in any other state despite individual state rules and regulations or testing and licensing criteria so of course any such changes would need to be approved by congress and experts say that approving such a change would be difficult at best i'm going to be positive for today i'm glad he's put it out there we need the infrastructure good for the administration good for the president we'll get into more of these details archie correspondent ashley banks thank you so much. turning back to the day's big story this morning donald trump tweeted about infrastructure saying after after so stupidly spending seven trillion dollars in the middle east it's now time to start investing in our country and that's hard to argue with but now here to talk with us about the choices president trump has framed in that tweet his tweet is former pentagon official michael maloof michael it amazes me that he would do that because it seems to me that we're spending that and more and he's actually calling for some of this so

what are the numbers that we are spending in the middle east well it it's been at least seven trillion dollars six trillion dollars in iraq when you consider the out years alone for your veterans for your for the handicapped for dealing with families and this is for out to ten years that that some hasn't even been figured in yet that doesn't include afghanistan and afghanistan the still a slippery slope so seven trillion isn't even enough in our view no no not when you consider the out years because we would probably have already spent about two trillion in afghanistan we've been at it for sixteen years now he's increasing troop levels that means more supplies more more training plus you gotta. keep that government float in afghanistan otherwise u.s. influence in that area wanes so you mentioned supplies and training need seven trillion plus as you say over and over about another ten years ok remember the

everett dirksen quote right i mean sooner or later you're talking about real money sounds like real money what else are they spending this real money on michael other than supplies and troops i mean to their infrastructure over there you're going to have infrastructure we've had to be roads. schools keep water just to go in systems and in the rural areas and that is in in addition to having to deal with fighters from various clans that that don't want. any of that western influence in that region so it's really going to continue to be in an endless struggle for quite some time and that that seven trillion dollars michael does that include the veterans and what we're doing here at home it will yeah it has to it has to include them and their medical medical attention and and also the families and and taking care of those who have been. severely wounded over time and taking care of them and it really all adds up over a period of time i would say that if you combine afghanistan with with iraq we're

talking probably upwards of ten trillion dollars by the time it's all done that far exceeds what it would have cost for infrastructure that the president proposed. who are right and when you talk about when you look at the comparison between what we're spending here infrastructure we're spending over there and put it in a context what i report i heard in recent days over the weekend i think that iraq is now seeking and i don't know if it's from the u.n. but from international authorities the reports that additional funds to rebuild where in the world would that money come from well it may ultimately have to come from the united states if we don't want iran's influence to take over completely in iraq that is a major political concern and policy and strategic concern that the united states has from a strategic standpoint and so the u.s. has got to deal with that we not only iraq but we're going to have to also continue in and in afghanistan on top of all that. we haven't had

a budget in the defense department for at least two years and it's been under a sequester so there's been a cutoff and that's now been lifted at least for two more years and so there's going to have to be reloading the contingency funding that went in and on top of all that we've lost one point eight billion dollars here in recent days and we don't know where it went and when you when you invest in afghanistan a lot of that gets filtered away there's a lot of corruption in the country so and there's been studies by the by the inspector general of a specialized special inspector general on this he says the money's gone nobody knows where it went and this isn't a problem no i want to follow up on that one so last question though got about thirty seconds michael so the president said seven trillion dollars is stupid that we spend all that much you're saying no you actually need that to protect our security and more but what is the president done his budget request that's out

today he asked for more to that seven trillion that stupid or less well the seven trillion is going to be what has accumulated over time he's he's asking for almost another trillion dollars. but when you consider his new strategic defense posture plan which calls for more capital ships more updated nuclear weapons hypersonic aircraft it's going to be an incredible amount of money in order to compete with what the defense department perceives to be a continuing threat from both russia and china in their build ups love to have you back to talk about which your companies are going to make out on some of this former pentagon official michael thank you so much for being here thank you appreciate it and time now for a quick break but stick around because when we return u.s. trade frictions with china escalate and the riyadh ritz hotel reopens and for business and wells fargo's troubles you guessed it continue as we go to break here the numbers at the closing bell gold and silver were up in trading this morning as

usual in times of turbulence for stock investors take refuge in precious metals as a hedge against instability the weak dollar and a mild rebound in the oil prices are awful playing a role in this dynamic through the impression of growing the dollar has a. well washington's political elites chatter endlessly about memos the u.s. continues to deepen its role in the syrian proxy war of course there is no public debate about this and are the two koreas giving peace a chance. i. i think. most lawyers know me spokesmen came. to sniff the first thing in the room with this stuff which is this mission on

the new course is a. small apartment or. a little bit so up until just almost a trial of. saddam for us to gather some of them are serious. i. hate everybody i'm stephen bob. taft hollywood guy you know suspects every proud american first of all i'm just george bush and r.v. to say this is my buddy max the famous financial guru well just

a little bit different i'm not a. good one i know no one knows up with all the drama happening in our country and i'm shooting the good have fun meet every day americans. and clips we start to bridge the gap this is the great american people which. is the. but you also think of. that because. i think he needs a little dickinson said. last

week we reported and discussed in detail the truck administration's thirty percent tariff on solar panels that has panels coming into the united states china is the key importer of solar panels to the u.s. and their imports have dropped by more than fifty percent last year to six hundred twenty million dollars well china is now considering upping the trade war and has announced an investigation into the dumping of u.s. sorghum sorghum is the animal feed china imported more than one point one billion dollars worth of u.s. sorghum last year in the scheme of things these are small matters as the two nations the two largest economies in the world have bilateral goods trading of over

six hundred thirty six billion dollars each year although china enjoys a three hundred seventy five billion dollars trade surplus with the united states nevertheless the sorghum investigation by the chinese commerce ministry raises concern that more trade retaliation could be in the future watch this space particularly if china raises concerns about larger u.s. agricultural exports like soybeans beef or dairy products. and saudi officials are hoping to raise more than thirteen billion dollars by the end of the year in their settlement discussions with princes and high level moneyed interests who have been rounded up and holed up in the crowd. scandal last year and held in the ritz carlton hotel in riyadh which serves as a luxury jail the crackdown which witnessed hundreds of princes and businessmen and they were business men not women being held are now beginning to be released on

sunday the hotel open for business to the public today no details on any settlements have become available. and bad boy bank wells fargo is back again and they can't seem to get it right after years of wrongdoing the big bank has announced that they recently recently sent thirty eight thousand erroneous communications to customers that forced them to purchase unneeded auto insurance the bank has yet to begin to do their refund outreach on another misstep where as many as one hundred ten thousand customers were charged in appropriately for various mortgage related fees the bank said the auto insurance mistake was due to a quote coding error as many of you recall days ago boom bust reported and discussed in detail that you the u.s. federal reserve took the unusual step of restricting the bank's growth until it sufficiently improved its governance and controls. a new

study says there may be truly ns of planets beyond our galaxy it's a discovery scientists have been working on for years trinity charges as more scientists have long been unable to find planets outside of our solar system beyond the borders of the milky way because it's so incredibly difficult since these extra galactic galaxies are located some three point eight billion light years away they are simply too far to be observed directly not even with the best telescopes that exist but despite all the odds a new study gives the first that is that exoplanets do exist beyond the milky way using data from nasa shondra x. ray observatory space telescope and with the help of gravitational microlensing astro physicist at the university. oklahoma say that they found the first evidence that more than a trillion exoplanets could exist beyond our milky way dr ch'ien new an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the university and the leader of the new research said in a statement we are very excited about this discovery this is the first time anyone

has discovered planets outside of our galaxy these small planets are the best candidate for the signature we observed in the study using the microlensing technique we analyze the high frequency of the signature by modeling the data to determine the mass the researchers say that in this image alone it is estimated that there are trillions of planets in the center elliptical galaxy dr shen you threw a bottle. you. can still reach you about. war . where we've. got. one group. you can start so before. we load and. you can start opening. number one we wish you all of the study points out that oftentimes planets within the milky way are discovered using the same technique it wasn't until this study

that there has been any evidence of planets in other galaxies and why don't go to us a researcher on the study says that quote this is an example of how powerful the technique of analysis of extragalactic microlensing can be this galaxy is located three point eight billion light years away and there is not the slightest chance of observing these planets directly not even with the best telescope one can imagine in a science fiction scenario however we are able to study them unveil their presence and even have an idea of their masses this is very cool science while some experts are skeptical of the research dr sheerin you says that he hopes that other independent teams can confirm their analysis because after all that's how science works reporting in new york trinity chavez. and we continue to worry about puerto rico it's important for businesses it's important for economy and it's important for you know the people we're very pleased

to be joined by tabitha wallace from what we're watching the hawks who happens to have a lot of interest in to spend a lot of time on the telephone how far we've come on puerto rico since the hurricane not as far as as i feel like we should and what a lot of people feel we should on some of the instances we did collect a lot of things stateside and overseas to help the people in puerto rico but one of the biggest issues they've had is getting those things they're actually shipping items so that's been a huge thing we i was in orlando just last week and i spoke to the head of the hispanic office for learning and assistance and they take on people coming from puerto rico and sort of help them in the area and that was that was a big thing for them and so much stuff to give just no way to get it there yet you know my wife was down there recently and she said you know they do have power in most most places but at some places it's sporadic the hotels are open for business we covered some of that last week but what else do we know about how it's going i mean if simo said they were going to pull out then they said no we're not really

going to pull out we're going to stay there what else do we know about what's happening on the ground one of the biggest issues for people is as you said hotels are coming back online these kind of places are coming up but for a lot of the people that live in rural communities who work in those places those that those options aren't there a lot of the factories closing down there's a lot better than the other parts of the are right and a lot of that has to do with the fact that factories closed down places where people could work were closed down so one is power and one is having a job which is what the what is leaving some of them as evacuees to come to the united states because at this point it's actually easier for them to find a job say in orlando than it is for in puerto rico you know it. it seems to me that boy you know it's got to feel like a little bit of or maybe a lot of a gut punch if you're in puerto rican you're there you see how the resources have been going to texas and florida and even california with the mudslides you know for

gosh sakes the u.s. territory and this got to be sort of a barrelled bomber for them doesn't it it does and i think that's the hard part is that if these are people who hold the u.s. passports these are people who are american citizens they have been for a very long time and for them in having to either come as evacuees to the united states and the main goal for them is they want to get home they want to go back where they are and that's a problem we need to be able to help them because truthfully they're they're part of the united states they're american citizens and it's an island so we owe them even more help than anybody else because it's ten times harder for them to just get power up and running and i think that's where a lot of alternative energies are going to come in to play to help them out hopefully well i hope so i hope that they don't just do band-aid approaches and they do the longer term visionary stuff i'm doubtful about it but with solar renewables because it is difficult to get there tariff wall thank you so much for

sitting down with i really appreciate it. in the u.s. it's been the worst flu season in ten years now a japanese company says that they have developed a pill that can cure the flu within forty eight hours that is a third shorter time period than roche agee's ama flu quickly killing the flu can also mitigate contagion of course the company that has developed the one day flu pill is japanese firm shawn g. the japanese drug regulator is now fast tracking the drug through the clinical trials and the approval process and the company is expected to seek u.s. approval from the food and drug administration later this year other drug makers including johnson and johnson and astra zeneca are also endeavoring to devise a quicker flu pill in the meantime wash your hands a lot that's it for our broadcast today be sure to catch boom bust on you tube you

tube dot com slash boom bust r.t. see you next time. that's in american interests to not see any russians die in terrorist attacks as it is in russian interest to prevent any terrorist attacks in the united states or elsewhere in the world so i don't think there's any dispute on that in congress and i think maybe some of the posturing is frankly political as opposed to substantive . welcome to max hazard it is a survival guide. looking for two year that's the. yanks this is what happens to pensions in britain. as a report. if.

from. the from from. russia mourns the seventy one people who died in sunday's plane crash near moscow the passenger airliner came down just minutes after takeoff leaving no survivors. u.s. admits a part of the local forces it trains in syria is fleeing to join a conflict against a washington's ally turkey. and russian athletes secure their second medal at the winter olympics in south korea taking silver in team figure skating but some athletes have criticized the russians a medal winning performance. but you dot com has the details on those headlines and much more up next so if we go with some hard questions to the cia with the agency's former moscow station choose to.

come to sofia killing sophie shevardnadze dollar trump has locked horns with his own intelligence and law enforcement how damaging can the rift between the white house and the american intelligence get well i asked him a decade ca veteran groff larsen. the american spy agencies are mired in a public scandalous political cycle with the investigation of president trump putting them in an intense spotlight but his national fame review what an intelligence agency needs and the professionals at the cia and f.b.i. escape the polarization of politics that is the american public and will therefore in the end radically change the situation in the country. we're all follow it larsen former cia veteran his service in moscow section chief along other

politicians welcome to the show it's really great to have you with us. now well the american telling. community has been accused of being politicized many times in a bush heiress to politicians use it to justify iraq now the agencies are again the world of in a political scandal i know you pride yourself on your colleagues for being patry atsic nonpolitical but can you really be about politics in this line of work i mean that sounds kind of like fairytale almost i think it's a standard you have to strive for i've been a lifelong political independent for that reason that you outline that it's crucial for intelligence officers to be independent and objective and serve the country not just the president and the government but we are also all citizens now they. are taxpayer funded they have no private sector competition appointments there are made by politicians how can all that not be politicized. actually

the in the intelligence profession all of our officers are career professionals we spend our entire career inside the agency in my case i was undercover for my twenty three years in the cia living abroad for most of those years and frankly i really felt it was not that difficult to me maintain my impartiality and and i think you have to do that whether you're collecting information or analyzing your disseminating it which is this social mission of intelligence you have to maintain an ability to tell your policymakers the truth in other words speak truth to power so is it right for an intelligence professional to be vying for a high political office for instance the media in the u.s. are saying that director of the cia mike compare maybe replacing secretary of state rex tillerson saying is it steering too much into political territory. there is

always a healthy discussion about the idea of particularly former intelligence professionals getting involved in politics i personally don't agree with that and as a principle for the same reason for military officers getting involved in politics but peo was a representative who and often are cia directors or they are political appointees point he's and he's in a long line of cia directors who are political appointees and that is the way our system operates just like many of our ambassadors overseas are aligned politically always with the president so i don't find that worrisome or disturbing i think it's much more important that the the ranks of the intelligence officers remain professionalized how much freedom does cia have the means to sessions i mean for instance bush administration ran torture prisons and then obama came in and closed them the z. agency has the power to decide for itself whether it needs things like that and

whether it's ethical to. that's a great question sophia i feel the intelligence community has a good set of guidelines it starts with a given set of authorities we have in other words we can conduct certain activities are we call our mission without special authority for example the mission of espionage is a core intelligence mission of all intelligence services we can do that without seeking approval when we do something like interrogation or enhanced interrogation or have prisons that requires actually what we call a covert action finding that if you have requires a a finding from our department of justice that we can do that activity as well as some very strict legal guidelines that are laid out in writing for the agency to follow and at the times when we we run afoul of that when we when we are accused of crossing the line we're held accountable by whatever standard has been laid out by our department of justice and our other authorities that are above us now they

involve government agencies in this presidential election someone starting from the f.b.i. role in a clinton e-mail list now the trump investigation investigating both candidates and being quite public about it. it's unprecedented unprecedented isn't it i mean why has the intelligence community taken on this risible and political role this time around. i agree with you actually i find it very regrettable very concerned about the politicization of intelligence i do agree it's happening to some extent i think the f.b.i. and the cia are still very reliable organizations that that are following their their guidelines i still have complete trust and confidence in the organizations but you're right there's the questions do arise and it's because of the highly politicized nature of our domestic politics right now between the republicans or the democrats and between those who support the president those who don't support

the president so i agree it's a very concerning time and i think it's going to be a time when we in a way redefine our limits you know what is the proper role of the cia and the f.b.i. in the in our domestic affairs and we've learned in our history from the past that we should stay out of american politics and the house intelligence committee has released a republican numinous report which contains allegations that f.b.i. misled the judge in obtaining permission to spy on trump's presidential campaign this report has already been branded inaccurate and is a part of the blame game or is there some substance to this. personally i think it's the blame game that's my personal view the new paper in my view is a republican version of cherry picking the facts as they choose to present them and now i understand there's another version circulating the democratic version i frankly find that whole process to be regrown also not something i'm proud of as an

american i'd prefer to see both parties sit down this and discuss these things not in the public eye without declassifying or releasing classified information i think all of that is not something as an american citizen that i would endorser or say is a good thing and a specialist trumps election things haven't been like they used to be before like from what i understand about the american system the nation's foreign policy is largely decided in the white house and the state department and then there's a congress in the senate and they're more preoccupied with internal matters this time congress is so active in pushing its foreign policy vision on the president why. well i think that's true generally sophia and of course we also have the national security council and unlike russia and some other countries china and others that have a more continuity in foreign policy work and making we we don't do largely through

the political nature of our system we were in for a year cycles for a large a large part of that which is consumed with electioneering and campaigning i think that's a weakness of our system i still of course believe in the representative government idea that we that we sacrifice this continuity of stability in our policymaking but it is it is a vulnerability or a weakness and you can really see it right now because. largely because we are dealing with unprecedented issues that we've never had that considered we've never had such an aggressive intelligence attack if you will on the american democratic institutions and our and our election process that we just had in the previous election that has caused a great deal of this i think soul searching inside the u.s. so we've come now to the share of the trump russia story you said yourself there's no hard evidence yet yet of trump straight on collision with russia so why does the public believe it to be a facts and the media in america reports that as

a fact of also. i hope the american people or the media don't believe it as a fact sophie i i see it as the facts are clear that for whatever reason and i question why the russian intelligence services. attacked our system so aggressively but i think that as a fact i don't i don't think that's deniable the question then is what did that do and what impact did that have on the results of the election and for what reason did russian intelligence conduct that activity i don't have the answers to those questions and i won't speculate because i think that would be irresponsible i think we have to determine what happened and then decide what happened on the basis of the evidence and i don't think we're there yet. that's the thing i don't know that anyone has presented the evidence and the facts have been presented to the pup.