a report from a conservative watchdog claims there is a covert multimillion dollar scheme to boost a left wing movements across the u.s. . italy's former interior minister matteo salvini faces charges of inciting violence against a german rescue boat captain who illegally docked on a time choice with dozens of michael. and the u.s. carries out military exercises near venezuela's borders in line with its apparent strategy of rounding the enemy. the latest on these stories you can head to our t.v. dot com stay with us now though for the big picture. on

this week's show each year as we approach 911 we remember the 3000 lives were lost on that terrible tuesday in 2001 since then what liberties have we lost the government overreach corruption and abuse but 1st despite president trump's bluster is the u.s. a losing its leadership position in the world order that we already lost i'm hala cook in washington this is the big picture on r.t. america. implementing the paris climate agreement low carbon sustainable development 5 g. technology shared with all partners all right just goals that the world seeks from a leading superpower and all elements of

a comprehensive strategic partnership between china and russia. meanwhile back on the ranch our president has pulled us out of the jay c.p.o. a new treaty impose sanctions on iran and terror of sun china and he abides the regime change meddling in venezuela and elsewhere is this erratic administration plus emerging eurasian collaboration the perfect storm that can sink the u.s. dollar as the world's preeminent currency and our leadership among nations let's ask our t. defense expert longtime pentagon official michael maloof and peter schiff chief economist and global strategist at euro pacific capital a welcome both and michael during the recent g. 7 meeting i couldn't resist the temptation i muted my t.v. and to me the body language was very telling is it my imagination or are other world leaders merely tolerating trumps before. well they're they're trying to be

polite to answer your question but but on the other hand they are looking in other directions they see that the united states has gone is going it alone with its america 1st approach which is. basically controlled by the neo conservatives in this in this government and and as and as a result of using economic warfare through sanctions and tariffs tariff battles with almost every country in the world these days they're looking for alternatives number beginning to see europe our western partner and western partners they're beginning to look more eastward as a consequence and i think as a result of of all of this and with a benchmark of the trumpet ministration as you point out dropping out of the j c.p.o. way of the iran nuclear agreement in may last year. that that really set the tone for an acceleration of getting out from under the dominance of the u.s.

dollar and the western financial system such as swift. and what have you and looking for alternative approaches and what we're seeing here is this excel aeration we're seeing russia china iran turkey india pakistan the brics countries of brazil china russia and even south africa beginning now to look more eastward in this pursuit and it's it's not stopping it's accelerating and as a result of sanctions that are being put in the put on our european friends they're looking more eastward as a consequence so this is. this is beginning to evolve but but it's accelerating more rapidly now well peter when i hit the mute button during the g 7 admittedly what i am observing is subjective but numbers are object of measurably how is the

usa stature fairing under this mercurial president. well 1st of all the problems that the united states have good you know how or our way before donald trump i mean that the real issue for the dollar and what's going to sink the dollar is our own fiscal praful you see and these large deficits budget deficits and trade deficits you know we're here long before we elect a dollar trump no he has not done anything about it in fact the deficits are getting bigger both trade and budget deficits what has enabled this over the years has been the world's willingness to hold us dollars as the primary reserve currency and to continue to loan money to americans and to the u.s. government so we can continue to live beyond our means we can have enormous government programs that we don't pay for and we can consume all sorts of goods that we don't manufacture and we can live in a caught me based on consumption and debt without having to save or produce the world has done that for us and i think this is what's going to come to an end i

think we're going to see a collapse in the value of the dollar and when the dollar does collapse america's power is going to dissipate and americans are going to have to deal with the reality that we've hollowed out our infrastructure we've been you know we're living above our means and there's going to be a day of reckoning for these years of excesses unfortunately you know trumped in start this but he may be the fall guy who knows and it is compound interest that eating it away you said when not if the dollar collapses peter you think it's inevitable. of course it's inevitable because we're not going to stop with the fiscal prophetess e intil it collapses as long as the world is willing to keep lending americans money will keep spending it particularly the government so the only thing that's going to cause a change is going to be a crisis and it's going to be a dollar crisis it's going to be a sovereign debt crisis it should have already happened but we've been able to kick the can down the road for many many years but the problem with all the can kicking

is the underlying problems have gotten so much worse so now it's a much bigger problem that we're going to have to deal with. michael have the iran's sanctions backfired oh absolutely it's actually cause the people to to be more emboldened to support their government and actually despise the united states but for the government itself it is looking more eastward it is it has actually entered into some very in recent days in fact some very serious oil and gas negotiations and and agreements with china that absolutely undercut the sanctions that trump is trying to impose and they're going to be dealing not in dollars they're going to be dealing in room in these in and thoma reelz whatever whatever the currencies are and they're looking for alternative baskets of of currencies to to work with and in exchange they don't have to change their government they don't have to change their culture or anything like that we've

insisted upon by joining the western system. and here to democracy 1st that doesn't exist in this alternative approach and it's as i said accelerating as a consequence and in very recent days and go ahead here and will in fact the chinese just chinese just entered into a long term deal with iran regarding building up their infrastructure in exchange for iranian oil and you know the sanctions that we have been imposing around the world this is simply giving the world yet another reason to look for an alternative to the u.s. dollar which they should have been looking for a long time ago but now you know by flexing muscle that we really should be flexing were in effect biting the hands that have been feeding us and now they're questioning whether or not they should continue to do that and so we have accelerated the process of the dollars demise by antagonizing so many of the

nations around the world that we really need to continue to hold the dollar you know we keep talking about. our trump keeps talking about how you know we've got the chinese over a barrel and you know we all you know there is somehow in a weaker bargaining position than we are but we have far more to lose because the chinese simply lose a customer that doesn't pay and that they have to bend or finance but we lose a banker we lose a supplier the chinese have been propping up the us economy we have been screwing up the chinese economy because in order to maintain this relationship they have pursued reckless monetary policy they have inflated bubbles they have done things in order to artificially prop up the dollar so they can continue to sell products to people that really can't afford to buy them there should be developing trading relationships with countries that can produce the things that the chinese citizens want so they trade is balanced they can't run this enormous trade deficit with the united states or surplus of the united states it is screwing up their economy well

just this week reporters asked the president if he was concerned that china holds so much u.s. debt here's his reply oh no while they have approximately a trillion dollars that's a trickle compared to what we do and plus interest rates are very low we'll have no trouble there's nothing anybody's going to be doing we're in a very strong position really strong position probably in terms of refinancing the strongest position we've ever been in that well to put it politely businessman trump with no stranger to refight but peter a trillion has 12 zeros is president trump calling it a trickle a little too nonchalant about how deeply in debt we are and to whom. he's pretty much delusional and of course when he talks about a trillion that's just a treasury debt the chinese hold a lot of u.s. dollar denominated debt in addition to the treasury debt so it's a lot more than

a trillion and on the margin that is a tremendous amount of money if we lose the chinese lending if the chinese want to unload their dollar denominated dead presidents from seems to think there's an ample supply of lenders that really want that dead i don't i don't believe that they exist i don't know that there's that many foolish people out there in the world that want to lend so much money to the u.s. at such a low rate of interest and you know once that thing turns around what trump forgets is that the national debt is not financed with 30 year treasuries the majority of it is financed with short term treasury bills that constantly mature we have to rollover this debt all the time and of foreigners filey lose confidence in our ability to repay our debts with money that actually has any value the game is over i mean why do you think gold prices have moved above $1500.00 people are losing confidence in the dollar and you know you can see it in the foreign exchange markets the dollar hasn't really started to fall against other fee currencies but

that's because all 3 of currencies are falling against the dollar gold but the strength of the strength of gold busy is showing an underlying weakness in the dollar that the 4 x. markets aren't showing yet but they will now michael of guys china the ancient silk road treat route link to asia with europe its modern day renaissance the belt and road initiative will brit with the council of foreign relations calls a vast network of railways energy pipeline highways and streamlined border crossings westward through the mountains former soviet republics and southward to pakistan and india in the rest of southeast asia and that in addition to physical infrastructure china plans to build 50 special economic. zones and the to accommodate expanding maritime traffic china would invest in port development along the indian ocean from southeast asia all the way to east africa michel i don't hear anything about american greenbacks there but dollars aside how does this huge

undertaking impact the u.s. world stature well it's causing these other countries to basically isolate the united states and as i said earlier a lot of our european allies are doing the same germany which is in a deeper approach in a recession it has to sell i mean these are all export in countries they need markets and they're looking to china and you mentioned the silk road is also the year asia union that is also under russian domain and so you have russia china and the shanghai cooperation organization countries which have become become much more par awful as a consequence used to be an economic team now it's become more of a military and political entity and you have india china pakistan all of these countries coming coming together under this this packets of elements that are coalescing almost at the same time such as the belt and wrote and wrote

initiative by china which is also going to be going in different directions including china iran through russia and through some of the former soviet countries which form central asia where president predecessor done chel pineta montra and hide your strength and bide your time peter almost out of time so i need the short answer but for all the short term conniptions trumps china tariffs are causing the stock market i get the impression that time is on china's side that culturally they have a longer term pain point than american presidents who change every 4 years how do you see this tariff war playing out quickly. well i don't see it playing out very well but i think the stock market has a lot more to worry about than the trade war i think there are other problems that are much more important that are being ignored this is a big fat ugly bubble donald trump was right as

a candidate and the arrows going to come out of this bubble regardless of what happened with the trade war so we're not surprised that gold is doing so well thank you peter schiff and michael maloof. coming up when terrorists struck 18 years ago clocks stopped and did 911 unleash an enemy with them this is the big picture on our t. america. think 10 years since crosstalk started to air 10 years i think it's time to shake things up maybe change the branding maybe the format here is what i've been thinking about next season related episodes filmed on an island with 10 experts

cited out for a trophy what do you think ok a more affordable option 25 text for. one red rose another suggestion political jeopardy parody no political cookout we will literally wrote the elites. late night show it's a rare format these days and it's chief all you need is an old microphone in a printed banner like to leave me with i guess i can do this and laughter politics gone wild like music. ok crosstalk is not about hype it's about meaning 10 years of talk and still going strong. peter if you want to change something why don't we get rid of the. no that is too much. today there are good terrorists and

bad editors the bad terrorists and those in yemen who the united states deems to be a threat the good of those who would in syria the cia and the u.s. military were engaged in covert actions really throughout the world. where they were assassinating populist leaders they were backing up right away military juntas funding and arming death squads there's no. because there's always a small. really good. for profit. you will never forget where you were on september 11th 2001 in the anxious aftermath what member of congress would not vote for something called the usa

patriot act only one u.s. senator democrat russ feingold of wisconsin urging that even as america addresses the demanding security challenges before us we must strive mightily also to guard our values and basic rights and warning that preserving our freedom is one of the main reasons that we are now engaged in this new war on terrorism we will lose that war without firing a shot if we sacrifice the liberties of the american people. back to the future have the noble sounding usa patriot act and post 911 government surveillance and enforcement tactics cost us the way of life our founders promised let's ask the author of battlefield america the war on the american people and a government of wolves the emerging american police state constitutional us attorney rutherford institute president syndicated columnist and host of the podcast freedom under fire john w.

whitehead welcome. well thank you very much sir john your book titles are provocative post 911 how is a government of wolves declaring war on the american people. well actually that term governor wallace comes from a quote by edward r. murrow the great c.b.s. commentator who fought the car theism in his day when the f.b.i. was crashing into people's homes during the 950 s. if they had somehow left this winnings or wherever they thought and wrecking people's lives people were committing suicide he made this statement he said a nation of sheep will be get a governor of wolves and what he was saying was wake up people get active in your government and stop allowing the government to violate the constitution we have a beautiful constitution and it is the 4th amendment the 4th of them it says the government's not supposed be doing surveillance watching us or doing anything unless they have probable cause or some kind of reason for doing they were committing an illegal activities with the $911.00 and the patriot act which allowed

the f.b.i. and the government to go into people's homes while they were out there and download all the information on their laptops their computers listening on all the telephone calls everything we're doing today the n.s.a. listening up to 100000000 phone calls a year and recording them now the post office is now photographing all of our mail even opening some of it to see what we're doing we've entered a state where the constitution has become just basically a paper rag to the government so we do have an enemy within and that's a very paranoid government that we're dealing with here that's targeting people that i've defended for years and some of the cases we may want to talk briefly about a few of them that show that if you say the wrong word today you do the wrong picture on facebook facebook google all these groups amazon has $1000000000.00 contracts with the government they created all the intelligence files for the government should have a corporate state that's come together now and are watching everything we're doing you know a techie nerd friend of mine told me that if

a movie i've seen disappointed me i should never e-mail to friends calling it a bomb and in another interview of yours i heard you speak of a client that the f.b.i. posted based on a facebook post talk about operation vigilant eagle. operation vigil a goal was laid by the wall street journal several years ago and what it is it's tracking the part of homeland security and the pentagon tracked all returning soldiers to this country because they're considered possible terrorist threats the case that we handle was a young marine named brandon robb who had been jogging early one morning on the saturday in richmond virginia and he got home and he was typing on this typewriter and is a decorated marine by the way he captured weapons from the taliban al qaida he defused mines for the soldiers well he came back he was in research and he was typing one morning and he hears a knock on the door she goes out and he sees all these cars in his front yard swat

teams come in that are people in plain clothes a black ties they said they were the f.b.i. on the part of homeland security and the police and this is a man who did not own a weapon by the way the dangerous most dangerous thing you had this house that was of was a paring knife to cut his fruit with in the morning and he when it came the front door he said what's up they said we're concerned about your facebook posts they had been watching everything he was doing he was opposed to barack obama's executive orders he was very vocal about the fact that the present should be arrested for doing that he was also on $911.00 conspiracy theorists and the f.b.i. was watching everything he was doing recording it and they considered him an extremist threat he was jerked out of a home arrested thrown against the fence cut it back they took him to the local jail where a psychiatrist gave him a 5 minute investigation file into this against an interview and completed it concluded that he had mental issues because he was a 911 conspiracy theorist and he was put directly put into a mental hospital his mother called us pleading for our help i went into court and

follow a lawsuit we got him out a week a judge said he shouldn't be there in the 1st place when i learned one of these are called civil commitments 20000 alone in virginia annually they're putting people in mental hospitals that are just disappearing this is what i call the old you know these these are models that we've seen and. former regimes where if you say the wrong thing do the wrong thing but what i'm trying to tell people here and wake them up to my books and the work i do is that you're being watched be careful what you say on facebook especially you can get arrested and jerked out of your home and put the middle hospital there saying up to 1500000 people a year this happens to those some statistics that's pretty scary and we're not just being watched you mentioned our phone calls we know that they're at least being logged as metadata possibly keyword scanned last week on the show we talked about the sting ray device that acts like a cell tower and helps itself to our phones thus our movements and our data anyone who leaves home today will be photographed perhaps hundreds of times by various

camera systems some government operated other close circuits like and banks is it a stretch to think that somebody could hack into and knit together all this surveillance like we see depicted in the jason bourne movies is that happening now by the government. well it's happening now and again google works with china and their surveillance systems google actually has contracts and say amazon works at the pentagon all of us being watched when you when you post pictures on facebook algorithms are created what they're doing is they're trying to come up with predictive policing which by the way scientists and professors to look at how it's been practiced in years say it's very inaccurate they're kind of come up with with an idea in a facebook they're watching your emotions on your face are you distress are you this or that and they you then they will directly report you to local authorities

and also police departments across the country and working with amazon and their families on recognition software programs collecting all your facial images they're watching social media people's door the caller called not in top not knocking talks now where they are in the mill a night police will be knocking on your door people have actually come to the door with a number 0 and all fellow did thinking it was robbers and he got shot through the door these things are happening in america and by the way let me tell you something we've become we've got a standing army there 80000 swat team raise occurring annually in this country where kids are getting killed 5 of the 500 dogs a day are being killed adults but police crashing through doors 80 percent from your war service rep leeson used to joke to your door and knock on the door to give you that or it but people are getting killed today so george washington the so-called founding fathers warned do not have a standing army in america well you got that i don't know if you've seen some of the police and they are actually wearing camouflage the art you go or the people in iraq john all of that hand me down war hardware that has militarized the local

police really rub our nose in a long ago warning from a president who ironically was our very 1st supreme allied commander in europe during world war 2 and anyone who's watching this is younger than you and i might get chills hearing this warning against that then burgeoning warren street listen. we recognize the imperative need for this development yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications our toil resources and livelihood are all involved so is the very structure of our society. and the counsels of government we must car guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought by the military industrial complex. the butt tension or the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. we must never let this

combination in danger our liberties our democratic process will give you chills john you served as a military officer so you've seen this pentagon spending spree from the inside out you have written that our military spends $32000000.00 per hour and we hear about surplus tanks parked in the california desert and the $70.00 ball point pens now the president wants to divert several $1000000000.00 from the pentagon to build this wall along the mexican border do you think they'll scrape by somehow. i think they always create by some how the military industrial complex you call is very very strong and i'm a former military officer and i've worked with former n.s.a. just the stuff they tell me that listen to what we call the deep state. 2015 when the f.b.i. leaked that memo basically or the intercept i think. of oil requests we found out there's this deep state thing on the 7th floor of the state department that they said runs everything and that's really basically with former military generals the

billionaires and all those things that run our government and it's heavily influenced by money. as we see in our country today it's corporate complex basically and we're seen as data bits now and i'll tell you one thing i've noticed with these some of these policemen they're in a swat team here they see us as they would see people if they were over in that ghana stand as enemy combatants that's why you're seeing more people getting killed i mean we've had mass shootings over the cyst many 15 there been over 300300 people killed but in that same period of time the police have killed over 4500 people in this case john and no one talks about that i'm out of time but i'm glad we talked about it and john w. whitehead thank you for stepping into the big picture. thank you sir and thank you for watching the big picture i'm holland cook in washington back next week same time meantime question. more.

play. lists. plenty. plenty. plenty. plenty.

so. let's. just say. list. and a very warm welcome to you watching us inside us. what politicians do.