President. And the first signs of Actual Movement on the democratic leaderboard when all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. If you are lucky enough, as frankly i was, to be enjoying a final prelabor day summer weekend and were not paying attention to the minute by minute antics of our kmicommand in chief, heres a quick noncomprehensive rundown of Donald Trumps g7 summit. Like so much about this president it was at one level bemusing but at another level horrifying because the stakes of what hes so glibly blowing off are so high. For instance, the amazon, which is still burning at an alarming rate. Over the weekend the New York Times covered the fact there are now devastating fires in bolivia and experts say it could take up to, quote, 2 years years for the forests in bolivia to heal. The World Leaders at the g7 had a meeting about it and all leaders were there except one, guess who. The new White House Press secretary said trump scheduled because he had scheduled meetings with germany and india. Leaders of both those countries were at the climate meeting, so who knows. Well have more on the amazon fires and what the World Leaders did and didnt do about them in a few minutes. Trump also continued his ongoing socalled negotiations with china. Earlier in the summit trump sort of said he had second thoughts about his trade war before trying to take it all the way back. The bottom line about the china situation now is that firearm markets, global audiences and the chinese themselves all see that trump is flailing. We all see the same thing. And so as is often the case, the president apparently invented a lie to try to extricate himself, saying the vice chairman of china called and wants to make a deal. But the phone call appears not to have happened, at least the Chinese Government says it didnt happen, and i leave it to you, america, who do you believe, donald trump on a whim or the Chinese Communist party . Meanwhile, trump doubled down or tripled down or whatever the count is now on inviting his old buddy Vladimir Putin back to the global party. Trump is advocating for putins longstanding position, a position that is the origin of this entire era of russian aggression towards the u. S. Putins main complaint is that we punished him for breaking International Law when he invaded crimea. The origin is the sanctions putin is trying to get lifted. Russias g8 expulsion all started with that. When putin picked which horse to back in the 2016 election. When they had all those weird associates floating back channel peace deals to the white house that would allow crimea to be forever recognized as part of russia, this is what it was all about, and heres the president of the United States on the world stage in front of all the World Leaders again repeatedly spouting russian talking points and toeing the russian line. Joining me now for more on the president s roaring performance at the g7 summit, former cia director john brennan, now an nbc news Senior Intelligence and National Security analyst. What is the significance to you of the president insisting repeatedly that russia should be invited back to the g7 despite no progress made on crimea or the original infractions that led it to being booted out . Well, chris, it just shows that donald trump still does not grasp the seriousness of what it is that trump what putin has done. Not only to ukraine, but also the fact that he interfered in our election, he continues to support the genocide of president assad in syria. All of these transgressions that have come from the russians. And for him then to say blightly that he believes that they should get back into what would be the g8. Despite the unanimous view of those countries previously that because of the annexation of crimea, because of what theyve been doing in eastern ukraine, that russia does not deserve a seat at the table. So its still rather puzzling as to why donald trump continues to give putin the benefit of the doubt when, in fact, he should be coming down pretty hard on the russian leader. Do you think that over the course of this presidency so far that both World Leaders and global diplomatic core and Intelligence Services have changed the way they react to this president s statements, as they have acclimated themselves to the degree of lack of preparation or tossed offedness of what he might say in these sort of events . Oh, absolutely. I think a lot of the readers have written off what he says publicly. Also im very concerned given his public dishonesty, what dishonesty is he engaged in in these private meetings with World Leaders, with the allies of countries that we have worked with so hard for so long. What is he telling them . But i think they realize he is way, way out of his depth. He is incompetent. But also he is somewhat delusional as far as how he views the world and his inability to grasp the reality of the geo strategic situation around the globe today. What are the stakes of that . I mean, there is some universe, i suppose, in which maybe everyone is better off if they just dont Pay Attention to the things the president says, this particular president , because he might contradict it. So what are the stakes, i guess, of sort of americas geo strategic position when that is the case with this particular president . Well, i think theyre all just trying to handle trump the best they can. They recognize that although they may not like and respect the person, he still, unfortunately, represents america on the world stage. And they want to maintain and strengthen relations with the United States because they know that one day trump will no longer be in the oval office. And so i think theyre trying to be as respectful as they can, but, you know, some days i really miss being in the intelligence business because i would love to find out what it is that these leaders are saying behind the scenes to themselves about mr. Trump. I can just imagine. And, unfortunately, i think its something that we as americans should be very, very concerned about. There was another example. He has done this the president has appeared to have fabricated interactions with foreign leaders on multiple occasions. He had the head of pakistan was there and he said that the head of india, modi, had called him and said he wanted to take care of pakistan. The Indian Government then had to say thats not the case. Subsequently there was some intense repression that happened in kashmir. This is a call he said he got from the chinese. I guess does it matter . Like, what happens when the president makes up interactions with foreign leaders . Well, its bad enough that donald trump is so incompetent in terms of carrying out his responsibilities, but its the dishonesty that i think really hurts this country most. Its when the American People listen to him and they know that he is lying, but also the foreign leaders who, again, look to the United States as being the leader of the western world, of the free world, of the entire world. If they cannot put any trust and confidence in what the president of the United States says, they are not going to be able to follow through on what it is that needs to be done in order to strengthen bilateral relationships between their country and ours, but also do what they can on behalf of global stability and prosperity. They recognize that donald trump is just fabricating one story after another. So how can they put any stock in what he says or what he says hes going to do . I mean, this gets to the dichotomy that you were talking about before, right . They have a meeting about the amazon forest fires and the president doesnt attend and there is obviously a full plate of things on the g7 menu. There is a dichotomy between the United States as an institution and as a country and then donald trump personally, and what im hearing from you is his ability to tell the truth actually affects the degree to which you can have effective diplomacy or peg commitments from the u. S. State as an entity in these sorts of situations. Well, theres little logic or continuity to u. S. Policies in a lot of these matters. Im sure there are a lot of professionals, whether they be diplomats or others, who are very concerned and trying to do everything they can about climate change, about all of these international and transnational issues that affect all of our countries, but how can they work effectively with their foreign counterparts when the president of the United States is not, in fact, able to articulate these issues in any sensible way with his counterparts . So its just very un it undermines our ability as a country to be able to affect positive change, and i think these leaders are just waiting for the day that donald trump is going to be part of history. You know, the g7 obviously does not include china. The president is in the midst of this trade war with china, which hes more or less launched unilaterally, using authority, National Security authority to put tariffs on chinese goods. And i wanted to get your sense of how this plays out. It seems to me there are two sorts of polls here. One is that the previous relationship with china along a bunch of different ways had some deep dysfunction in it. I think theres pretty good evidence that the trade relationship has had some economic costs for americans. And then in the other poll, there are a lot of people who kind of want a new cold war with china. They want a kind of aggressive posture of confrontation. Threading that needle strikes me as a difficult yet necessary role for the president. What do you think is happening now . Well, youre right, it is an issue that needs to be address. Previous administrations have tried to address the imbalance in terms of how both countries conduct trade with one another and with the world. And so its proper and right for donald trump to be engaging with the chinese as well as with the north koreans and others. It is how he is going about doing it. Right. He doesnt understand the implications of just imposing these large tariffs. And i dont think he really has a strategy, despite what his advisers say about how hes going to come out of this trade war with china. And so theres a lot of things that are happening that he wants to have the focus of the International Media on him, in terms of what hes doing and being a strong man, but trying to understand how what he is doing is going to help the United States in the long run, its beyond me. So final question on this. Is there any risk that the trade war, you know, youve got a trade lane, right . So were dealing with them on this trade stuff then there is a lane of our two militaries, and thigh ha they have a relationship that can be tense and adversarial. There is also cooperation on some things. Is there a risk, i guess, one one leaking over to the other as the rhetoric gets heated up on both sides . There is that risk, and fortunately so far it looks like the trade war has stayed within those trade channels. And im hoping that the chinese as well as the United States are not going to start to affect other aspects of the relationship and other issues, such the one china policy or on cyber or on the south china sea, and those tensions could ratchet up very quickly. So were not just going to have a trade war then. We could have a real bilateral crisis with china and thats not what we want nor need at this point in time. So donald trump has to be mindful that china is a major world player. It has a lot of levers that it can pull. Hopefully theyre not going to pull them because theyre going to be hurt. Were going to be hurt. So its best to get thee tensions back down so that we come up with some type of reasonable outcome of what really has been this trade problem. All right. John brennan, thank you very much for that. Thanks, chris. Probably the most pressing front of mind issue at the gp was tg7 was the fires rainfalling ging amazon. Decided to kick in 20 million. Squarely in the middle of all it is the fires are mostly in the sovereign nation of brazil and the countrys president seems to be sort of essentially profires. We call it the worlds lungs, but the problem that affects the whole world is in brazil and this is just one of the ways that sovereignty, the very notion of it will be challenged in the Climate Crisis area. Joining me now, franklin ford, staff writer for the atlanta magazine. And frank, i want to read this quote which sort of makes the comparison. If a country obtains chemical or biological weapons, the rest of the world types to react with fury, or at least it did in the not so distant past. Whats the analogy youre making about the amazon fires . So this is an urgent problem that is not just a problem limited to brazil. That if were indeed describing the amazon as the worlds lungs, that implies the implications of the fires are global and therefore they demand a global response. And i think something actually very important happened at the g7, which is not the 20 million that the that the nations volunteered to give for the sake of fighting fires, but emmanuel macron, the president of france, threatened to cancel european trade deal with brazil. Yep. And that caused the brazilian president to change his tune almost instantly. That the beginning of the weekend, he was saying that the fires in brazil are a matter of brazils sovereignty, that the rest of the world shouldnt interfere with their fighting of the fires. He was still he ran for president on a platform of deforesting the amazon, but after macron applied pressure, after the g7 decided that they were going to make this a significant issue, bolsonaro almost instantly changed his message. He sent his countrys military to fight the fires and said the amazon was a National Treasure that deserved to be preserved. So what happened is actually important. Its a harbinger of what can be accomplished when the nations of the world say, you know, what happens in one country is a problem for the entire world and were going to apply the same sort of diplomatic tools that we would use in the case of dealing with wmd to solve a problem like the destruction of the amazon. You know, its interesting you say that because ive been following some of the news from western china where the Muslim Uyghur population has been put in these terrible internment camps. For a long time it wasnt really covered. That pressure does seem to be having some effects now on chinese policymaking. Youre saying there is something similar with the climate. What does it mean when donald trump does the opposite . When he doesnt show up to the meeting and says its essentially a hoax and says this america first, were exporting a ton of fossil fuel and im not going to give it up for your pipe dream of windmills. Right. Well, lets acknowledge at the start that a lot of the g7 nations are totally hypocritical. Yes. On climate. That canada is building this pipeline at the same time that theyre chastising brazil. Macron is guilty of his own hypocrisy. I think Donald Trumps absence in these meetings is actually kind of useful for the rest of the world to get on with its business. That trump is is just going to be an obstruction an obstructionist presence in these meetings. So the fact that hes not there is tremendously sad for us as americans, but maybe its smoothing the way for decent policies to be enacted by the rest of the international community. Do you think, i mean, when you talk about this sort of idea of sovereignty and pressure, right, what youre seeing also is the contours of the order now as the Climate Crisis intensifies are these questions are going to be more and more friend a front and center and there is going to be nationalist backlash in all sorts of places. Its not just that america will have its version of you cant tell us what to do. Lots of countries do. Those politics are easy to find all around the world. And to me i wonder if you think this is the case, theyre going to be a Major Political challenge to the kind of coordinated efforts we need. Weve already seen this. If you think about the refugee crisis in europe as an extension of the Climate Crisis. Yep. That there is certainly climate refugees fleeing there. You see the way in which the European Countries are unable to coordinate across National Boundaries in order to deal with this issue, and you see the way in which that issue had already triggered the sort of nationalist backlash that youre describing, what youre seeing are the contours of a global world order that are incapable of dialing with this crisis, which will surely get worse with every year. Yeah. And so what it demands is new levels of cooperation, but also the use of all of these traditional tools in our diplomatic tool kit to try to discipline nations that are acting in an obstructionist sort of way. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next, the number of democrats favoring impeachment keeps on ticking up as the president gives them even more material to work with during a visit to france. That story in two minutes. 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