and just like you keep it real news a new state actors that act and in the end you could never you're on. so much parking people all around the world all the world's a stage and we are definitely a player. on the news tonight the president doubles down on north korea and suggest fire in fury might be going to he's the on the country. and the president goes on the attack challenging mitch mcconnell and threatening his leadership of the united states senate and john mccain unveils a new policy in america's longest running war in afghanistan calling for more troops to the country i'm ed schultz reporting tonight from the r t newsroom this is the news on r.t. america.

good evening friends we start tonight with north korea and the president of the united states doubling down on his threat to the asian nation in a press conference today the president said fire in fury might not have been tough enough. there were no big surprise as i heard i mean to be honest general mattis may have taken a step beyond what i said there was no mixed messages and rex was just you know stating the view that look is the view i said yesterday i don't have to say that again and i'll tell you this it may be tougher than i said it not less it may very well be tougher than i say. later the same afternoon the president delivered what was perhaps his clearest set of remarks on a number of issues his administration is addressing president trump made it clear how he would deal with north korea versus the policy of the three previous

administrations the message was clear kim jong un won't be pulling any fast ones on the current administration and with me he's not get nowhere with this he got away with it for a long time between him and his family he's not getting away with it's a whole new ball game and he's not going to be saying those things and he's certainly not going to be doing those things i read about where he goes by august fifteenth let's see what he does with. he does something in guam it will be an event the likes of which nobody has seen before what will happen in north korea meanwhile the united states territory of guam is reacting to the unprecedented threat from north korea eddie bozza calvo governor of guam issued a public statement combing the two hundred thousand inhabitants of the marianas islands is a u.s. territory and an attack on the island is an attack on america i've reached out to

the white house this morning an attack or threat on guam is a threat or attack on the united states they have said that america will be defended and i also want to remind the national media that guam is american soil and we have two hundred thousand americans in guam and the marianas we are not just a military installation. for more on all of this let's turn to former u.s. ambassador to the u.n. bill richardson bill nice to have you with us tonight seems like every time you and i have a conversation the rhetoric just continues to get hotter and hotter your thoughts on what the president is doing is this supposed to be some type of deterrent that we've never seen before what do you make of it. well i'm i'm not very. happy with it i'm very concerned the level of rhetoric the intensity of the rhetoric from both sides the north korean side and the president our side has never

been so tense and this is not healthy because it scares people you heard the effect on guam you heard the effect on south korea on japan on our allies on the american troops there twenty five million people living in seoul south korea right within range of the d.m.z. the danger ed is how will kim june react to his rhetoric will you act precipitous lee he's unpredictable that's the worry that i have it's not a healthy let foreign policy be done by the state department defense department negotiations diplomacy let's see if the sanctions work these tough new sanctions but you know just insulting each other and then these huge threats seems nuclear threats are not helpful well i found it interesting that russia and

china have not responded to what the president has said what does that mean if anything do we really know what their reaction in their response would be if trump goes all out on north korea. well it would be a very negative response right now russia and china by not vetoing that resolution at the united nations where the sanctions on north korea are tough they affect their coal exports they affect their foodstuffs their fisheries it affects north korean workers eighty percent of commerce goes into north korea from china eighty percent this sanctions affect a third of their yearly revenue you know north korea can really be strangled by china and china wants to so if china and russia feel that you know we're going at it alone that is not going to help our policy there to try to control north korea

so i don't see the plus in these threats were we getting something in return from these president's threats i don't see it. what about defusing this situation what's the remedy at this point and what would you consider a last ditch effort to retrieve this. i think that secretary tillerson put out something in variation that might work he basically said all right north korea let's talk let's have a dialogue which we've not offered north korea before but in return you've got to halt your missile activity maybe for a short period of time let's see if there's common ground and then we proceed into heavier negotiations i think that is a way out for both sides. the worry that i've had with past administrations and by the way bush clinton and obama i think had sensible policies the problem is the

north korean side did not accept and especially clinton he had nine years where north korea did not develop a nuclear weapon with the agreed framework he cut with north korea in the ninety's so i think this is tillerson zakaria diplomacy you know it's not the national security adviser shouldn't be the department of defense this is diplomacy this is a state department let him try to make some kind of diplomatic arrangement it's going to be tough but i think that's our best hope to defuse a situation as you just asked it in the meantime the president is not ruling out a preemptive strike and that brings me to this issue of the involvement of the congress what it what are your thoughts on the silence other the it seems like there's more comments on president trump than there are on the actual situation of

what's going on with north korea to diffuse this what do you see their role can he do a preemptive strike without them weighing in on it. well i think legally the president can do it although whether it falls under the war powers act the thing with north korea is that we're already at war with them under the armistice so i think the president has that flexibility the problem with the congress being out of session and the deafening silence coming out of the congress except for senator mccain makes it easier for the president to maneuver and say these things you know they're all in recess they're all in campaigning and i see that the president is now fighting the majority leader mitch mcconnell you know so he's at war with everybody war of words and i just don't see where we get anything in return where that helps the country i just i'm at a loss in my lifetime i've never heard

a president talk like this i've never experienced another country responding like this and i'm just not confident as an american citizen that we know the world's reaction if we do get in it with north korea and i just i'm astounded that senate leadership on both sides house leadership is dreadfully silent in all of this never seen anything like this. no i never have and i mention that they're in recess but you know they're they've got the megaphone the congress does and the fact that they're in recess is not a health fall in that this crisis is happening right now i've never seen the tension so high in the korean peninsula i'm extremely concerned i hope the president's advisers rein him in general kelly you know the new chief of staff he's got to tell the president you can't conduct foreign policy the way you're doing

with words with fiery words exchanges stooping to the level of kim june in the north koreans who generate this rhetoric almost every day but this rhetoric has gotten a lot more intense also from the north korean side. bill richardson always a pleasure to have you on the news with ed thank you so much i appreciate it. there may be trouble on the horizon with china china is now claiming the united states is violating its sovereignty by sailing destroyers into chinese territory china's foreign ministry issued a statement citing that they are very displeased and will take the issue up with washington china of course is a key partner in reining in the north korean threat while the mainstream media focuses on north korea's nuclear capabilities there was another more conventional cause for concern manila chan joins us tonight for more on that manila that is very well put add thirty seconds that's the number i want everyone to pay attention to

that's all it will take for the d.p. r. k. to hit seoul with conventional arms and the nearly thirty five thousand american troops stationed in the area now while most people are discussing the publicly made threat from the camera game on the u.s. territory of qual the more immediate threat might actually be an attack with shells over the d.m.z. so i spoke earlier with the pentagon former pentagon official michael maloof about that very threat. that's why indications and warnings are going to be so important at this point and and if all of a sudden we had a real surprise attack which i would tend to doubt that would mean the the troops filtered through tunnels that been there probably for years we don't know the full extent of the tunnel layout that they have one of the ground but we do know that they have masses of artillery just strings of artillery they can go into the mountain and be brought back out and fired with at seoul and other

strategic cities and so would be hit within seconds you know like thirty forty seconds. and just what is at stake if the north does launch artillery shells over the line we've got fifteen military bases across the area near seoul those are home to more than thirty four thousand eight hundred five u.s. service members and their families seoul is actually the third largest host in the world to the u.s. military and the population of seoul itself is hovering at just under ten million people in seoul alone to put that into perspective tokyo has just over nine million people new york city has just over eight and a half million people so seoul is actually one of the most densely populated cities in the entire world so even if north korea chose to lob just one shell over the d.m.z. there would absolutely be mass casualty in the thousands and maloof says that the u.s. must pay closer attention to these conventional methods of warfare rather than the

nukes. and most the president decided that things were so critical that he would do a preemptive strike. and that's that's in the cards it's not ruled out knowing that that artillery is there because i think the most immediate threat would be from from that artillery just north of the d.m.z. so add mr maloof says that the north has a vast network of under mountain tunnels that can put them within meters of the d.m.z. and that unless carefully monitored this could make the south vulnerable to an invasion of tens of thousands of k.p.a. soldiers so while most are paying attention to the nuclear threat experts such as maloof and his cohort of retired d.o.d. men and women they say conventional old school methods should not be underestimated . no doubt about it thank you manila mainstream media is not paying attention to these very critical numbers thanks for more on all of this has turned to our

political panel tonight conservative talk show host heidi harris is where this rob top democratic strategist is here and also chris ny women republican strategist great to have all of you with us chris i'll go to you first you know what do these statements from the president of the united states do what do you see the upside of all of this rhetoric coming from the president these threats from the united states president well it sets a tone as to what north korea can expect i think that the president's trying to communicate directly to the leader about what u.s. war powers capable of doing and what they will do i agree earlier with the ambassador richardson about laird diplomacy i think using this sort of aggression in words could be useful if the u.s. diplomats can earn their money and start to leverage that during their negotiations . last night on this program i had former congressman alan grayson i asked him the question about can the president legally do this here's his response. no he's the

commander in chief and congress has the authority to declare war but in his case he doesn't seem to understand the basic principles of the constitution there is a madman on the loose with nuclear weapons and in addition to that kim jong il also has them that mad men is our president i don't think the president would think twice about using nuclear weapons against north korea rob job why does it take a former congressman to say that whereas the debate on the authority to hit north korea well let's look at history for a second and go back to the cuban missile crisis it was kind of a flip flop we had a more level headed president with john f. kennedy but we had curtis lemay on the joint chiefs of staff who wanted to bomb russia he wanted to bomb cuba we had henry kissinger who wanted to have a limited nuclear war not not too early before all that in europe so there is always going to be differing opinions i think yes trump is the president but there

are a lot of level heads on the joint chiefs of staff his chief of staff his national security adviser and i think we're all being a little too alarmist right now is not walking around with well wait a minute all of that and now rob rob on that moment double death yeah i know that i know you're not defending trump but the fact is that mattis backed up what the president said yesterday. a couple of days ago heidi your thoughts on that i mean are they speaking with one voice. well i don't think our troops declare war on anybody he's just saying if you started with us you started with our territories we're going to come back at you that's all he's saying it doesn't need to go to congress for that and general mattis made a great point and i'm paraphrasing he basically said if north korea wants to put their people in danger you know that's what they're going to do and it's nice to hear some tough talk for a change john kerry never said anything like that we're not threatening north korea we're just saying hey don't start it we can defend ourselves and it's kind of refreshing i got to be honest with you nobody wants war with north korea nobody

wants that but at least we're willing to stand up and do something about it if they started with us. tonight is the president saying about today go ahead go ahead go ahead i just it's funny to me because look i think trump is incredibly bombastic with this but conversely when obama dealt with foreign policy in many situations like this almost eighty percent of the press both sides called him feckless so what do we want. oh well president obama let me have. well that is certainly are you able. i guess i look at this chris. the president came out today did he help himself this was really the first give and take he said with the media since february why did he do it with his poll numbers falling that everything do with it why do you think that the president is his communication style something that i really i can't explain and i do think that there's some benefit to being

a little bit more calibrated about the way you go about some of these things but the fact is you know having served in a war in iraq you know i think we need to be careful and cautious which we've been but there's nothing's really changed jeremy north korea is a problem and the alan grayson comment it's kind of like well first of all there's already a war resolution there's already we're going on whatever you have these partisan people coming out there they hate donald trump more than they hate our enemies so we have to discredit that but i do think that my takeaway here today is allowing the tough talk of the president having our diplomats leverage that to say look he means business let's get some negotiations going on let's make some concessions and don't mention guam again well i thought today the president gave more clarity than he's given in a number of months on a number of different issues says he's not going to fire mauler he's not upset with sessions anyone see investigations that get over heidi did the falling poll numbers have something to do with the president all of a sudden go on give and take with the media. well i think when you look at the poll

numbers seventy six percent of the people who voted him in still love him and all the people i talk to republicans are still happy with him and when something doesn't get done they don't blame him they blame congress i think what donald trump does as a communicator is he takes his message to the people and it drives the press crazy when he has these press conferences or does anything that reaches out to people rallies twitter all that kind of stuff because they're used to being able to control the message and they can't but whenever donald charcoals write to the people and talk directly to them and it's edited that's when he's at his best ok well look here's what he said about collusion with russia today you brought that up here it is everybody said there's no collusion you look at the councils and come in we have a senate hearing we have judiciary we have intelligence so we have a house hearing and everybody walks out even the enemies they said oh well there's no collusion this go collusion so they're investigating something that never happened there was no collusion between us and russia rob

job you got the last word did he help himself today. you know it's hard to say what trump is doing when he gives these press conferences because it was beneficial for him to get out in front of the press and in front of the country and and address issues but then he only shoots himself in the foot at one point with the comments about russia he shouldn't mention certain things but that's like saying the sun shouldn't come out it's these things are going to happen so i think it's best that he did come forth and give himself some exposure because he also unblocked me on twitter so something good's happening. i mean that's how he heiress rob tab chris de wayne great to have you with us tonight thanks so much thank the president picked another fight with a top congressional leader today this time senate majority leader mitch mcconnell came under the president's twitter crosshairs president trump urged mitch mcconnell to get back to work and pass the repeal and replace of obamacare alongside tax cuts

and it infrastructure bill the president called mcconnell's future leadership of the senate g.o.p. into question if he failed to pass the legislation but he said to me get to work and let's get it done they should have had this last one done it was by one vote for a thing like that to happen is a disgrace and frankly if it should happen i'll tell you what if he doesn't get it repealed and replaced on it if he doesn't get taxes done meaning cuts and reforms and if he does he get a very easy would to get done infrastructure he doesn't get them done you could this be the equation. there it is basically that means is this place. john mccain unveiled a new strategy for american forces in afghanistan today the senator said i'm eric in strategy was adrift and criticize what the president called what president

obama's don't lose strategy is what he termed it as mccoy. jane advocated increasing u.s. troop numbers but left out exactly how many additional soldiers would be needed the plan also calls for afghanistan military to be benchmarks to ensure american military assistance in removing restrictions on targeting the taliban and other terrorist groups mccain will bring his plan as an amendment to the annual defense policy bill meanwhile the president addressed why the administration has been dragging its feet on a revamped afghanistan policy it's a very big decision for me i took over a mess and we're going to. make it a lot less messy but that has been a place seventeen years a long discourse i read in one of your columns and frankly. it's going to be a decision that's going to be made versa and. a pentagon audit accuses

a british contractor in afghanistan of wasting millions of dollars and taxpayers' money artie's on a stasi a churkin has more. this was revealed by a lead us to audit however somehow no no questions were asked on this case previously and now of course this is going to be unraveling and more are going to be demanded now some of the questionable items are quite really quite fascinating they include seven luxury cars from up porches to all for males to a bentley to an aston martin and a ladder over new century consulting was unable to provide adequate documentation to neither justified a need for a luxury item of bills nor verified to use was in accordance with contract regulations as an example and c.c. admitted to using the cars during non-working hours without keeping adequate records of didn't work use now also highlighted by this audit the approximately four hundred twenty thousand dollars each in salaries to was being described as

significant others for working as executive assistants however not providing any kind of details in terms of what this work was exactly also the audit brings into the light about fifteen hundred dollars spent on alcohol forty two thousand dollars spent on automatic weapons as well as personal travel expenses now the british contractor in question has said to media outlets that these assessments are unfair and inaccurate we've also reached out for more detail for commentary obviously we'll update if we hear back now we have to keep in mind that this particular audit focuses on the years of from two thousand and eight to twenty they're seen and all of this has come out into the spotlight but we do know that there is more auditing going on in terms of what in terms of the years that followed so certainly more is expected to be revealed then and we have to of course keep in mind that this is far from the first time when the issue of contractor spending as well as the fish and seat of those training afghan forces on the ground comes into the spotlight to

prove graham remains trouble just last month special inspector general for reconstruction who pretty because of a lack of performance metrics you. it's almost impossible to assess whether the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the mentoring and training programs were effective while all of this is now being highlighted when of course the trumpet ministration is considering its steps in afghanistan moving further so really it seems that there is quite a little bit to reconsider. and finally tonight artie's on your part until sat down with pink floyd front man roger waters this week waters spoke on everything politics to the mainstream media to president donald trump. but in fact that is where we're living now where propaganda is more important than fact it's far more a book and is a huge news story about this whole thing about fake news is that people have understood. the truth facts philosophy knowledge is tree

education none of these things for him poor in order to retain a position of power you need to be really good propaganda you need to be really good at telling big lies often and loud and the last thing that you will in the mainstream major is anybody shining actual real light on anything so people who are who who actually care about the predicament of the human race or about the future of this small planet or about their fellow human beings and if they're being oppressed to kill durant or any or anything like that it's best to keep them out of the way because they may. interfere with the general narrative the white house is an edifice symbolic of the function of government which now seems to be to protect . the tiny elite of very very very wealthy man who actually run this country

and the corporations who profit from the policies that are meaty doubt by the congress that is bought and paid for by the donors who were given. the liberties to make those donations by the supreme court in citizens united which is one of the most regressive pieces. of trade. found its way into this into society since the second world war. roger waters here on r t with on your part phil and that is our news tonight follow me on twitter at news where they had like me on the facebook page we got. the r.t.e. newsroom have a great weekend we'll see back here next week. yes

. i think the average viewer just after watching a couple of segments understands that we're telling stories that our critics can't tell me 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 artie'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 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 we can you know what they're working.