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On today's episode of Loud & Clear, John Kiriakou and Nicole Roussell (sitting in for Brian Becker) are joined by Sputnik News analyst and producer Walter Smolarek, who is on the ground in Quebec City at the G7 summit, and Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada.


President Trump showed no signs of compromise on trade issues as he left for the G7 Summit in Canada this morning. In fact, he got into a Twitter war over tariffs with French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even before he left Washington. The President also will skip the climate portion of the summit to travel to Singapore for his meeting with Kim Jong Un.



On today’s regular Friday segment covering the upcoming midterm elections, Nicole and John talk about all the primaries that happened this week and how the presidential race is shaping up. Jacqueline Luqman, the co-editor-in-chief of Luqman Nation, and the host of the Facebook livestream “Coffee, Current Events & Politics” Thursdays at 9 p.m., joins the show.



Google has been reeling from an employee protest over the use of artificial intelligence for military purposes. So CEO Sundar Pichai told employees yesterday that the company will not use AI for weapons or for surveillance that violates human rights. Google will continue to work with governments and the military, though. Nicole and John speak with Paul Wallis, a technology reporter and Digital Journal's Editor-at-Large for Op-Eds who is also the author of many books including “Wanderlaugh.”



The FBI yesterday arrested James Wolfe, the recently-retired director of security for the Senate Intelligence Committee. He was charged with a felony count of making a false statement. Wolfe is under further investigation for revealing classified information with a reporter with whom he had a personal relationship, Ali Watkins. More troubling is the revelation that the FBI seized several years’ worth of Watkins’ and Wolfe’s electronic communications. Jim Jatras, a political analyst, a former US diplomat, and a former senior foreign policy advisor to the US Senate Republican leadership, joins the show.



The trials of J20 protesters continued this week in Washington, but with repeated setbacks for the prosecution. Yesterday, four defendants were either acquitted on all charges or acquitted on some and the jury deadlocked on others. The US Attorney for the District of Columbia will have to decide whether to retry on those counts. But so far, this has been nothing but a black eye for the government. Chip Gibbons, policy and legislative counsel for Defending Rights & Dissent, a journalist, and a contributor to the Nation, Jacobin, and the book The Henry Kissinger Files, joins Nicole and John.



Brazil took another step into privatization yesterday, when they auctioned off some of their nation’s oil fields. This is just days after truckers in Brazil have ended their 10-day strike over fuel prices, increasing the chaos under Temer’s rule since the parliamentary coup two years ago. Pepe Escobar, a writer and political analyst, joins the show.


The hosts continue the regular segment of the worst and most misleading headlines. Nicole and John, speak with Steve Patt, an independent journalist whose critiques of the mainstream media have been a feature of his blog Left I on the News.