just that you're thirty five not the just that you were natural born citizen but maybe that you could pass the foreign service examination perhaps you knew something about foreign policy before you even got into that position if your doctor you need to actually have certification to be a doctor if you're a pilot you need to know how to fly an airplane. that gets you know i understand what you're saying and i think the whole process of elections is designed to reveal i mean that's why we have primaries that's why we have campaigns that's why we have elections i would argue that if it weren't for massive media consolidation and the end of the fairness doctrine so the media is doing nothing but chasing ratings the and therefore they deliver two billion dollars worth of free advertising to donald trump you combine that with the you know massive billionaire influence pushing republican candidates all across the country and doing a really really really effective get out the vote effort in the last election between

the billionaires and and the media we got donald trump i don't think it has any do with the stupidity american people i think we got duped let's also not forget i sleep well at night because we've got people like now secretary mattis general kelly at the chiefs of staff position we've got rex tillerson at state there are people in the national defense infrastructure that are there to provide counsel obviously the way our system works is the commander in chief has the ultimate say but i believe what he has done is put in a good team of people. that care about the united states to understand the law of unintended consequences for these sorts of these sorts of issues these sorts of statements any action that the president might decide to take so i trust that those people that are in those positions people like tina powell at the national security council a charming master those people surround him or cocoon him in

a bubble of really really well qualified people when it comes to to discern yesterday yesterday morning nature of a master john kelly were not at five thirty the morning banging on his bedroom going i know you've got that power and there i know what you know i mean this is not always the room and the wall street journal had to come to a target master's defense actually because steve benen and his cronies were you know there's a war inside the white house it's amazing ok previous polls have found than a full half fifty percent or more of republicans believe that donald trump actually won the popular vote and now a new poll from the washington post has found that a similar percentage of republicans fifty two percent would support donald trump if he called for the two thousand and twenty alexion to be postponed until there was an absolutely certain only us citizens could vote so as donald trump completed the republican party's transformation into an authoritarian political party not at all

this this whole i read the details on this poll this poll only had thirteen hundred people as a sample size then for for a poll it's ridiculously small in a country of three over three hundred million people i believe polling is completely corrupted at this point. when we're having a whole new cycle consumed by what is three hundred people there was six hundred six hundred republicans and only half of them thought this that's three hundred people in a country of over three hundred million and a sample sizes were used routinely for polls leading up to a large absolutely which you know. very rarely we're off by more than two or three points i find it obscene that three hundred people are now dictating an entire new cycle the second point i want to make just very quickly is that remember we've tried this before right rudy giuliani after nine eleven attempted to postpone the new york mayoral election and the citizens of the forgotten. yet let's and the

citizens of new york republicans and democrats rose up against that idea because the whole point was that america and american processes had to continue in the midst of the worst tragedy that we have had rain and a great example and also let's not forget abraham lincoln who actually. thought he's going to lose eight hundred sixty four election but went forward with it with the election. his advisors said you're going to lose and he said but we have to keep democracy go on in the midst of a civil war in the midst of a civil war that's that's pretty remarkable so doug do you do you think that trump is making america more authoritarian. yes but i also think it's up to it's up to us to do to push back i think fortunately congress is beginning to behave like congress again not just be and this is

a gift and you know george will get a month long vacation hiding from there. but i mean george will wrote about this that in fact there are no congresses beginning to say ok we are co-equal branch of government we are going to push back and they haven't terms of the treaty. but the sanctions in terms of making sure that they're protecting miller. in terms of human health care i mean they have actually been doing their job arguably brian. john dean wrote a book called con conservatism out of conscience which was based on a book i forget the title or the name. the original author is a psychologist he wrote a book called the authoritarians there was a big deal back in the seventy's and dean kind of bases a book on this and i've talked with him a number of times about it and he made the point that authoritarianism in the united states mostly resides on the right but it seems like about ten percent of americans just genetically or whatever are inclined to authoritarianism are you

concerned about the authoritarian trends in your party i think i am concerned the republican and i say this big are republican that means conservatives that means moderates that means there's even you know a few liberal republicans left we need to address those folks that were drawn to trump because the the if you look at it going down the line if republican and republicanism and conservatism doesn't address the needs of those people that were drawn drawn to trump he could very easily start his own third party sort of see himself post presidency running a you know a whole third faction in america which is a huge concern not only for republicans but should also be for democrats well there's a bunch of congressional races where where people have gotten into the primaries as trump republicans that it will take it will take trump trump's team really creating a ground game foundation in each state and that that that it's not happened yet and

also let's not forget that there have been a third tarion tendencies on the left as well for instance you ask was actually a product initially american activity yes the fifty's it's an issue at the committee right initially though it was actually a product of the left before it became subsumed by the right. so people like robert f. kennedy it worked for joe joe so i mean it can happen on both sides when you have people who over the top ideological perhaps so might authoritarianism we just have a minute to wrap this up and i'd like to drill a little deeper into this. might have thought to turn ism be a natural response in some way to uncertainty and fear certainly request i think there's the people people want to be taking care of the that's why government exists a lot of people see that through the republican party i would argue that a lot of a lot of human nature is people are being drawn to the democratic party because the

democratic party is offering government answers for everything there's only a short slippery slope to authoritarianism on the left as well as well i have not seen the evidence of that i mean. outside of f.d.r. with the internment camps which i'm not sure you could call it the return as i might just call that misguided. communist movement and you know in the united states i mean as well it wasn't that long ago that alger hiss do you know i had i had the president of the communist party united states on my radio show last year and i was like how's it going and he's like we're up to five hundred thirty two members i mean there's no there's no left in the but there's a different there's different definitions of authoritarianism and you know in the conservative movement we consider government run health care you know making decisions on who gets to go to what doctor what how they buy their god it's just that's a slippery slope to authoritarian but that's not really you know we've got to wrap it up bryan and. great having both same thing thank you and that's the way it is

tonight and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport get out there get active tag your. in case you're new to the game this is how it works the economy is built around. preparations from washington to washington to meet. the media. voters elect. to run this country business. it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before.

i'm a trial lawyer i've spent countless hours poring through documents that tell the story about the ugly side of. corporate media written uses to talk about these cars or not. i'm going to pick clear picture about how disturbing how to love corporate conduct has become a mob these are stories that you know no explain to my parents or your post to the american. west. there's a real irony going. to be like a. responsible choice in the people and there is always hope that's what was always seen in something dealing with the ordinary no wholesale surveillance you feel you have all meanwhile there's room to move to so this instance trump has used the social media while it always on the story goes it's garbage in real genuine.