war in afghanistan over to a mercenary army much like blackwater plus every day we wake up wonder and whether he'll get us into a nuclear war started on twitter to discuss these issues and much more i spoke with one of the best known peace activists in america the co-founder of code pink medea benjamin here's our conversation. but there thanks for joining me good to be with you leaving for being there so you just got done with a vigil at the white house around the topic of north korea and our increased i don't know nearly declarations of war that seems to be trump seems to be tweeting out. it seems to be a cycle where every couple years they go we really have to deal with north korea we got and they start getting america you know revved up for some kind of bomb and you were just over there what what what are the people there think should be done what do you think should be done well i was just in south korea but i was in north korea before that in twenty fifteen and people are really worried now with donald trump

they say it was bad enough but now having this crazy the unpredictable guy in the white house who is so antagonistic and provocative they really worry about that the call for fire and fury like the world has never seen before has made some people take notice which is why we had our twenty four hour vigil in front of the white house but i certainly think it is a scary time but it's also an opportunity to say let's deal with this issue not with fire and fury right now i'm atlee obviously let's deal with it by finally sitting down and having real negotiations you know what they're calling for in china and south korean government has said they're they're open to that and the north koreans two years ago and said they're open to that which is a freeze on the testing of nuclear weapons and missiles in

exchange for a u.s. south korean freeze on military exercises also known as war games but to many in north korea they're not seen as games they're seen as preparation for an invasion and so that idea for a freeze for freeze is something we should push. and speaking of a nuclear freeze let's move on to iran for a minute another country that we recently have been told by our mainstream media oh we got a deal with them and we want to know and trump says it's the worst deal he's ever seen or what not. to talk a little bit of iran the iran nuclear deal is the best thing barack obama ever did in terms of foreign policy and it has been working which is what donald trump hates because he wants to say it's not working wants to get out of it so he can open up the option of some kind of military intervention which would be absolutely

catastrophic but to hear him say i mean one thing is to think that there's probably people in the administration that want to find an excuse to get rid of this deal he actually said it actually said we really don't want to have to certify this and we're looking for a way to not have to certify iran as being compliant with the nuclear deal so he is looking for a way to get out which doesn't mean to the end of the deal because there are other countries that are part of this agreement so what he also could be doing is trying to push north korea enough so that they will back out of the deal and there are certainly plenty of hardliners in north korea that never liked the deal that said we should go full steam ahead and do our get our nuclear weapon and that's our guarantee to not be invaded so. donald trump is really making trouble where there hasn't been trouble where there's been a great example of the nuclear deal and so we've been saying around south korea north korea to say do what we did the hard work of diplomacy around iran do the

same thing around north korea and don't mess up the iran deal and a little dude run his campaign saying that iran deal was a terrible deal and everything he also ran saying we shouldn't be in all these other countries and you know i'm going to withdraw our troops and. and you know he ran in a in a way as a more peaceful candidate or something now it was all crap it was it was just rhetoric but now it seems that the apparatus or military apparatus has kind of gotten him to go the other direction and you know he since he doesn't seem to understand the stuff i guess he goes where the where the generals direct him is that what you think's going on oh yeah on the one hand perhaps his supporters would be supportive of him being the ultimate dealmaker and saying ok we made the iran deal better you know whatever let him make something up and we're going to make the

real ultimate deal with north korea and when that be great and i'd say that would be wonderful on the other hand as you say there are people in his administration that are gunning for a war with iran and with north korea and that and we could have two nuclear wars under this president and have been putting people in place to who are opposed to iran and so i think it could go either way which is why i think it's an important thing that we revived the anti-war movement you know we had this movement under bush where we could get out hundreds of thousands of people in the street we need that now to say we don't want to go to the third world war will want to nuclear war i mean there's never a moment we're not at war it seems in one country or another afghanistan continues to go on and and you know i put a lot of the fault on our media for their constant jingoism and rob rob rob for every i mean the only time i saw those media and i get why they're critical of

trump they should be critical of the only time i saw them cheering for trump moster you know i'm not not pox news but c.n.n. m.s.m. he was when he started bombing syria it was just so ready to use the mother of all bombs in afghanistan as well general or weapons deals massive weapons deals with was saudi arabia which i want to get to now from trouble in. to saudi arabia and he until are certain stood there alongside of the royal family as they said iran doesn't have democracy and they don't. support terrorism while their stated were saudi arabia where no run just had its elections and reelected a moderate and saudis don't even bother to have elections talk a little about the weapons deal and what's going on so the river will you know which weapons deal their weapons deal do not only weapons deal they were under obama a lot forty two to saudi arabia so this is not something new but. trump wants to take it to new levels and sign just extraordinary weapons sales to saudi arabia

now there has been for the first time really some pushback in congress and maybe because it's trump and not obama there are many democrats who are now saying well maybe we should stop this they're also looking at the catastrophic results in yemen from the saudi bombing campaign and saying maybe we should step back and so the deals are going through we are continuing to arm this government that is not only destroying the neighboring country of yemen but also internally and leave this is something you don't hear about in the news at all where you don't hear much about yemen but yemen but also there i don't want to mispronounce the name of the town but they're destroying what was she you know protestors are right so the eastern part of saudi arabia is the shia part it's a majority sunni country the eastern part also happens to be the very rich part the sunni's have been constantly discriminated against in education and employment in

religious practices and so they have been constant rebellions for the most part piece were rebellions but sometimes a small number of people with arms so the saudi military use that as an excuse to go into and mia and they are destroying that town it's a town of about thirty thousand people they've been holding it under siege since may two. and majority of people have fled and there are deaths there is tremendous destruction there is tremendous fear and we're glad to be able to talk about it here but it's not getting any coverage in the mainstream press talk about you know why does saudi arabia want to destroy yemen and you know it's the worst cholera outbreak almost ever maybe ever and famine and why are we helping them were we're helping increase this famine this is an internal dispute it should be an internal dispute inside yemen with a group called the who who are of a religious persuasion that's close to the shia and so the saudis

if they take control then we will have in iran friendly government on our border they see everything through the lens of their nemesis iran and so they went in there to help the other faction and they've been in there now for over two years and the bombing campaign has been targeting schools and hospitals clinics marketplaces weddings funerals thousands of civilians being killed but it's not just that it's there with the with the bombing of all these hospitals and facilities of health care there is not only the outbreak of cholera which is now a national emergency but there is a famine that a little bit of dehydration an oral rehydration would help these children survive but there's no clinics for them to go to anymore so every ten minutes there's a baby that's dying from hunger and you have over three thousand three hundred thousand people affected by cholera and we've been the u.s.

was like help stop shipments of food for the u.s. has helped stop shipments of food the u.s. is supporting the saudis in their blocking of shipments through this the main port of who died. the saudis destroyed. the cranes that bring in the humanitarian aid the u.s. shipped new cranes and the saudis haven't been willing to allow them to be placed and that's in addition to the us providing all the weapons refueling the airplanes in the air giving logistical support and so on. yes for the pretty horrible well let's move to a much more uplifting topic syria. syria is going grades everything's fine there no but you know again seem like trump might actually stand for. us kind of backing out of syria a little bit but then you know he started bombing them and the media rewarded them

and now it seems like that's the path forward on the one hand one positive thing if it's true it's been translating that they're going to stop the cia's program of supporting the rebel groups in syria but we have yet to see if that's true and of course the saudis and others are supporting them and the question is will they be able with the craziness is going on in u.s. politics to talk to the russians to come up with a deal to end the fighting in syria i think it becomes harder and harder as things like the most recent round of sanctions against russia was passed but it's absolutely necessary so you're against war in syria war in iran war in north korea war in afghanistan yemen iraq there's got to be someone that you you you really want to bomb what about russia. rug can you at least they'd congress just passed sanctions can you at least get behind some sort of you know statement that all

russians are evil and we need a hot war there sorry to disappoint you. not for bombing russia i think talks talks talks talks negotiate don't escalate those are the kind of things we need right now i wish we had a guy in the white house who really wanted to make deals and hopefully we can push him in that direction well and the one the one perhaps positive thing you can look at where trump is that he wanted to have friendly relations with one of the other major nuclear powers and armenia. you know frothing at the mouth to make sure the. doesn't happen do you are you ever shocked to learn something more our media drive towards war what i don't understand is the terms any more of who is left who is right for this conservative was there when it was this will mean in terms of interventionism it's all been turned topsy turvy but you know what it what it could possibly mean is that there are some people in the white house who understand that

the american people are sick and tired of war you know we've had this now for seventeen years and the since nine eleven polls show majority of people don't want war war so i think that's something the left and right could get together on against the hawks not only in the white house but congress in the majority of whom take money from the weapons industry and are beholden to the weapons manufacturers so we the people have to be the ones that talk some sense into our elected officials to get a little you've been doing this for a long time to go a little more substantial can humans evolve or do you think that's a poll i think we have to evolve tests where there's two x. essential threats to the survival of humankind and that's climate chaos and nuclear war and i think we want to survive as a species i think we have to find a way to survive and while there is more of a movement around the climate issues there's not enough of movement to stop war

because at this point any war could escalate to a nuclear war so yes i think we must evolve as a civilization to live in a time without war and the last question i know that a lot of my a lot of my viewers. hearing about their stuff their heart breaks they want to do something you. created code pink co-created code pink and it's you know one of the only protest moments here in d.c. that's in the face of congress people on a weekly basis and you're really on the ground. and it's so important that it's one of the only ones here in d.c. how can people get involved with code pink we need more people whether it's in d.c. or anywhere around the country this is the time to rebuild the anti-war movement we're launching a new campaign to divest from the war machine which will be very exciting people can contact us at code pink or or info it could or let's hope they don't make

us movements or legal like they're trying to do. yes yes hopefully we can stop that one but thank you so much for the thank you. for if you go to a quick break but i have a live comedy shows coming up in seattle and washington d.c. also you can now vote for your city to be added to the or you just go to redacted tor dot com it takes about thirty seconds to vote i'll be right back with more. i'm john harshman and i'll give you the mainstream media can't help big picture. and question. what you're looking to see. will go deeper investigate and debate all so you can get the big picture.

the american middle class has been railroaded by washington politics. big money for . a lot of boys that's how it is in the news culture in this country now that's where i come in. i'm michel. make sure you don't get railroaded if you'll get the straight talk and the straight. to. as. you're watching on our team america special report. this. is one that's. basically everything that you think you know about civil society has broken down.

there's always going to be somebody else one step ahead of the game. we should not be. the allies. we don't need people that think like this on our blog. this is an incredibly situated. welcome back so if you watch as you know a lot you know that i don't talk about fox news that much i i figure you know why would an adult talk to fellow adults about a show for children why would why would we spend our time on that but every once in a while i can't help but have to bring up fox news so here it is i was just eleven and something i saw on fox news. fox news weather alert for you and forecasters in the pacific northwest concerned about extreme heat in washington as well as oregon out with these temperatures

reaching the triple digits officials say conditions will be downright dangerous extreme heat downright dangerous triple digits this sounds. pretty serious i wonder i wonder if this report goes on until the mention oh i don't know climate change i wonder if they'll mention as they're talking about extreme heat as are talking about dangerous temperatures i wonder if they'll mention that our planet is heating up and we need to act as a sure. species come together in order to do something about it because it is destroying so many lives i wonder if they'll mention that i'll wonder if their mention that dad changing your light bulbs are not going to cut it ok not going to cut it we need to act as a group and do something like we did when world war two we changed our entire

industry of this country over what needed to be done to fight the nazis this is this is on that level i wonder if they're going to say that i wonder if they're spoiler no no they're not through the whole rest of that five minute ten minute report they never mention climate change global warming none of it in the tire thing well ok let's let's give them a little benefit of the doubt maybe that's because they're only talking about oregon and washington state being incredibly hot so it's a it's a small area of the country maybe that they're not talking about the rest of the country pull up the weather map take a look orange and red everywhere they heat the humidity especially in southern california we don't normally see that kind of humidity it's up as well a lot of fire danger across the result wow so countries on fire you're a whole map there that you do is that the whole thing with red countries on fire

but we will mention the science that's causing it. because we're fox news your home for the as it were fox news your home for not really mentioning the thing that everyone needs to be mentioning and talking about regularly every goddamn day won't just act like oh it's sure is there. here are some headlines just to give you an idea what fox news is ignoring here are some headlines from just this week south asia heat waves could make one point five billion people's homes on an average of all by twenty one hundred federal scientists report warns of dramatic impact over u.s. climate change white house reviewing new report that finds strong link between climate change and human activity

a climate report based on work conducted by scientists thirty federal agencies its conclusions about the far reaching damage already occurring already occurring already are covering from global warming government report finds drastic impact of climate change on us extreme weather could kill all hundred and fifty thousand people each year in europe by the end of the century say scientists hundreds of millions of people will be exposed to deadly weather those are a few of the headlines from their food. this week that was this week fox news. and then we have c.n.n. where we know all of this is going on both mention it for about three seconds every two years where you will will will slip it in there i don't remember the exact numbers but it is like a year ago they counted the number of times climate change was talked about on

c.n.n. n.b.c. c.b.s. all of them it was like ten it was like a hand fall about as much as they talked about. like. shirt collar for that week so how do they talk about how the fox to talk about how hot the country is without mentioning climate change what in god's name did they did they even know that report with water cannons are keeping the elephants cool but you really see these other things in the southwest you see the misters well they're actually now not only misters in arizona for example but there's mysteries all around portland as well around the zoo trying to help keep the animals and people at the zoo cool down and some are getting ice baths some of the animals there yeah not sure the misters are going to solve human extinction now it seems to be over the horizon. and we've got we've got misters now now apparently with those we have we have more of a miss misinformation but whom i said it hits you there with the mr missed joke

right i can't handle that can you fax news. the average get out of a server. doesn't that give you pause fox through the african elephants are merely collapsing in the heat that is pummeling washington state like that have clicked off some light bulb fox news might that mean something for our species aren't we kind of in a big do we hear a big resume that we have not taken care of that we've failed with math day in and c o two created. a system that is collapsing in a spiraling degree one system gloves as a system glass of the oceans acidify the coral reefs die now you know you not know any of this registering so considering we're facing record breaking temperatures largely due to manmade climate change what does the fox news recommend we do if

they're not going to climate change what do they at least recommend that. we do maybe we should completely change the way we live and factory farming maybe we should and you know or are of the everybody owning six cars and driving three of them to work maybe we should change the way our lives work so that we can continue to have a sustainable planet to ban massive change from our politicians tell us fox news all across the region in fact will start in the portland area as you mention the northwest getting some extreme heat up there in fact police officers in the portland area are doing what they don't normally do in this coming year that is basically going around doing weather checks doing hot weather check checking of people that normally were out in the streets maybe needing some housing helping them get into housing passing out bottled water so well as our world is facing ecological collapse well past have bottled water. bottled water for

a. little after thirty seconds. bottle water for the homeless. and insane the water that was stolen by nestle and then sold back to the people it was stolen from you know it takes seventeen million barrels of oil to make our bottled water each year fossil fuels it takes three bottles of water worth to make one bottle of water it takes thirty we are living in a completely unsustainable way and why are the people there the whole of people in the blistering heat or at all why are they homeless well turns out it's the same reason we have climate change the same reason that our bottled water is sold to us instead of clean readily available free water for everybody it's because we're living in a late stage capitalism in which every last resource is exploited the system is short term greedy so what will grab the money from those bottles of water and give

no concern to the fuel spent or the plastic waste or the water that's being stolen by nestle does it matter short term greedy we will collapse a system while we rake in the dough the habitat will be chopped down for farmland giving no concern for the habitat of wild animal or the need for trees that used to exist trees trees or our planet's longs and we're wiping them out the planet basically has emphysema but fox there is of course doesn't mention any of this they are almost literally sitting inside a house that's burning down and reporting it's quite warm and air it's warm over this rigid region of the house it's warm in the living room kitchen area very warm here you might want to stay inside and drink some water to stay hydrated there's a bottle of water as this house burns down we are sitting here arguing about nonsense and nonevents on our nightly news while the world burns. and

sang. that's our show but you get exclusive content by texting the word redacted to four four four nine nine nine goodnight to five.

would you have for breakfast yesterday why would you put those for the faces your wife or two dogs make like you neal and what's your biggest fear in a big moment a right was the last time to read a book you say if you ever met the things the best quarterback. that's one topic that doesn't belong in the piece now i could give you due to the question more. i've got to do just that if you're watching hard to see. her.