how did you do to question more. welcomed on contact today we discuss the uses and abuses of american history with historian eric foner if we want to have a public commemoration of history of or to be diverse enough to include the whole history not just the history that those in power want to remember. with chris hedges. history like most scholarly pursuits and academia is dominated by the banal and the trivial the montra of disinterested scholarship and the obsession with data collection add up as the historian howard zinn wrote to the fear that using our intelligence to further our moral ends is somehow improper academics are rewarded

for buttressing the ruling social structure producing heavy tomes on the ruling elites and ignoring the underlying social forces that have been the true engines of social and political change in the united states most academics are complicit in masking the inconvenient facts that tarnish the myth facts about genocide slavery class repression racism and the lies told by the ruling elites the mass media and powerful institutions to justify power historians who are apologist for the past are rewarded and promoted truth tellers are often marginalized this struggle to discern the truth of our past is being played out with the popular revolt against confederate monuments. joined today by professor eric foner the pulitzer prize winning historian and de witt clinton professor of history at columbia university he is one of the country's foremost scholars of american history and his first book free soil free labor free men the idiology of the republican party before the civil

war to his books on reconstruction and slaves. tom paine and the underground railroad has shattered the myths we tell ourselves about ourselves to shine a fierce and uncompromising light on our nation's past a past that informs our present his latest book is battles for freedom the use and abuse of american history thank you and i should add not only are you a brilliant historian but you can write which makes me wonder how you ever got into academia thank you thank you because i appreciate when i worked as a reporter at the new york times we used to say that. we manipulated facts they were facts they were verifiable facts but we could spin them any way we wanted to and i i think when i read your stuff that you would agree that that's also true about historians yeah in a lot of ways it is i mean we do we're not novelists we do not invent facts we

don't invent dialogue from the past you know that we leave that to the novelists who sometimes who very good job of it but you know one of the things a lot of people don't quite understand about the writing of history is history is the creation of the istari and in other words the narrative is is a product of your imagination the how you put the facts together how you choose what is a fact and so for almost any important subject in american history or any history there are many different interpretations out there and there's nothing unusual about that people have preconceptions they have different ideas of what's important and they care the history to their own interests and to the interests of their own time that they're writing in and as a result you come up with a lot of different histories which is partly what makes it interesting to study you make a couple points one is that any writing of history is grounded in the moment is responding to the contemporary moment but also you talk about you know what we might call the lie of omission what nietzsche calls creative forgetfulness that that.

amnesia i mean you say at one point that amnesia best describes america's official stance regarding slavery but it is what we omit that so much shapes our perception of ourselves and we're watching that now with the whole turmoil around confederate monuments in the south right call becker of the istari in the road you know that history is what the president chooses to remember. and then you choose to forget things too so yes when i was in high school i got a in my history textbooks a story of american history which was a very one dimensional it was all about the rise of freedom and liberty and all this kind of thing slavery was omitted almost entirely the general plight of african-americans and other non whites were pretty much omitted from the story so it was very partial it was very limited and that's the same thing with all the statues in the debate you just mentioned you know i'm not one of those as tear down

every single statue of every confederate all over the place but if you step back and look at the public presentation of history particularly in the south through these monuments and things. where the black people of the south where the monuments to lynching right where is the monument to slavery to begin with so the victims of slavery the monument to the victims of lynching the monument to the black leaders of reconstruction the first black senators and members of congress my view is as well as taking down some statues i think we need to put up others if we want to have a public commemoration of history it or to be diverse enough to include the whole history not just the history that those in power want us to remember you write in the book about how. this creates a kind of you quote low and a landscape of denial what do you mean by that well low in the james low and very good star and wrote

a book called lies across america which is exactly about monuments and the lack of monuments and those. exist what they what they say for example there was a monument that was now taken down it's sort of in limbo in new orleans to the white league which during reconstruction was a racist organization which had an uprising trying to our military yeah try to overthrow the government the biracial government of louisiana and there was a monument to the battle of liberty place and the marker on it said you know they gave us they tried to give us back our state well who was the us it's the white louisianans who could not come to terms with the fact that black people were exercising significant political power at the time. so that's a very warped that's a denial of the actual history of the period and there are many many monuments that suffer from that as low and then others have been pointing out in the book you write about an exhibit about the west in the smithsonian so it's coupled

with this landscape of denial this historical amnesia is a deification of in this case westward expansion that is a lie well you know as you well know the mythology of the west is deeply rooted in our culture whether it's in western movie is you know of which there are good zillion of them or the idea of the lone pioneer or you know and the sort of individual you know roughing it out in the west and of course basically the main lie there is that the west was kind of empty before white settlers and hunters and trappers and others farmers came from the east to settle it in fact the west has been populated forever and the real story of the west is the clash of all these different peoples native americans asians in california settlers coming in from the east. mexicans in the west is a very multicultural place there are

a lot of history is there. but many of those histories are kind of ignored or subordinated in this one story of the westward while you may go back and look at the particular world view of the artists in this case who are perpetuating that vision west and they are rabidly racist yeah that that exhibit at the smithsonian was actually meant to deconstruct so to speak the mythology and to preserve which it was attacked oh and that's the point i wrote about the controversy a many people don't want to hear it they don't want their mythology to be taken apart or complicated and so there was a lot of criticism of this of the smithsonian for challenging the more traditional view of western history the west is very is a multi-racial place and racism is certainly part of western history but you're not going to get that from a john wayne movie you're not going to get that from many of the real richard

slotkin yet right about the paintings by remington and others you not going to get that aspect of western history so but the problem is really not simply oh well this is not accurate or it's inadequate it's that that's a history which doesn't help you understand is not presents not true it's a myth right but in a way that's not even the worst thing about it the worst thing is that if you are that myth you can understand the present hilarious actos to give you that's right insight into the present and that history could not have produced the present we're envelop now in country that believe that just confused myth with history which means they can understand the present well there are i think in some ways our understanding of history has gotten a little more sophisticated over the over my fifty one is how such a place is like columbia. in the high schools textbooks but you're right about what you write about of the type of the rewriting of textbooks in texas yeah well texas

is a funny place and that leaves them in their own little corner yes. texas has this school board commission which vets the textbooks you could use in high school in texas and unless they had here to the idiology of that commission you're not going to get into the details white supremacy well it's a program federal it's only white supremacy it's limited you know it's current republicanism limited government deregulation that sort of thing and definitely has a strong white supremacist element to it but the texas market is gigantic i mean you know where was the problem with texas is that so many other states because it's strike and use those textbooks well that's a problem because a publisher is not going to say all right we're printing these books to texas but then we're going to print. other books for other states they don't do that they've got a text book if they have to modify it for texas that will be the way the text would go so i think that is

a problem in wouldn't you say that i mean look at with the rise of donald trump i mean isn't this based on a completely on a complete fatta sea of america who we are where we can isn't it well trump certainly as we have seen in the past few weeks appeals directly to those who have a particular view of what you might call a white supremacist view of of america of american history i wrote a little piece in the new york times questioning when he talked about our history the taking down statues is you know is ruining our his will who are the our who is that our it's a very limited group it's it's white people particularly it's for confederate people i'm not claiming that that trump is a neo nazi in and frankly he doesn't even have enough political ideas to be called in the sea but his general you know approaches to appeal to those elements of his base who are the most retrograde and so yes it does come with

a view of america and that and that goes back to what you call the cult of the lost cause about the civil war which is becomes vital to how these people perceive america perhaps you can talk about that well the lost cause was you know an idea developed mostly in the eighteen ninety's and then a little bit after that which glorified the confederacy romanticize slavery and basically tried to write slavery out of the history of the civil law even to the point where you're right that they will claim that there were blacks fighting i mean because of course figures like nathan bedford forrest his slaves with him there is there were no idea for the writer see but unfortunately if you go on the internet today you can find websites devoted to the blacks fighting in the confederacy but this is a myth. at the there were there was certainly blacks working in the army camps every army as you well know has all sorts of civilian people working for it whether

it's teamsters or laundress says or construction workers or many many other things and some people did bring this slaves along and the government impressed slaves to work for the but these are not soldiers the combat troops the number at the very end of the war like the last month the confederacy began putting a handful of black soldiers into the army around richmond when just before it fell but. but you know but yeah there's this mythology of the confederacy as a multi-cultural it becomes a way to deny that it was about was about. and this is a myth but unfortunately like many things on the internet you can find it even though it isn't it's out there and there are people who are propagating it all right when we come back we'll hear more from professor eric foner.

i'm to give you what the mainstream media can't the big picture. and when you question find what you're looking for. we'll go deeper investigate and debate all so you can get the big picture. just. if you're watching. the american middle class has been railroaded by washington politics. big money corporate interests. a lot of boys that's how it is in the news culture in this country now that's where i come in. all

make sure you don't get railroad you'll get the straight talk in the straight news . chris. welcome back to on contact let's get back to our conversation with professor eric foner author of battles for freedom the use and abuse of american history i want to talk about the nature of what it means to write history and you. say that there are three approaches to the writing of history the monumental the antiquarian and the critical. right well the monumental is the history that glorifies basically the nation state that is represented in monuments that do not question anything about the society and a lot of history is like that a lot of you know the rise of history as a discipline coincided with the rise of the nation state and every every nation

needs a kind of set of myths to justify its own existence that's why another of my favorite writers ernest or anon the french istari and wrote long ago the historian is the enemy of the nation he doesn't mean that they're spies or anything he comes along and takes apart the mythologies that are helping to underpin the legitimacy of the nation so monumental historian right but that's why people don't like them very often they don't want to hear these things ok antiquarian is what a lot of people are and that's fine they're looking for their personal routes they're looking for their family history they're going on ancestry dot com to find out where the d.n.a. came from that's not really history exactly they don't really have much of a historical context but it stimulates people to think about the past and then there's would need to call critical history or i also said the history that judges and condemns in other words it takes a model stance it doesn't just relate to facts it decide tells you what is good and

what is evil and a lot of stars don't quite like to do that but to me it's important it's important for the istari and having done the research having presented the history to say i look this is my here's where i stand in relation to all these important issues of our history and this you're reading this about howard zinn i wrote about zinn because certainly he was an example of what nature calls critical history his people's history of the united states you know has sold i don't know two million copies a more very influential book you know there are things wrong with that book as there are with almost any book but what i found as a teacher is i've had. many students good students whose interest in history was stimulated by how i think i told i taught it in a prison and it he is very cognizant of the african-american experience from the beginning when washington throws african american soldiers out of the continental army and end it electrified my students well it open the people

hope it opens their eyes they say wait a minute this is not what i was taught in high school i'm talking about college students see if this is not what i've heard this is a different view of america are the gory it's not the story of the powerful and it gets people interested to go and do more reading and do more research and you know how it was i knew him reasonably well he was a courageous guy he was a very. you know friendly and just open minded guy and nobody could accuse howard zinn of being like a foreign agent i mean if he was a pilot in world war two you know he's a middle american guy this guy was a homegrown american he was not some foreign idiology infiltrating into the united states well i think one of your you write an essay in there about bernie sanders saying let's you know it's tough talk about denmark let's talk about deb's yeah burning away and this came during the. campaign when bernie was trying to get the democratic nomination in two thousand and sixteen and yes someone asked him what do

you mean by democratic socialism he said well we should be like denmark and i just said you know bernie that's not know most people don't know anything about denmark and don't really care that much about denmark and more to the point as you said there is an indigenous american radical tradition that we ought to be identifying with whether it's frederick douglass eugene debs elizabeth cady stanton luther king jr those are the people who are trying to make america a better place and that's the tradition those others become sanitised they hang you talk about helen keller of committed socialists right now king is particularly king was a very radical god and yet every you know january. we always see is king up at the lincoln memorial rosena nine hundred sixty he rose in his one speech even one sentence you know i want my children to be judged you know by the content of their character not just the color of their skin that's not what the whole civil rights movement was about the king people forget he died leading a poor people's march leading a strike of sanitation workers he wasn't just out there talking about civil rights

he had moved to economic inequality as a fundamental issue and bernie picked that up and bernie should be saying hey i am following in a great american tradition of you you make a point about that i thought was very interesting and you talk about the practical politicians as opposed to the utopian social reformers and in particular the abolitionists who you said their first task was to destroy the conspiracy of silence by which political parties churches and other institutions sought to exclude slavery from public debate and then you go on and you say for most of the eight hundred fifty s. the first two years of the civil war lincoln widely considered the model of a pragmatic politician advocated a series of plans to end slavery gradual a mass of patient monetary compensation setting up colonies to send black african-americans out of the country to settle you call the harebrained scheme that

had no possibility of a nachman it was the abolitionists still viewed by some historians as irresponsible fanatics who put forward the program in a media and uncompensated end to slavery with black people becoming u.s. citizens that came to pass and that's pretty good writing. you know that's exactly right and i've written a lot about lincoln that's my time period the civil war reconstruction and yes. there's a whole lincoln industry out there i of contributed to it which seems like it has the absolute model of the practical politician but in fact lincoln's ideas were not practical at all what was. right about lincoln was he changed he was able to change when lincoln saw that his ideas were not working he moved to other ideas he wasn't stubborn he was a stuck in his ways he was not too prideful to say i was wrong you know the abolitionists who are generally considered absolutely fanatical impractical z. their policy came to be so that is. somewhere in there you know what is

possible would never have been possible and in your book other people had not asked for the impossible so it's this symbiotic connection between radical demand and practical implementation that i think we need to try to look for what you studied with hofstetter and he said american history was characterized by broad agreement on fundamentals particularly the virtues of individual liberty private property and capitals enterprise arguing an essence that the division that historians write about in american history are minor well he was associated very closely with what they called the consensus school which argued that there was an overriding consensus yes democrats versus whigs republicans versus democrats it's all kind of a family quarrel without any genuine serious disagreements and the other side of

that coin is the people who didn't have. serious disagreements a kind of fanatics there outside the mainstream or a phrase he used that became very prominent lately the paranoid style there's psychologically the reins to the someway and you know so that the people in consensus a normal and stable in the people criticizing from the outside a paranoid and irresponsible now hofstetter himself began to move away from that in the one nine hundred sixty s. when he saw the society forming a part in all of this turmoil and the consensus vision could not explain this if there's no disagreement in america why are hundreds of thousands of people in the street every weekend. so hostile to move beyond that but nonetheless that that consensus view certainly did have a strong hold on american till it does now doesn't it through i mean you talk about neo liberalism i think you get a zombie you know that no it's dead but still warm standard of still walking but that was that is our consensus well that's who was it fukuyama who said that's

right we've reached the end of history in other words there's nothing more to debate there's no more disc this disagreement about what the best form of society is from you know from the late eighty's maybe until two thousand and eight that was it neo liberalism whether democrat or republican didn't matter obama bush clinton reagan they were only and that was true i think hofstetter was writing about the early american history which was this lokki and deification of private property right but then you get to like to say how do you explain the civil war within a consensus point of view the only way to do that is with some is starting to say well it was all a big mistake you know the blundering generation the needless war it takes the fundamental issue of slavery sort of out of the out of the narrative but yeah there was this neo liberal consensus that was shattered by two thousand and eight the fed the little liberalism failed abysmally and we're still living in that wreckage it's the as i said it's

a zombie movement now because it's dead. still alive but nonetheless nothing really viable has come to take it's well it's i mean we're this moment of morbidity i want to read a quote. the search for a nonexistent objectivity has led us ironically into a particularly wreck regressive subjectivity that of the bystander which he condemns and i think you do yeah i mean i don't think the istari and objectivity is an interesting and often misunderstood word i tell my students what objectivity means is you have an open mind not an empty mind there is no person who doesn't have preconceptions values assumptions and you bring those to the study of history what it means to be objective is if you begin and countering evidence research that questions some of your assumptions you may have to change your mind you have to have an open mind in your encounters with the evidence but that doesn't mean you

don't take a stand did read the stance of the bystander is not the right thing you have an obligation if you have done all this study if you've done all this research if you understand key issues in american history better than most people just because you've done the research and they haven't you have an obligation as a citizen to speak up about it and to say ok i have studied all this here is my conclusion that doesn't mean everyone has to say oh you're right you're right i'm not going to think for myself but. we should not be bystanders we should be active citizens being a star into being an active citizen is not mutually contradictory well and that is what makes us and greatest obsession with thank you very much i was professor eric foner author of battle for freedom the use and abuse of american history. culture and literacy in our final stage of decline have been replaced with noisy diversions on empty cliches the roman statesman cicero inveighed against their ancient equivalent the arena cicero for as. honesty was hunted down and murdered

his severed head and his right hand nailed to the speaker's platform in the forum the roaring crowds were gleefully told he would never speak or write again we are infected with a toxic mindless cough anie our own version of spectacle and gladiator fights of bread and circus pumped out over the airwaves and endless cycles political life has fused into celebrity worship education is primarily folk a tional intellectuals' are cast out and despised artists cannot make a living few people read books thought has been banished especially at universities and colleges were timid hadn't seen careerists turn out academic drivel although tyranny because it needs no consent may successfully rule over foreign peoples hannah arendt wrote in the origins of totalitarianism it can stay in power only if

it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people and because ours have been destroyed the imbecilic utterings of our degraded culture is tweeted daily in sound bites from the oval office thank you for watching you can find us on our t. dot com slash on contact a c n x we. most people think just stand out in this business you need to be the first one on top of the story or the person with the loudest voice of the biggest read in truth to stand on the news this is just the dance the right questions and the right answers .

question. i do not know if the russian state hack into john podesta e-mails and gave them to wiki leaks but i do know barack obama's director of national intelligence has not provided credible to support his claims of russia i also know he perjured himself in a senate hearing three months before the revelations provided by edward snowden he denied the deep n.s.a. was carrying out wholesale surveillance of the us. the hyperventilating corporate media has once again proved to be an echo for government claims that cannot be verified you would have thought they would have learned something after serving as george w. bush's useful idiots in the lead up to the invasion of iraq. it is vitally important that the press remains rooted in a fact based universe especially when we enter an era when truth and fiction are

becoming indistinguishable from. all the world's a stage and all the news companies merely players but what kind of parties are into america playing r.t. america offers more artsy american personal. in many ways the news landscape is just like this either real news fake news good actors bad actors and in the end you could never hear on. so much parking all across the state all the world's a stage all the world's a stage and we are definitely a player. here's what people have been saying about redacted in the sixty's full on awesome for almost the only show i go out of my way to find you

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hello i'm tom hartman in portland oregon and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture the signs are everywhere so are we need nearing the end of capitalism and if so what comes next i'll ask a condom is richard wolffe a little later on in the program and donald trump did his best george w. bush him imitation today threatening countries he called the enemies of humanity with annihilation or extinction. when will we when will he show that kind of outrage about the fossil fuel companies that are literally in on the apocalypse i'll talk with us and doug christian it's politics. if donald trump is so dead set on fighting against the so-called enemies of

humanity then why is he filled his administration with people who are literally i mean the literally sending us down the road to apocalypse let's ask that i'd big picture politics. with me for tonight's panel are nick jay of us who is the militant the media reporter for the daily caller and political commentator doug christiansen and gentlemen welcome let's get started. so after calling for the annihilation of north korea and threatening iran with more or less the same donald trump closed his first speech at the united nations by calling on the world to make common cause against the quote enemies of humanity history is asking us whether we are up to the task our answer will be a redo all of will

a rediscovery of resolve and a rebirth of devotion we need to defeat the enemies of humanity and unlock the potential of life itself we are in the midst of a record breaking hurricane season and according to a new study from the scripps institute of oceanography there's a one in twenty chance that seventy three years from now the entire human race could be extinct as a consequence of climate change if donald trump wants to fight the enemies of humanity should he take it on the fossil fuel industry. none of you know not necessarily tom i think there are a lot more enemies to humanity i mean you could argue fossil fuels or corporations definitely there's evil in them but i think there are a lot of other enemies and rational state actors or irrational state actors that are causing american dismay i think that's why he was addressing it at the u.n.

because it fell under the umbrella of foreign nations. but if we're all dead isn't that sort of a moot point where they show me the proof they're all going to be dead i remember hollywood clamoring and saying well going to be underwater by now in the new york said you know hollywood florida they they harp on it quite a bit the day after tomorrow the simpsons was popular for poking fun at climate change and yet we're still here so i don't know i was not about sins or movies i'm sorry i actually listen to scientists nic and. the that's pretty strange and secondly you said you know where's the proof well you know there's no hundred percent proof here the science that came out of the scripps institute of oceanography which is not some liberal think tank this is one of the most highly respected scientific institutions in the world particularly with their guard to you know the state of our oceans and our atmosphere said that you know by twenty one hundred there's a one in twenty chance it's a five percent chance the human race will be all dead as

a concept you know if we don't do something now obviously if we do something now we can change those numbers but you know if we maintain the status quo that's that's one out of twenty if one out of twenty airplanes fell out of the sky would you ever get an airplane neck that if i needed to get somewhere and it was more important than those numbers yes i would i would continue to travel and i don't let things like that stop me but what i was making before was that there's been a lot of fear mongering over the last decade about climate change not just in reality with scientists but in the media and in hollywood as well and yet like i said we're still here so i think we're spending more time in this issue than is necessary that's what i fear monger in if the. drama based on science but i'm talking about the science here or you're serious if there's ten thousand airplanes in the air at any given moment if if if five percent of the five hundred airplanes crashed every single day all around the world you would still feel fine getting on an airplane tomorrow like i said if i had was or if i'd have surgery in california

or my life was on the line yeah i'd get on the plane but that doesn't happen and that's not and then you know proof that's happened with the climate i mean it doesn't really have to come down to that if we're all here or not all here. yeah ugh doug your thoughts yes does it does it mean that we have to wait until world dead before you believe in climate change nick no i don't think that's the case and i think that when you see these institutions that come out with these numbers some of them including the n.o.a.a. have been caught numbers to fit a political agenda and that's plain press is never fudging the roosevelts it's plain as day at the this is a political issue they've politicized that and this is what's coming out of it i don't think it's a political this is nothing political i really distance called science you up in the you open echo is it as if you all objects if you're going to talk about hurricanes and during the hurricane coverage c.n.n. and then descend b.c. couldn't stop talking about climate change even when there are people displaced from their homes being interviewed because the change was the engine climate change that's make liberation worse that's been politicized and it's over the top that

it's the no that's not all it takes is science there's a difference. no no no. no i mean no i mean seriously the thing is that it looks like they're like we're coming to a head in terms of their are we going to deal with this or are we not going to deal with it and the end the good news is that if we actually went and did work on alternative fuel sources it provides a it provides economic. incentives and growth and different ways of looking at this rather than looking at it as a zero sum game whereby if we just get rid of of fossil fuel that somehow we're going to hurt the economy i don't think that's the case ok i would just just for the record this is from the journal climate change which actually was written by scientists published by scientists peer reviewed by scientists and has no dispute the scientific community quote nearly thirty percent of the rise in global sea level between eight hundred eighty in two thousand and ten resulted from emissions

traced to the ninety largest carbon producers more than six percent of the rise in global sea level resulted from emissions traced to exxon mobil chevron and b.p. the three largest contributors this so anyway lead but let's move along as centrist as centrist republicans are hand-wringing about the cost of guaranteeing health care a human right to single every single human being in the united states the senate has just handed the war machine another big fat check on monday and passed the twenty seventeen version of the annual national defense authorization act the end the devil late this year the end of. sets the defense budget at a whopping seven hundred billion dollars an eighty billion dollar increase over next year over last year said that's almost double the cost of bernie sanders free college plan which is around forty seven billion this is exactly what this is exactly what republican president dwight d.

eisenhower warned us about in his one nine hundred fifty three cry. iron the speech every gun that he's made every warship launched every rocket fired signifies in the final scene a thing from those who hunger not those who are cold and are not going this world in arms is not spending money alone it is spending the sweat of its labors genius soviet scientists. obvious to the cost of one modern heavy bomber is that a modern brick school in more than thirty six. to electric power plant each serving eight pounds sixty some of the population it is to find fully equipped hospital it is some fifty miles of concrete. we pay for a single fighter plane with a happy million bushels of wheat we pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have more than

a thousand feet this is not a way of life at all in any two things under the cloud of threatening war it is humanity hanging from a cross of mine. so doug how come we can always find hundreds hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars for this gigantic war machine but every time we talk about improving the health the education the infrastructure the quality of life of average americans the republican party in particular even if you democrats start screaming to special interest doug it yes it all comes down to special interests tom i really does i mean it comes down to. really who who is get the ear of our congress and that is the defense industry. you know so nick are you going to agree with me and rand paul that this is rages or are you going down i'd say to courtney o'connell i'd like to say two quick things

on that tom one yes the military has been known to pentagon especially for massive waste money gone missing so there is something to be said i think the pentagon we should audit the pentagon we should audit the defense department to see where that money is going to let's let's think of the name of the panel let's think big picture and also see that for bernie sanders medicare for all plan would cost between one point four and two trillion dollars so when we look at that it may not be a big of a bridge is less responding right now well i argue a bold but i think it would be you know it is i think less than we're spending right now i think to so that sounds like a good deal i would think i don't i don't think it's out of the senate as we very happy about that other one point four trillion on top of everything else in the twenty trillion that we just surpassed on the debt is not on top of it's instead of but it's instead of instead of cycling your money through united health care so they can skim twenty percent off the top and give stephen j. hemsley another billion dollars he's already taken over a billion dollars in compensation this one c.e.o. of this one health insurance company if i never gave one damn vaccination on child welfare dark and with regard to defense like i said i think you can argue that you

know that there is fraud there is waste and that it needs to be be found out but at the same time we can go to form the other direction and swing the pendulum to where do we not need the military but then we'd be strong on the military if we had these accidental threats so i think there's a fine balance to be struck there and like i said i think it starts with audit and not just the defense department but all of government spending it's always corrupt there's always more money going out the back door than there is coming in so it shouldn't be the military across the board let's look at everything was whatever you have generalize like that you know always always always you you run into some risks and you could say look at the government do they do anything efficiently do that but they don't but it's just a fact go ahead. you're generalizing too much nic on this you really are i mean the thing is also when you look at that. military spending. let's put in comparison to just what we're spending in the state department maybe one percent of what we're

spending in the military and yet if you're a fiscal conservative you believe in getting the most for your money the state department provides way more for your money in terms of just dollar for dollar than the military does. doug we have to wrap it up in a bit to let me just add to that also social security has never missed a check since one nine hundred thirty three and we're going back into and their overhead is two percent medicare's overhead is one and a half percent it is possible you know government does do some things well but in any case go to a part of that didn't believe us it's great having both of you with us thank you so much for being with us here to see it tom thank you thanks joe. and coming up professor richard wolfe has some rather dramatic thoughts on the future of capitalism stick around.

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and welcome back continuing with our politics panel with dog and nick speaking on capitol hill today senate minority leader chuck schumer laid out as clearly as possible what would happen if republicans successfully force through the gramm cassady bill their latest and perhaps even cruelest attempt to appeal to repeal obamacare. will result in about seven hundred billion dollars in cuts to health care by two thousand and twenty seven it would cause millions to lose coverage millions it would radically restructure and deeply cut medicaid

would bring us back to the days when assurance companies could can discriminate against people with preexisting conditions it would get rid of the consumer protections that gives americans access to maternity care substance abuse prescription drugs and it would throw the individual markets into chaos resulting in fifteen million people losing coverage. this is this is amazing so we've got a few possibilities here for why and how this is apne is this happening because and i'll just toss these questions out and then we can have a conversation about it guys is this happening because the republican party is is so committed i mean we know that the health care lobby for the health insurance lobby excuse me the banks who call themselves health insurance companies the health the health insurance lobby and the big pharma lobby are two of the most powerful in washington d.c. so a is it because the republicans are simply bought out shills and maybe

a few of the democrats or b. is it because this whole libertarian philosophy that david koch espoused in one nine hundred eighty when he ran for vice president that the government should have no business at all in the health industry or in health period or in even helping keep americans healthy even though the general welfare of the people is mentioned in the preamble of the guy's decision the opening of article one section eight the closing of article such in one. section one or article one section eight the specific a numerated powers of the constitution is it so is it idle ideological number two following coke and the other libertarian or three is that that we've got a bunch of sociopaths who just don't give a damn about their fellow human beings doug what are your thoughts on well i don't think it's social sociopathic behavior but i do think that it's people that want to win at almost any cost i mean they're not looking at the price of what is going to happen by quote winning and really. being it would be nice if

washington had the people in washington had the ability to just step back for a moment and say is it worth the price to win on this or am i willing to lose right now i don't see that as a possibility. but how is how is causing millions of people to not have access to health care winning exactly it's not winning it's not winning it's winning only politically winning and that's with deaths the distinction i mean in that sense the voter is right when they say washington is removed from the needs of the voters which when you look i mean at first for some reason it has always been the case that reforming health care. is a positive or progressive way has been politically dangerous for i would say democrats and as a result i mean for some reason the republicans have been able to capitalize on

that and it gets back to tom franks book what's the matter with kansas that for some reason voters are willing to vote against their own interest well i mean germany has had a single payer health care system since eight hundred eighty eight if my memory is correct nick chivas what do you think are the reasons why the republicans are opposing this so i think doug makes a good point i said this a few weeks ago and you had me in studio on your show last time there is a certain mentality of let's be the first ones across the finish line so our bill is the one that gets passed and i think that's what you're seeing now is cassidy and grand i mean i don't think this is something that's going to going to work i mean even even when they propose a conservatives are skeptical liberals are skeptical and you need to work with the other party this is so massive that to do with the liberals that in the democrats there with obamacare and just ram it down the public's throat you'd be no better than what you were calling out for years on the campaign trail so i think they need to reach out this is too big to have one party rule just ram it through and i think

the opioid crisis plays i don't know if. you know a year it was over a year long process doing obamacare or there were forty or fifty hearings there were public hearings there were meetings all over the country. i don't know that there was any ramming through but ultimately the sort of venting. votes legislative that let's remember that they didn't go to conference on it when it took over a gigantic course for the economy so we have to just keep that alive because if you're a house by reconciliation they didn't get that but that's but that's neither here nor there that's that's then this is now so so here we've got these republicans who are opposed to this you're suggesting that it's not that they're they're in thrall to the literally millions of dollars that they're taking from the big insurance companies the drug companies and it's not that they're just you know they just don't like poor people or were average working people you think that this is just all politics they're just trying to notch their belt donald and well and the republicans well we actually we don't know what don you know we can't speak for don

but yeah i mean these this user politicians right and left this is what they are they live for this there's a huge amount of ego involved and if their name is a senator could be on a passage of a bill that ends up being in the history books as the health care reform bill i bet you bet your butt they're going to take it and they're going to try to do anything they can to get that passed including not working with the other party and not working on substance but but there is that there's no there's no you there's a lot of legislation there's a lot of legislation that nobody wants their name on it i mean you know separate but equal from from eight hundred ninety s. i mean the dred scott to say this legislation this is popular this isn't as controversial as that at the same time it won the election a lot of them are there because they promised to get this done so but nick a serious question to you and just a genuine on a serious question to you know how much of the republican base's opposition to obamacare do you think is coming out of real genuine information and how much of it is coming out of the you know this incredible misinformation campaign that was put in particular run while it was all being legislated and litigated and and has been

ever since i think it's real and i think it's big and i can speak with personal experience on that having been through the medical system the past five to ten years and seen its deterioration firsthand spoken with fellow patients spoken with doctors doctors who are retiring because the system puts them in handcuffs i mean this is something that needs to be changed. cross the board and i think the american people have voted for trump if they don't believe that. well i get that i mean my doctor has two people who do just paperwork in her office which is crazy there's a hospital in toronto that's virtually the identical size number of beds and size as i believe it is the einstein hospital in new york city einstein has an entire floor but does billing the hospital in toronto has one room with two people enter to do billing i mean that's how sky crazy these two systems are do they be american people are figuring this out nick i hope so because this kind of you know skit so way of going about it we're only putting one foot in one foot out i mean i'm not

a big government guy but if you're going to go go all the way do one or the other because this in-between is going to kill the country slowly and i think that if we at least all got on the same page in one direction of the other it be better than the slow crawl that we're doing right now into debt and nick i totally agree with you that's fantastic well you just. got it we had a wrap it up but that is a great one nick nick and doug thank you very much and that's the way it is tonight and don't forget democracy is not a spectator sport requires all of us get out there get active tag your. you're watching american or student more.

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bar graph it skewed the facts either talking at lefties talking at righties oh there you go above it all look at world artsy americans in the spotlight now frankly i have no idea how to classify it as that actually took me way more time than i care to admit. on the news tonight president trump addresses the united nations general assembly in condemns north korea and the iranian nuclear deal in a harsh terms and a seven point one magnitude earthquake strikes mexico city toppling buildings to the ground and killing at least seventy two people and senate republicans pushed hard in their last desperate attempt to repeal and replace obamacare despite resistance from both ends of the political spectrum. reporting tonight from washington d.c. you're watching the news on our team america. good

evening friends we start tonight at the united nations general assembly in new york city where president trump delivered his first formal address the president spoke in very direct terms and explained in an explicit manner calling out the faults of the united nations in directly addressing america's enemies top of the list was north korea and their leader kim jong un the united states has great strength and patients but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea. rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime the united states is ready willing and able but hopefully this will not be necessary that's what the united nations is all about that's what the united nations is

for let's see how they do iran was not far behind on the president's list of enemy nations president trump kept to his usual rhetoric criticizing the iran nuclear deal and iran's oppressive government to reign in government masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy it has turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence bloodshed and chaos the longest suffering victims of iran's leaders. are in fact its own people meanwhile defense secretary james mattis has been in conversations with south korean president moon jay in the two are considering reintroducing tactical nuclear weapons to the country despite protests from china and russia for more on all of this tonight

let's go to jack rice former cia agent and also michael maloof with us tonight former pentagon official gentlemen great to have you with us tonight i want to talk about this iranian nuclear deal first michael you for us there in the most recent interview secretary tillerson has given this evening he says that the sunset clause must change it's almost like that's the line in the sand and if it doesn't change there's going to be some problems is that a real possibility with the iranians i don't think so i think that again this speech was a lot of bluster and vintage trump i think in reality if the united states were to pull out it would you could actually create a system within the national security or within the u.n. security council because all of them voted for it and jack earlier today iranian officials were really chipping away at the credibility of the united states if they walk from this deal the walk from other deals would this be a big mistake it seems like trump was just so anxious to renegotiate everything.

yeah he really is and unfortunately we have to realize that it's the p five plus one everybody agreed not just the brits and the french the russians the chinese the americans if we pull out of this it's the entire world will be looking at the united states i agree that there are limitations and problems in fact you could expand upon this and it needs to be but to walk away from this deal in itself would be a a huge error at this point and jack what does it i mean do you think that the united nations got the message today about north korea i mean it was almost like street talk you know saying he's rocket man saying is on a suicide mission i mean i took it as if the president was saying our outlook folks this is what we're dealing with now what are you going to do about it how did you take it. well i think what's unfortunate is when i look at this i feel like there would have been some benefit to really a more statesman like approach than what we're seeing from the president at this point because we have seen that the secretary of defense has been very clear about

this even the president has earlier i think to to go into the street with it really may not actually give us the benefit that we want i agree some really straight talk some very clear points but we've made this point very very clear and again the sec def was really clear about this issue in the past and i think what we see around the world and specifically in asia right now with the japanese the south koreans even the chinese they know that this is ramping up and there's going to have to be some not just unilateral but multilateral moves michael maloof totally destroy north korea in my lifetime i've never heard a united states president talk like that i mean there is no choice in other words if there is a nuclear exchange we would have to he's insinuating that we would have to hit them with such unbelievable force that they would not be able to respond that's the only way to take care of this problem he's almost talking like kim jong un what do you make of it well i make of it is that he should have used that form to offer

a means of diplomacy rather than destruction has been going before a u.n. body whose mission is to try to resolve. issues peacefully and here he's calling for the destruction of an entire country not just the toppling of a regime but again he was looking at this at the entire that entire speech was one of looking at it through the prism of ideology rather than reality jack what did you make of the reaction that there wasn't a lot of reaction or press releases put out by u.n. diplomats today it was almost like they were taken aback i mean does this win friends and influence people how do you think in the long haul say let's take a look at the next twenty four forty eight hours what do you think the response is going to be. yeah i think it was a disaster when you look on the world stage i understand this plays with his base but we have to look at what it is that we're doing here this cannot be done unilaterally again he talked about doing this sitting down with the north koreans that doesn't work there has to be a much broader effort and if you think you're going to walk into a room with

a lighted on fire and then convince everybody to run inside with you it doesn't play that way and i think this president needs to understand that issue and simply shift i'm hoping he will do that he does have some smart people around them so i'm hoping that he realizes that issue because this simply is not working the way that it's working right now and michael what do you what do you think general mattis is talking about when he says that there are other military options even use the word secret what about that well i think he's definitely trying to put forth the the military option but we have not contrary to what nikki haley the u.s. ambassador to the u.n. has to say we have not exhausted all diplomatic approaches and that is something they should have used the u.n. forum to do today is is offer something positive that would be useful and rather than militarily. aggressive and insightful jack rice is there a chance as we've heard both china and russia talk about the need for

a diplomatic solution if the united states were to take a military response or interaction with north korea who's to say that russia and china wouldn think that is clearly the wrong thing to do and who knows where this is going do you fear that in any way at any level. you know and i'm petrified petrified of what this might mean we're looking at more than twenty five million people in seoul and the surrounding region we're looking at. twenty five or thirty million people in north korea and let's think about what the president says we could utterly destroy so we're talking what we're going to kill five or ten million people that's that's an american approach and the problem is what happens if that were to happen i mean obviously what it does not just with the north koreans and south koreans let's add the japanese let's add the chinese let's add the russians into this issue and you realize that this is something that's so much bigger than this one little country and when the americans start talking like that there is

a cost which we haven't even contemplated yet all right jack rice michael maloof gentlemen thanks for your time tonight the pentagon and russia once again are taking steps to coordinate on the battlefield in syria according to u.s. military officials de confliction zone communication broke down when u.s. backed fighters were hit by a syrian air strike the hotline will now be staffed by generals from both russia and american military forces meanwhile the russian defense ministry has accused the united states back coalition forces of resisting the syrian army during its operation to liberate there is or from isis despite resistance the syrian army continues to liberate the euphrates river valley from terrorists control. a massive earthquake struck central mexico early this afternoon the seven point one magnitude quake struck shortly after one pm local time toppling at least twenty

buildings and trapping dozens inside as of now over one hundred people are reportedly dead and the number is continually rising the disaster comes less than two weeks after an eight point one magnitude earthquake killed at least ninety people clean up and rescue efforts will continue in the days and weeks to follow. puerto rico is bracing for its second major hurricane in less than two weeks hurricane maria is expected to make land fall in puerto rico tomorrow the storm slammed into dominica overnight tearing roofs off homes officials said that the storm killed one person on the french territory of guadalupe for more we go live tonight to miami r.t. correspondent marina port in iowa for the latest marina. puerto rico's governor ricardo or a sello says hurricane maria may be the biggest and potentially most catastrophic storm to hit the u.s. territory in a century this comes as the island is still recovering from

a reported seventy thousand remain without power earlier today residents could be seen stocking up on gas water fuel and water boards to protect their homes would boards rather to protect their homes food is being rationed and people have lined up outside of evacuation centers forecasters have dubbed maria a monster storm currently packing one hundred sixty five mile per hour winds puerto rico's governor says this hurricane will be violent a lot of infrastructure will be lost and communications will likely be affected the three and a half million residents on the island have been advised to prepare to hunker down for up to ninety hours those living in flood and mudslide prone areas have been urged to evacuate to a shelter meanwhile many people displaced by irma are still sleeping in shelters the san juan airport is closing this evening and once winds reach fifty miles per hour first responders won't be able to help some puerto rico residents seem to be

on edge monday as maria moved closer to get into that and we already filled up the six hundred gallon tank of gas we've had this incident thank god we never used it we're looking for the panels to cover up the last stores that remain and protect the much chemical but what worries me most is having already gone through one another comes just after. president trump declared a state of emergency for puerto rico which authorizes the department of homeland security and fema to coordinate all disaster relief efforts now maria would be the first category four or five hurricane to make landfall in puerto rico in eighty five years meanwhile she's also the first category five to ever make landfall on the dominica maria hit the island overnight ripping roofs off buildings and homes including the official residence of dominica as prime minister roosevelt skerritt in a series of dire facebook posts mr the prime minister called areas wins and merciless

noting widespread devastation on the island he has pleaded for helicopter support from other countries to help rescue those buried under the rubble seventy three thousand people live in the former french and british colony as of this morning phone and internet signals appear to be down leaving dominica virtually isolated without communication this is as the island's airports and seaports remain in operable dominica economy is heavily dependent on tourism and agriculture two industries reportedly left in ruins by maria obviously a lot of anxious moments ahead marina portnoy thank you so much reporting tonight from miami turning to politics on capitol hill republicans are making a last ditch effort to save their political face and repeal and replace obamacare the sell job is intense and senators graham and cassidy are convinced sending more power to the states will begin to solve the health care problems in america both parties battled on the hill today in front of the cameras making their case to

voters you can go to your governor who will listen to you because they care about your vote if nothing else. i'm trying to take the money and power and washington and send it back closer to the patient if you believe government closer to the people is the best government why not health care and finally we know how this movie ends if we don't change. we're going to have a single payer health care system in this country that's going bust the budget and we're going to start rationing care like you've never seen the democrats claim the republicans are hiding the truth the insurance industry would be given the power to implement lifetime caps which would result in americans being dropped from their coverage tens of millions of people could well lose coverage people who desperately need essential services would lose it our republican colleagues don't seem to care about how this affects the average american that's why trump care the

previous trump care bills were so unpopular that's why this bill is so unpopular and that's why despite all their efforts they're struggling because their own senators know that the public dislikes this bill the politics of all of this is still pretty dicey for the republicans the big question tonight can they get the fifty votes for more on this let's go to our panel the same thing mitch caesar former florida state damned chair and also sean steele with us tonight former g.o.p. party chair from california gentlemen great to have you with us tonight sean let me start with you is this is this a political death run for the republicans if they are strike out over three how important are these days. actually i think this is the undead bill that was supposed to have been buried weeks ago it's coming back to my surprise a lot of pundits surprise i think to all of our surprises and here's the genius

behind it it looks like john mccain may be on board because lindsey graham is the one that's promoting it they're best friends so that trick alone if that gets the extra vote this can completely change the direction of obamacare and let's be clear about one thing most americans aren't affected by obamacare in the sense that there's only twenty million americans involved ten of them are mostly young people and most of them haven't even bought into obamacare it's a catastrophic failure in terms of a federal program but the idea of giving money directly to the states as a republican i'm not real thrilled about it but i'd much rather have fifty experiments than one bad experiment what do you think of the states a chance to do it mitch what do you think rand paul says ninety percent of this is still obamacare he says conservatives should be going for this and there are some holdouts what do you think. well i actually agree a little bit with rand paul in the fact that he's a no i think is as been said but i'll restate it the majority the american people

do favor obamacare they like preexisting condition coverage protection i think that it's going to be a very close vote on a purely political sense i agree with the previous speaker you may have mccain now because his buddies from south carolina lindsey's doing the bill but i think you'll still have you could have a one vote shift either way you may have a tie breaker by the vice president it could come down to that will be very close i think that the bipartisan effort has been stepped on by the white house and paul ryan because the president really wants to be able to go back to his supporters and say look what i did i think that bill still may emerge i don't buy into the nonsense that this is there any response to bernie sanders and gentlemen the big debate in all of this surrounds medicaid the fear for millions of americans is this legislation will eventually destroy a program americans have depended on since one nine hundred sixty five's will want to bring in brendan williams tonight he's the c.e.o.

of the new hampshire health care association and former state insurance commissioner of the state of washington brenda nice to have you with us tonight you have written extensively about how this is the beginning of the end of medicaid explained that well this bill does much more than simply repeal replace the affordable care act it's an attack upon the medicaid program that dates back to nine hundred sixty five it would cap traditional medicaid where states have received federal matching funds for their own contributions towards long term care as so this would have a dire effect upon millions of seniors and long term care settings throughout the united states that's why at least five republican governors are already onboard against this bill. sean what about the preexisting condition this is a big deal for americans in it also if this bill goes through it will give the insurance industry the power to drop people with lifetime caps i mean how are the

republicans going to sell that i get i disagree with both first of all i agree with you that preexisting care something that can't be trifled with most americans including people that are close to me think that it's a very big deal but you have fifty governors and then you have fifty legislatures that are get me back into decision of how to handle that and again if somebody in d.c. you don't like you don't have a choice but if you got fifty governors a lot of folks are going to be a lot closer to a governor than a president brand in the point of my good friends i have a decentralized brand in the point i'm making here is that if you get too sick in america you're going to get dropped in under obamacare that couldn't happen what about that how we're going to sell that. i think that's absolutely true and it also attacks the most frail and sick americans that there are and that is those in nursing homes in a long term care settings new hampshire has the nation's second oldest population

and we would see a loss of over four hundred million dollars in federal funding over the next ten years a lot of that money is going to go to lindsey graham south carolina his state gets over eight hundred million dollars additionally over the next ten years so any number of states get shafted including here in north dakota and i think it loses over two hundred million dollars over the next decade while certain states prosper under the graham cassidy bill so cesar how is this going to work this is given to local control and i think there's a parallel here without federal oversight we saw what local control did during a hurricane where there is you know no standards of care for the elderly last week and eight people died i mean these kinds of things have just can't be thrown off to the local folks and say here you go deal with this money how is this going to play . and i totally agree with you the problem is when you're going state to state i disagree with the previous speaker having fifty decision makers is that is crazy in

a national policy issues like health care what you're going to happen is remember every state can make their own decision what happens for example in new york versus new jersey a republican governor jersey democrat governor new york and new jersey decides we have reason we don't care about preexisting conditions people move to new york this is where the a.m.a. which is not a liberal group has come out against this bill is a describes the market and also says that it doesn't give the protection to the patient you can't have people in effect state or forum shopping and also it's a cop out to go to the states that's nonsense that way everybody can blame everybody else that's not how you put together health care for a country or a branded williams marriage cesar schoen steele gentlemen thanks for the conversation tonight we'll do it again thank you lots to talk about the senate has passed a defense bill above and beyond what the trump administration even requested the senate's version of the two thousand and eighteen national defense authorization act totals about seven hundred billion dollars r.t.c.

modo rosario has been following the bill and has the details tonight this is all ata money and as like you said it's a seven hundred billion dollars defense policy bill it's far beyond what the trump administration had requested and it really sets the tone for america's military might expect to see in the next fiscal year and now this twelve one hundred page bill sets aside about six hundred forty billion dollars for basic pentagon operations thirty seven billion more than trump requested it also adds another sixty billion for a special war account for overseas operations in places like iraq syria and afghanistan now the mammoth spending bill got mammoth bipartisan support in the senate eighty nine senators voted yea only eight voted nay now we needed just a simple majority to pass ok getting into the nitty gritty of the proposed national defense authorization act. one hundred forty one billion dollars is set aside for military personnel costs that includes a two point one percent true pay raise eight a half billion is for the u.s.

missile defense agency to defend against north korea while seven hundred five billion is for the israeli cooperative missile defense programs well more than what the trump administration requested there and another five hundred million will provide security assistance including weapons to ukraine and one hundred million to help balkan nations to quote deter russian aggression now in addition to spending allocations senators proposed hundreds of amendments they hoped would be passed and attached and da now most of them were left off but new hampshire democrat jeanne shaheen submit to ban the use of russian based because first the lab software across the federal government was attached and passed this comes a week after the trumpet ministration directed federal agencies to remove the software saying the risk is too great to ignore that the russian government could use the private company software as a backdoor into the u.s. government and more controversial amendments were left off the end day to promote

its passing but this will not be the final version it must be reconciled with the house version before heading to the president's desk the house passed its own plan in july in the two do have differences but while congress seems to agree on very little these days the national defense authorization act is seen as a must pass legislation and has been passed for fifty five straight years where it's going to run into trouble is with finances the house and senate versions both defy seaquest ration caps set in two thousand and eleven now democrats are against blowing the cap they just want to see caps on non-defense spending as well and they have pledged to block major increases in military spending without similar boost to domestic programs and the sticking point here though is that trump has made clear he aims to support the increase in military spending by slashing non-defense spending so we're going to see the house and the senate hammer this out over the next several months i don't think they'll be a lot of fights this is america. number one jobs program you know big numbers thanks to. the french capital is boosting security with

a bulletproof glass wall around the eiffel tower or to use paul of course tonight this is the world's most famous landmark the eiffel tower a symbol of paris and also a symbol of freedom and. but starting this week these metal barriers will be replaced with a bulletproof glass. to the children of more than twenty million euros this new gloss will wise some three nieces in mittens as the government's latest attempt to try and address the ongoing race but is france giving in to the threat of terror is the french government amid an ongoing state of emergency igniting. among parisians that the government is responding to try to make it seem more safe. but i also feel like the government at the same time is using these as measures to impede on

our privacy and our personal security in order to make it seem like it's more secure it's one hundred percent that the government doesn't like fear people and doing security measures that are over overbearing. mother was going to just carry to just come in i think that's just a way to keep pressure on people in these same bars makes me more afraid than anything like seeing the way this is structure right now makes me feel almost to come because of the barrier. to me it's more inviting to me it shows hey we're looking out for your protection but also we don't want you to feel like this is an enclosed environment i feel like we're getting a little bit paranoid about all the. things that are going on i feel like it starts with a wall here. people are afraid to leave their houses and their homes and and that's

not something we should root for so i feel like it would be a little paranoid to. their places me comes off to stink up her at times have a state of the costs she was placed moving two hundred people to the terrace place in the city's main and this little law school compliments i know we women and police spokesman they. want to see on t.v. how to. plan a final notes and i were pleased to tell all of you that are to america can now be seemed on direct t.v. channel three two one that's direct t.v. channel three twenty one thanks for watching i'm ed schultz reporting tonight from washington see back here with more. here's what people have been saying about rejecting the night of the sixty just pull on. the only show i go out of my way to find you know what it is that really packs a punch. yeah it is the john oliver of r t america is doing the same we are apparently

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new developments in the ongoing russian probe s. donald trump takes the world stage in new york at the u.n. general assembly what it all means on this edition of politic. politicking i'm larry king donald trump trying to new york this week for his u.n. debut as america's commander in chief this as there are new developments in the ongoing probe into russian meddling in the twenty sixteen u.s. election and allegations about from campaign collusion for the latest on what it all means i'm joined by david jolly former u.s. representative republican of florida he's in tampa and constitutional scholar and harvard law professor emeritus alan dershowitz he joins me via skype alan is also a bestselling author and his newest book is trumped up how criminalization of

political differences endangers democracy we start with you david the new york times reports that key white house lawyers who are at odds over cooperating with robert mohler what do you make of all of that. there's a lot of heat in the kitchen larry and listen as we have political debates as we continue to follow the developments of the current administration the reality is robert mueller and his team continue to do their work just in the last week we saw a grand jury testimony from paul mann a four spokes person and listen a prosecutor does not and panel a grand jury if they're not serious about what they're investigating this is not a political question that robert mueller is looking at that's left to congress that's left to elected officials this is a legal question a potentially a criminal question robert mueller is very good at his job and so that's why you're seeing the white house counsel and the president's private counsel at odds because they are under a lot of scrutiny right now now on what do you make about those to our lawyers can

differ what do you make the differences between the personal lawyer to the president and the white house lawyers well they have two very different interests the personal lawyer to the president wants to get all the evidence out there he's been assured by his client that no criminal acts of occurred and if that's the case of course you want everything to be turned over and complete cooperation assured in the investigation come to an end as soon as possible the white house counsel who doesn't represent mr donald trump who represents presidency of the united states doesn't want to establish a negative precedent for disclosure of material that might be covered by some kind of executive privilege and so it's important that the president have his own lawyer and that the united states government has its own lawyer because inevitably we're going to see some conflicts occur they occurred during the clinton white house they've occurred during other ministrations and so no surprise that occurs here which side is right. well they're both right in the say it's in the interest of

donald trump if he did nothing wrong to get all the information out there and the white house counsel may be right by saying it's in the best interests of the white house in general to reserve issues of privilege i think on balance it's better to provide the information if the personal counsel wants to provide it and if i were president trump's lawyer i would want to provide as much information and try to get this investigation behind us soon as possible at least get the president out of the gross errors of muller's investigation david dianne feinstein the senator from california says this investigation could go on for a movie year and a half to send some module you certainly could look at how the clint investigation started with the land deal in arkansas long evolved to the travel office at the white house and ultimately to whether or not the president committed perjury president clinton you know larry one of the things and i'd be interested allan agrees with this that the president should be worried about don again as

a white house counsel but also his personal counsel need to be worried about is all of the recent staff departures at the white house from rights previous to sean spicer frankly to steve bannon and others those loyalty oaths have somewhat evaporated and now they are looking out for their own interests not the president centrists and senator feinstein in the congressional investigations will be speaking to those recently departed staff members as well robert mueller very likely to find out what they know go back to the dismissal if you will of komi and that that oval office meeting where trump apparently said everybody get out and then had this conversation those are the moments that will be retold to senator feinstein as well as to muller's team. the crew that i think i've told my clients over and over again the one thing you don't do is fire people very close to you because if you're in a criminal investigation you know the first rule of committing crime in america is always commit crime with people more important than you are so you can turn them into. they can turn you in and inevitably feel right to get it out of court gail

yet out of jail courts free by turning on their voices the problem is sometimes these cooperating witnesses not only saying they compose they make up stories that are helpful to the prosecution in an effort to get immunity they oversell their story one of the reasons i was opposed to the appointment of special counsel and still am opposed to it is the american public has the right to know what russia did in this election the worst way of getting is through special counsel behind the closed doors of grand jury there should have been a bipartisan or nonpartisan nine eleven commission established to have open investigation about what the russians didn't didn't do and how to prevent them from doing it in the future it should be nonpartisan because the issue of russian collusion is not partisan but i don't think we're going to learn anything certainly not for a year or two and by that time who knows what the water will be under the bridge so i wish we had an open investigation maybe congress could do some of that but i

think you're not on four percent commission would have more credibility with the people at night it's a day than the former white house strategist steve benen said the firing of james komi was the biggest mistake in modern political history when you go off far. why i think it led to the appointment of robert muller and alan's point you have there are really two questions here what was the extent to which russia meddled in our election and congress should have a role in that i think i agree they should appoint an independent commission that takes the politics out of it but then there is a question of was there criminal activity was there collusion though that night might not be the perfect legal term was there coordination of some sort and that is what is currently being investigated i think banham was right listen trump made a lot of moves that only raise suspicion as opposed to knocking it down the big question where since tax returns doesn't that is one of the biggest questions right now that the president could settle whether or not he had dealings with russia or not whether any of his corporate entities had dealings with russia or not the

president if you will cooperate has led to the appointment i know where his tax returns are his tax returns are right now in the desk drawer robert mueller robin wright that's right good investigators will think he is the first he's going to do is go to the i.r.s. and subpoena the tax returns or you can get those by subpoena and i suspect somebody is going through those tax returns very very carefully the problem of course is that the tax returns probably show conductivity before he was president not while you was president and maybe even years before he became president and so that might not be as useful to lower if he's trying to really investigate the rush connection but you might find for example. that he has loans from russian oligarchs whose who are in. all of these are significant developments. are your boat had the president good had the president publicly had he publicly released

those tax returns had he not fired komi those are the moves that might have prevented a mall or appointment in my opinion they would trump announced that he would be ending the docket. immigration policy and now after meeting with top democrats he seems to support it what do you think when from philosophy is told those eight hundred thousand people look i think it's clear in the day sense he has said he supports doc and this shows the division between the president and congressional republicans the president should have had a press conference with paul ryan and mitch mcconnell same we're going to end this through executive action and instead we're going to do it through a legislative process and look at when i served in congress i oppose what president obama did there were four executive orders on immigration that i thought he overreached the constitution says the president's job is to ensure that the law is faithfully executed in the law is one that says if you're here without proper legal status you are eligible for deportation president obama used executive action to

delay that i think it's the right policy to delay that and to create a pathway for those who have come here those dreamers if you will it does it within congress's purview the president just acted too brash rationally on this he should have done in coordination with the hill to have a long term solution for the dreamers alan britt with rod news says the trump is being rolled by chuck schumer and nancy pelosi you believe that well i can gradually all three of them were sitting down together and trying to work at a reasonable compromise good piece i think it was in the hill saying president trump says he has a big heart and if he has a big heart he should announce that if congress doesn't work out something for the dreamers that you will make sure that they're not deported and i don't know whether you read my piece or not but shortly after that he made a similar announcement set down our grass i'm very pleased whenever i see republicans you know they were great and congress and you know used to do that

a lot and the best congress the best senators and the best presidents do that a lot so i want to encourage a republican president sit down with democratic leaders it's a good thing you agree david. yet so larry this is kind of the tragedy of donald trump if you will if you set aside all the rhetoric everything we've seen in the past eighteen months a lot of mainstream republicans who are looking for a candidate to bring the party back from the tea party of two thousand and ten frankly that could have been donald trump on paper this is a person without real conservative convictions he should have had nancy pelosi and chuck schumer to the white house on the night of his inauguration and said let's get deals done and steady created this division for the past six months of his administration so it's hard to believe who he is right now and it does look like he got rolled by democrat al he's all wrongs we're going to have oh he's an equal opportunity divider by. the bug republican among people in this white house staff. you know i think this is a this is been

a hard steep curve learning process i don't think any president has ever lost so many important staff members in so short a period of time you know as a as a loyal american a patriotic american i want to see our government always succeed and i'm hoping this is a learning process and we'll see better a better president and a more efficient president if he can work together with democrats and bring some positive resolution to tax reform to medical care for americans i'm hopeful. david you know one of those he knows the republicans on the other side and those who support him and you would probably know a lot of those who would have supported the movie shot someone on fifth avenue few think they will draw away from him if he gets closer to schumer and palosi. you know i think you're seeing some of that already these shots of people burning their their red hats at the end of the day though where do those people go and i

don't think they go anywhere except back to donald trump if bill clinton felt your pain donald trump felt your anger his base of thirty percent or so is still angry and donald trump is their vessel the question is those mainstream republicans that held their nose and still support of republican nominee do they begin to reconsider some of their reservations and say wait a minute this is a guy who despite what he does on twitter is now getting deals done in the fashion of say a john boehner used to try to do and so that will be interesting to see able to bring some of those people more on board that have had reservations in the past and i think we're. getting up there are people on the democrat side who are furious it below sea and schumer for doing this you know the radical wing of the democratic party doesn't want to see any any relationship they just want to see you know the trump presidency demolished and destroyed and i think both parties have an interest in moving toward the center the democrats made a terrible mistake by giving in too much to their radical wing the republicans did

the same thing early on with the tea party and i think it's in the interest of all americans to see both of our major parties move to of the center work with each other and marginalize the extremes on both parties congressman jolly alan dershowitz thank you both very much for your time. great to be with you larry edge of the break why one expert at north korea says he's starting to believe war with the roll nation may be inevitable that expert joins me to talk about his stay right there. about your sudden passing i phone lee just learned you were a south and taken your last to bang turn. caught up to us we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life

turned on each. but then my feeling started to change you talked about more like it was again still some more fun to feel those that didn't like to question our arc and i secretly promised to never be like it said one does not leave a funeral in the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one quite different to speak to now because there are no other takers. to claim that mainstream media has met its maker. you guys i made a professional is powerpoint to show you how artsy america fits into the greater media landscape our team is not all laughter all right but we are a solid alternative to the bullshit that we don't skew liberal or conservative and as you can see from his bar graph real it skew the facts and either the talking head left these talking head righties oh there you go above it all don't look at world r.t.

america is in the spotlight now every leon have no idea how to classify as and it actually took me way more time than i care to admit. all the feel we can come. here for the world experience. and you get it out of the old world. according to just. look at the modern world come along for the ride. you are going back to politicking as donald trump meets with counterparts this week in new york at the u.n. one topic sure to come up over and over again what to do about north korea and its

leaders ambition for a nuclear arsenal gordon chang is an expert on asia and north korea is a columnist for the daily beast and forbes dot com he's the author of nuclear showdown north korea takes on the world and he recently said he's starting to believe that war with that nation may be inevitable gordon joins me from new york what lends you to think that way gordon. i was a little bit unnerved by the war talk from senior administration officials this weekend so for instance we had h.r. mcmaster the national security advisor saying that the time for diplomacy was over and those comments were very similar to those from our u.n. ambassador nikki haley you know we've been hearing these comments about diplomacy you know forces on the table all of that and that's a concern but what also is a concern is what's coming out of north korea so for instance kim jong il the north

korean leader is talking these days about final victory that's code in north korea for taking over south korea and so obviously that sets up a confrontation with the united states and with others and there's a possibility and maybe even a probability that north korea will badly miscalculate as it tries to do that so events are not moving in the right direction and drug called can join moon rocket man. yeah and i hope he was not doing that just to get royalties from sir elton john. the other thing about this though is that north korea is allowed to fire rockets it's not allowed to fire missiles so president trump probably should have said missile man but in any event we get the idea of where he's going with these comments but gordon for either side would use daughter a nuclear weapon war is that this is pure insanity. of course it's

pure insanity and no one ever wants to start a war especially a nuclear weapons war when you know countries want their adversaries to submit and now we have a situation where the north koreans want to take over south korea the united states wants to defend it also we want to disarm north korea for various reasons so we have interests which are irreconcilable and to make this even worse of course north korea has two very powerful backers beijing and moscow so there is a confrontation brewing here and i don't know what the solution is and so therefore this is going to be difficult for the you know the international community for the united states to get through but we're not going to go and why about north korea and the you don't think they'd be insane enough to drop a bomb on us or on south korea and that's world war three that is world war three

but you know kim jong un when he's confident about his arsenal is going to probably try to blackmail the united states to ending our treaty with south korea getting our twenty eight thousand five hundred troops off the peninsula so that he can then go to work on saul and during the whole process with these threats you know we have seen what's happened in the past when countries have tried to do these things and so that's why i'm concerned not that you know either kim or trump wants a war i don't think that they do of course but they do want things which are incompatible at least from the other side's point of view and so things could get very difficult we know that the kim family has used violence to upset status quos that it found to be unacceptable the north koreans don't respect the united states so therefore there's a whole lot of room here for miscalculation. what is the actual role of china over north korea. well china high believe has overwhelming leverage over the north

koreans despite the obvious friction between chinese leaders and kim jong un and the reason is not only because china as you know accounts for more than ninety percent of north korea's two way trade supplies somewhere between a third and maybe forty five percent of north korea's food which is especially important because of the drought there now and there are a lot of other reasons but the most important thing is that beijing supplies confidence to the regime that it is safe from the united states and the international community and of beijing wanted to it could signal it no longer supported the weapons programs it could signal it no longer supported kim jong il and and i think that what would happen would be regime elements around kim would then head for the exits because you can see where beijing was going with this candy and night is states pressured china to do more oh absolutely so for instance the largest chinese banks have been laundering money for the north koreans including bank of china which was named in

a two thousand and sixteen un report for devising an operating a money laundering scheme for pyongyang that makes these banks extremely vulnerable that's a violation of u.s. law and the treasury secretary could declare them to be primary money laundering concerns basically that's a death sentence for a bank in today's world also we know that the chinese have been stealing hundreds of billions of dollars each year of u.s. intellectual property the u.s. trade representative has started an investigation that could end up in extraordinary remedies against the chinese and right now we know that the chinese political system is extremely steep phoner will because of the one thousand party congress which starts october eighteenth chinese leaders see jumping has to consolidate his control between now and then and that leaves him open to pressure from president trump what is russia want in this. i think you know russia has always been a spoiler and right now you know it sees an opportunity to bedevil the united

states it sees an opportunity to get some more favorable support from from beijing so you know russia is up to no good and i think that essentially you know put this much more interested in what he calls his near abroad which is you know crimea eastern ukraine the baltics you know western europe but nonetheless he does see an opportunity for russia to exert more influence on a situation which is obviously grabbing the world's attention and one of our relations with when the united states and south korea. this is one of the bright spots moons are you in who was elected president in that special election in early may he has a very sort of pro north korean view he's a north korea he's a korean nationalist wants to support really wants dialogue but president trump through some pretty clever diplomacy has been able to maneuver moon into

a much more traditional south korean position and so therefore there is not as much daylight between the positions of seoul and washington as many people including me feared but that was i think because of an extraordinary amount of effort on the part of the white house garden as always thank you very much thank you so much larry on monday president trump in israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu met in new york one topic they reportedly discuss is the iran nuclear deal which both leaders have universally criticized and promised to bring down meanwhile several friends reports say that members of former president barack obama's team are working behind the scenes to protect the deal and prevent the drums administrator from dismantling get less wind a few moments with courtney healy see the current spot of that t r t world she's covering the u.n. general assembly this week she joins me from new york what do you make of this. this move by former members of the obama administration to try to keep the deal

intact. well i think it's interesting because clearly it was they have their fingerprints on it it's their legacy and that it was the one point they said if that at least they had iran's nukes in check then they could move on towards other kinds of diplomatic solutions i mean i'd say the obama administration and the trend of ministration is very well aware that iran works on two different levels to mastic lee internationally and then also in terms of who they fund and what will that be three what what conflicts are involved in what we heard yesterday was that the trumpet ministration said on the sunday talk shows as the secretary of state rex tillerson said that iran is in technical compliance he said that they have one foot of one yard that's ok and what this really means is what they put in place for the nuclear deal iran's iran's agreement they're not violating that but they have

iranian revolutionary forces in syria they fund hezbollah fighters and what president trumpet his administration are saying is that they're not keeping up with the idea of the peace and security part they're not effort ng peaceful resolutions they are getting involved militarily but critics going to say that the u.s. and other countries are doing the same but what has the u.s. military is involved in syria as well but what clout of good the democratic vision should the obama administration possibly have with this administration it's unclear i mean trump just shifted alliances last week with this meeting with police and chuck schumer. you know he is now saying that he might actually engage and not disengage from the paris climate accords this backpedaling of rhetoric that we saw on the campaign trail and then what we're seeing this week at the u.n. g.a. which is president trump on the world stage president trump using the language is very very different than when he was talking to his constituents he's backing off

of being. intensely critical of the u.n. he was sitting with the u.n. security general saying we want reform they're talking about democracy but he's not using vulgar and critical words he's starting to try to use words that clearly his administration is trying to get him to use you think obama's part of the verb. obama is sort of having his own peace effort this week and i don't really know if the two sides will ever talk but i can tell you that the democrats in general will try to save any any accords including the iranian nuclear deal that they put in place or they believe in it and we are seeing the president is i wouldn't say falling in line but i would say adjusting his policies towards a more moderate few we're not seeing we're seeing well garrity on his twitter feed but we're not seeing it in what he's saying at the u.n.

for instance obama's former u.n. ambassador samantha power tweets it's hard to see how abandoning the iran deal doesn't lead to war is that grim assessment widely shared. i think that that's an assessment with the policy makers that were involved in the iran nuclear deal but i think what it does is it neglects to say that technically iran is the major player in syria and iraq as well that the u.s. is playing all sorts of sides with with iran right now that they are engaged in isis in northern iraq against isis in northern iraq with a sunni militias that ally with not only the iraqi government but with iran and that you have to get things done and against isis in syria you have to play nice with the russians and the iranians so to stick to just this nuclear deal obviously they don't want to dismantle it and someone like samantha power has skin in the game but i would say that that's slightly hysterical tones when we're actually

talking about two horrible conflicts and then the yemen conflict as well that iran has his fingerprints are all over and the u.s. usually is a saudi on so that he's a mean besides the iranian nuclear deal staying in place what secretary of state rex tillerson said is there's a whole lot to this relationship of the wrong that needs to be fixed on a security level and you'll see them talk about that more core nero's on the mark thanks for your time today thank you and thank you the audience for joining me on this edition of politicking remember you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politics gay ash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking. about your sudden passing i've only just learned you worry yourself and taken your last turn. your act caught up to you as we all knew it would i tell you i'm sorry

i could so i write these last words in hopes to put to rest these things that i never got off my chest. i remember when we first met my life turned on each breath . but then my feeling started to change you talked about war like it was again still some are fond of you those that didn't like to question our arcade and i secretly promised to never be like it said one does not leave a funeral the same as one enters the mind it's consumed with death this one different person i speak to now because there are no other takers. to blame that mainstream media has met its maker. i'm a trial lawyer i've spent countless hours before and through documents that tell the story about the ugly side of. corporate media written uses to talk about the

current partners around us i'm going to play a clear picture about how disturbing how cold blood corporate conduct has become a mob these are stories that no one else in a market story or a host of the american. west through. all the worlds and all the news companies merely players but what kind of part is r t america play party america offered more artsy america offers. in many ways news landscape is just like the freedom. real news big news good actors bad actors and in the end you could never you're all in. so much parking for all the world's a stage all the world's a stage all the world's

a stage and we are definitely a fly. to. the top diplomats of russia and the us meet in new york to discuss global conflicts and ongoing disputes between the two countries. and paris stop building a bulletproof glass globe all around the on full time but some say the measure only serves to increase public fear one hundred percent the government doesn't like fear people is just a way to keep the pressure on people feel like it would be a little paranoid to the. spanish security forces raided warehouses in catalonia seizing materials for an independence threat.