Is the Trump presidency causing irreparable damage to America?

thank you very much fantastic to see so many people here we will launch into our discussion in just a few moments time let me remind us all though first of all about what we are discussing is has the trump presidency caused or is it causing irreparable damage to America the dis United States the title that goes before that and there's no question that that bit at least that disunited bit is obviously true the second bit well you can argue about and we will and of course you will have the opportunity as well to argue an answer questions in a second there is no question at all that being President of the United States as Donald Trump has discovered is quite a difficult job when I was there Obama was elected and all the headlines have rather pedantic newspaper headlines in the US they so the New York Times was Obama elected president the new The Washington Post was President Obama it's true etc etc one newspaper I thought caught the essential ambivalence of the moment and that was the onion the satirical newspaper and their headline read black man given nation's worst job and it kind of turned out like that didn't it and it kind of does and of course what Trump to an extent has discovered is that you can't do as president all those things you hoped to do when you came to office and I suspect some of our panelists and I suspect some of you might say well that's a damn good thing to but we were one of the things we are going to be discussing is the extent to which I guess that is still the case the other thing that I think might well come up and is so relevant and interesting is the personality and the personal behavior of people who become president which let's face it has not always in the past been saintly and I look back again actually to the way in which that can be diffused sometimes by personalities and by an individual sense that actually whatever people believe about the world they still have a respect for the process and w bush I was BBC correspondent for a bit of time when he was there let us face it also somewhat criticized by some for some of the things he did and yet he had that incredible sense behind the scenes that he did except that you as a reporter had the right to be doing what you did I remember an interview with him you know quite combat it at the end it said you get to the end of the interview how was that for you did you like it no wonderful thank you very much for doing this ready before you go do you want to see the Oval Office I'd love to see there do you want to see the Rose Garden you want to see the library corridor again I found myself saying to the president the United States look I'm terribly sorry but I got have got to be somewhere else and that of course is one of the big differences with Donald Trump who would not be doing that conducted tour I suspect for John so Paul the current BBC corresponded many others indeed only today has been talking about withdrawing the credentials of people who were there so all of those things may or may not come out but I thought I'd sort of set the scene at least from the perspective of someone who hasn't been reporting in America for some time but certainly did and with great affection actually for quite a lot of time and my youngest daughter is a US citizen and I'm very happy that that's the case so let me introduce then our guest very briefly and I'll do it as it were from my extreme right towards me but don't read anything into that Mark Lilla professor of humanities at Columbia University his New York Times op-ed of November 2016 which was called the end of identity liberalism was the newspapers most read political op-ed of the year and he's expanded that argument into a book and the title of the book is the once and future liberal after identity politics and one of the things we will be getting to is is what happens after Trump or how Trump is toppled and and I think mark will have particularly interesting things to say about that Lionel Shriver author of twelve novels the man doubles a family 20 29 to 20 47 is a best-seller but so of course is we need to talk about Kevin she's a prolific journalist she's just published a novella and a story collection called property Bryan class next to her is a fellow in global politics at the London School of Economics he's also Washington Post columnist and an author in his book the despots apprentice Donald Trump's attack on democracy slightly reveals I think it's fair to say what he thinks anyway that's a very minor argument and he will be talking about that and more widely as well and Ronan Farrow next to me investigative journalist writes for The New Yorker makes documentaries now for HBO he won this year's Pulitzer Prize gold medal for public service for exposing the alleged sexual predations of Harvey Weinstein he's just published his first book which is called war on peace the end of diplomacy and the decline of American influence which I guess also slightly anyway let me put a quick question to all of you and it's a question actually about what happened the night that Donald Trump was elected where were you how did you find out about it what did it mean to you when it happened Lionel Shriver it wasn't night for me I was in Hong Kong and I was getting a flight to Singapore and when I got on the plane everything was fine I checked all the swing states were still in play there was just a little funny business with Florida didn't concern me and frustratingly I got on one of those old points that didn't have any Wi-Fi and I was completely surrounded by Chinese people so finally the plane landed I was a little fidgety because I wanted to get this over with and I of course knew who was going to win and when the plane landed everyone took out their phones but I couldn't tell anything and the guy sitting next to me said and you knew I was I was more concerned but I didn't find out until walking all the way down the corridor and finally I found a BBC TV screen on and that was that was the moment and it went across the the crawl Donald J Trump elected president of the United States and I honestly embarrassed myself because I stopped stone-cold and it was like thirty feet away and I said what [Laughter] Brian so I had a sort of unusual experience I was over here it was about 4:30 in the morning I guess when I realized I was on LBC they had overnight coverage and it was a very jarring moment for me because I had received a text right before I was going on air from one of my friends who had gotten the news that Trump was elected and she had just given birth to a newborn and her husband was Hispanic and she was saying she was going to change his surname to her surname because she didn't she didn't want to have him grow up in a world in which that would be a disadvantage and clearly the Trump election would would be that in her mind and then I'm getting ready to go on and Nigel Faraj called in and boasted about how he'd made a pretty penny gambling and betting on Trump and it was just this massive amount of I guess it was just severe disappointment in the country that I have defended so many times to Brits because I've lived over here for seven years and when you live abroad as an American you end up being an apologist for your country and it was this moment where it just really hit me hard because it was like the country that I had said was there was not there and that's that's what relieved I mean I just I walked out of the studio it started pouring rain and I was in a suits and I just dripped all the way home and I there must be a German word for feeling exactly how you look and that was probably what it was yeah it'll be very long - yeah well a half hour before the results were announced I was sitting on the roof of a hotel in midtown Manhattan it was not a very cold day and I was there with some elegant French journalists and we were all talking an impeccable French about how it was absolutely impossible that he would win c'est pas possible and then the results came in but I have to say my first reaction after that and I had I bet it was shared by everyone on the stage here was I really don't know my country I thought I knew it the range of people from the right and the left I have friends on both sides but in some deep sense I no longer knew my country and that meant that I had some work ahead of me right story I went home to Connecticut where my mom lives on a sprawling rundown farm with a bunch of chickens and I was way outside of the political zeitgeist and you know I wish I could say that he was elected and there was a great squawking of the hens it really you know it happened and I watched you know my various family members tear their hair out and gnash their teeth and I felt very dispassionate and distant from the whole thing I mean the I suppose the emotional resonance of it came from the calls I began getting from you know women immigrants who care about immigration issues from people of color from people of all sorts of sexual orientations who all felt that this was a personal rebuke and I think like what you just said that they sort of no longer knew their country and as it turns out those reactions fed directly into everything that we've seen on sexual assault reporting since then I think that this was a moment of frustration that contributed to the breaking of the dam let us see that let us explore now the extent to which all those fears have or have not come true and I want to start with the foreigner but the given that it is so much in the news and obviously with their arm but also with with North Korea the extent to which Trump abroad has been a genuine and irreconcilable as it were break with the past Ronan kick us off with your sense of of what he's done so far and the effect that the impact that has had in this book that you mentioned that I've just written which I'll be relentlessly plugging for all you fine folks tonight Henry Kissinger says an interesting thing is one of the many secretaries of state all of the former secretaries went on the record for this book and you know I'm very careful to portray the ways in which he is complicated and difficult and one of the frank statements he makes is about the lack of respect for expertise in history in American culture right now and I think the election of Donald Trump flows directly from that he gave this incredible quote talking about Richard Holbrooke one of the sort of last great diplomats of the modern era who brokered peace in Bosnia and was a mentor of mine and a character in this book and he described you know the fights that Richard Holbrooke had with the Obama administration and said you know the Obama administration like many incoming presidencies had little time for historical context and then he said and you know his deep Bavarian rasps or booming from across the eons for directly from The Oval Office of the Nixon administration you know it is one great American mistake that you can always make some new innovation you know that that he felt it was a myth that we have cultivated as a nation but you can always try something new and different and yeah it's part of the it's part of who you are it's right I mean that's why we split from all fine folks yeah but but I think that it has perhaps gone to an extreme where it's creating a moment of reckoning and we see that in the destruction of the State Department and the wholesale purging of all of the experts that could guide us through this moment whatever get to others just on that you you make the point in your book that yes it has been decimated under Trump but actually the the the decimation had already started all the disregard for the State Department had started and it was really more 911 than Trump that did that well this is a new extreme and we've never seen the sort of flagrant wholesale disregard for the culture of expertise that we're currently seeing and the attendant firings and the empty ambassadorships around the world but you're absolutely right that there is precedent for it specifically after 9/11 that was an inflection point where foreign policy became much more militarized and you know Brian could also speak to that but even before then the Clinton administration had a similar kind of sentiment of a turn inward and a pandering to isolationists it's the economy stupid was the mantra that James Carville brought to the table and the result of that was that we gutted the State Department then and it had very disastrous results closed a lot of embassies closed to government agencies it really set us up for a world of declining diplomacy after 9/11 the point that what a pro Trump person would say about specifically North Korea is you drift and you're predictable as an American president whether it's Bush or whether it's Obama and you do your best and you try things with the Chinese and actually nothing much works and things get gradually worse and worse with Trump for all that it's dangerous it's also potentially effective in a way that they couldn't be does anyone at least understand that argument I understand that argument but I mean my concern we're gonna just look at North Korea is that if it's apparent to all of us our president is a fool then it is glaringly apparent to world leaders across the world also and I you know however much of a weirdo kim jong hoon is he's not an idiot and he I believe he thinks he can manipulate Donald Trump he probably can and he probably is and I you know I'm happy to be proved wrong but all I see from a distance is the North Korean leadership doing what it has done before and it will try to do a deal and we'll get lots of goodies it will get oil it'll get food it'll get concessions with the South they'll get you know friendly stuff going on and and anything that he claims to sacrifice he will take back I'm he'll he'll renege on the deal he's done it before and I think one of the things that also needs to be said is that the the North Korea deal obviously I mean we're all hoping that it goes better than expected or that finally this is the time as a breakthrough but at the same time at what cost is is happening and the answer is at the cost of our allies and I think that's really important is that in a sort of twofold way one is that allies look at Trump and they don't see their values reflected and the other is that Trump is harsher on American allies including the UK and its leaders than he is on traditional adversaries he's been more negative in statements about Teresa Maher Angela Merkel than he has about President Xi of China or even Putin in his public statements and you see this I mean there's hard data to back this up even if it's preliminary but six months into Trump's time in office there was a Pew Research survey that was done about confidence in US leadership it was also done at the end of Obama's time in office and the difference was down confidence was down from Obama to trump seventy five percent in Germany 71 percent in South Korea seventy percent in France 57 percent in the UK and 54 percent in Japan now if we're gonna get anything done in America in American diplomacy for the foreseeable future we need those allies and that did manage to we've had the biggest strategic catastrophe I'm sorry by the way I'm taking a trump line this is not the BBC speaking here but but you know well we have had in Syria and put aside if you can for a second that the suffering of the Syrian people but we have had the greatest strategic catastrophe for the West since the Second World War and that happened on the watch of people who were linked to allies keen on diplomacy etc it's a no I think the focus on Kim and on Korea is all wrong it's just it's dramatic because of these two personalities but the big change is the realignment that will take place because of Trump in the Middle East that you will have a new axis of Sunni powers with Israel led by Saudi Arabia on the Sunni side against Iran and smaller Shia States so it's possible for someone like Trump to be consequential person without having done very much actually simply by making it clear to the Likud niks where he stands on this and things start to fall together and it's in situations like this where our lack of historical knowledge and our lack of cultural depth will really show because a lot is going to happen very quickly and it's precisely in moments like that where you need people who just know stuff who know exactly what is happening on the ground in each of these places who doesn't make an amalgam of all the Arab states or saw the Sunni states but who knows what's going on there and all we have are empty desks and that's my chief concern when you talk about this prospect of leader-to-leader meetings in the North Korea process we have correctly as a nation turned down that opportunity before there have been the same lies before there have been concessions made that then we're not lived up to and there is a very real risk going into those kinds of conversations that you get played this is one of the wiliest and slipperiest diplomatic opponents that we have ever faced and the problem is if you don't have the kinds of experts that we were just talking about if you don't have the people who say hey here are the pressure points in this region here are the lies they've told before here concessions not to make and the coded language not to stumble into you you do end up getting played very likely so time will tell if it works but we are flying blind in a way we don't have to be right now right yeah it's fun to add one other thing I mean I think there's also this aspect where things can be bad as you said with Syria certainly I mean it was a disaster but they could also be worse right and I think we don't see the disasters that were averted by people who actually know what they're doing in global politics we also might have situations that look like they're improving under Trump and David Frum who's at the Atlantic has a great quote about this where he says every once in a while somebody takes the rent money down to the dog track and wins that doesn't mean that you should take the money down to the dog track right there are things that will happen in the next four years that will be positive for the next three years I'll be positive that doesn't mean that the solution to international diplomacy is to basically make fun of all the other leaders on Twitter that's not a strategy and by the way making fun of leaders on Twitter is not necessarily intrinsically a undiplomatic approach you could have both of the things we're talking about you could have the madcap saber-rattling tweets as part of a tool kit embedded in a strategic process informed by expertise yes that's not what's happening well yeah I was gonna say this the suspicion is that that's not the case isn't it there's been more BBC about it I would love to have close to you hear that actually Donald Trump's tweets are being secretly drafted by a corps of experts at the state but in a sense that was actually I mean it's certainly something we sort of in those days after he was elected and when he went on tweeting and there was a kind of sense was well maybe he's on maybe this is all part of a plan it's all worked out and it's good cop bad cop with Tillison although you know he was eventually given the heave-ho and all the rest of it but actually no oh no oh no no Ronan you are an investigative journalist tell this group of people is it a true or B false that the Russians have something on him that they're holding back I would be disclosing nothing new to say that there are sources in the intelligence community leaking all over to the press that they have intercepted communications suggesting that sorts of unsavory characters have various pieces of material that could be held over the president and certainly one of the reasons why I have over the last several months been doing reporting that has exposed these secret election season payments to suppress stories several of them undertaken through the intermediary of the National Enquirer and its parent company American media incorporated is because that has real national security import for the reason you suggested we have these sources within these companies that are essentially in the business of blackmail and leverage acquiring dirt to hold it over people commanding power over considerable secrets that the president has sought to keep out of the press and the question we have to pose to ourselves as a nation is do we feel comfortable with those parties exerting that influence over a sitting president it's really quite unprecedented not I have no information that doesn't have obviously but you know it would not be unlikely that will will come of this is that there was a lot going on and Trump knew very little or nothing about it the question is what are we left with afterwards not only in terms of the presidency but also in terms of the press and when you say a lot going on you're talking about the collusion that is or connections like feelers or whatever pre-election yeah yeah but but what's one thing that's frustrating for me is to see the press being put in the position again of rerunning Watergate and which is essentially an infantilizing experience but a necessary one in this moment because suddenly there's power out there power is bad things are not complex we know what the enemy is like and so if you spend a lot of time flipping between MSNBC and Fox and the rest you do feel a bit that it's kindergarten again not that the stakes aren't very very high and not the reporters aren't intelligent but it's I feel it set us back that there had been a learning process after Watergate in the press and especially after 9/11 that things are more complex right and a little more boring and necessarily boring once again we have this high drama where a lot of things are going to be beneath the radar one more point to this question of what influence foreign parties have over this presidency you know and I think this figures into the reporting question you know are we doing enough to scrutinize this the deep professionalizing of American diplomacy and the cutbacks were talking about and the orders that have been given by members of this administration and members of the Trump family from for instance Jared Kushner saying he didn't want experts and diplomats in the room when he met with the Chinese ambassador from Donald Trump jr. during meetings with the Russians where again you didn't have any kind of professional expertise in the room one of the consequences of that that I think we haven't fully reckoned with is that there is more room for outside manipulation the reason we haven't historically allowed those kinds of meetings to proceed without experts in the room is the other side can say whatever they want about what happened this has removed a layer of armor when it comes to these corruption and influence issues I was just gonna add two about this question about blackmail I think there's there's an astonishing revelation that's come out in the last 36 hours which is that a Russian oligarchs firm has paid a fun allegedly paid into a fund of Michael Cohen Trump's attorney right now to me that solves the question about blackmail they had damaging information they had information that the Russian affiliate oligarchy affiliated with the Kremlin had paid the Trump's personal wire and we just found out about it through this payment happened a long time ago and that's exactly what this question was about about these alleged tapes in Moscow was that they would know something the public didn't and they would have it over him well they did and we know that and I think for the collusion question I mean to me that the Trump Tower meeting you couldn't have written it I mean if you if you wrote this email you have believed it it says it's on behalf of the top level sources in the Russian government as part of our attempt to help mr. Trump win and the responses I love it when can we set up the meeting Trump then announces himself within one hour of the confirmation of that meeting that he has new dirt on Hillary Clinton I mean I I it baffles me how that is not the answer that people believe that this is a witch-hunt when they've literally said we're with the Russian government we're offering you dirt on your opponent and they say when can we meet that to me that disqualifies you from being president and also is a clearly attempted collision with the Russian government however I would I would add a dissenting note and that is just because I do keep up with the New York Times as much as I can stand the experience of reading about Trump all day long and I am weary of the emphasis in the press on the Russia element and I'm especially impatient with the Democrats and left-leaning media getting stuck on trying to D would utilize the election it's a little bit like trying to rewind the tape and you know that didn't what's let's go to the parallel universe in which Donald Trump was not elected and you'll see the same thing has been happening over here with the Cambridge analytical stuff that there's a there are a lot of people in the remain camp who are trying to do chittim eyes the the referendum you know you were misinformed you didn't know what you were voting for etcetera and it's it's running in place and I I think we just have to deal with it you know Trump did win the election so what are we gonna do about it how are we gonna win the midterms etc right so I think there's two aspects I mean III agree with you completely that there's a very large wing of the Democratic Party that is obsessed with me running the election for me the reason why I think this story is important is forward-looking it's twofold one is how do we secure our elections going forward and the second thing is if a president is willing to put himself in that compromised position and is willing to get overtures from Russian intelligence and that person is in charge of our national security that's a problem and so I think that there is a real issue here that's not about relitigated 2016 it happened he was elected but it's forward-thinking and saying is our national security at risk and is our election integrity at risk at risk and I think both those seem to be yes and that brings us very nicely to domestic America which after all is where these things are most closely fought and I want Brian if I come straight back to you because you you have made a study of despots and you are not making the case are you that Trump is a despot oh are you know so my book is called the despots apprentice and it's very clearly said as apprentice because I refer to him as an authoritarian populist or a wannabe despot somebody who has the impulses of an authoritarian but exists in the democratic system and the reason I say that is because effectively the difference is there are institutional checks and balances that stop Trump from doing things he would like to do but if you look at the the pattern I mean my my PhD was studying authoritarians I've interviewed many authoritarians around the world the pattern is striking scapegoating minorities attacking the press climbing them the enemy of the people violating ethics rules calling to jail your opponent violating rule of law and saying that the norms are such that you can fire investigators and the most striking moment to this was parallel I think is the 2013-14 investigation into President Erdogan and Turkey where he called the investigation of witch-hunt he fired the prosecutors he said he was a victim of the deep state and then he purged the judiciary now this sounds familiar and I think that the the the factor of the fact that we still live in a democracy is great but the fact that we have a demagogue in the Oval Office who has authoritarian instincts is important and that's what I have it although I read part of your book and one of the things I liked about it is that you didn't call him a demagogue specifically you said he had these characteristics and but one of the things I appreciated about your perspective is it's moderation and wonder when the casualties of this calamity has been to drive the mainstream media into a constant hyperbole I mean there was a while there that the the headlines they were they were spitting they couldn't they couldn't top themselves they were so you know world about to end and there's a world ending a second day and and now it's going to be the moon to it it he likes that that's the point doesn't it at that but it drives them to be trumpian right act Liam that's one of the problems we have I couldn't agree with you more is that part of the perversity of this situation is that the press has to play some kind of role in this but the role that's been scripted for it is such that it will simply heighten the anger that led to this populist revolution because the press has become an adversary of whoever is in power it sees everything in black and white now on both sides and it simply feeds this sense that everyone is corrupt in politics that our institutions cannot be trusted that nothing is fair and that just feeds the source of populism that's more significant far more significant on the right in the country but could very well come from the left is American freedom genuinely Ronen under threat from this man I think certainly every journalist I know working today feels acutely concerned about the kind of authoritarian rhetoric that Brian just described this is a hallmark of regimes that seek to drive a wedge between the public and those seeking to inform the public there is a reason that the press is the only profession constitutionally protected in explicit terms in the United States if you want to hold the powerful accountable you need a vibrant free press and I have been tremendously encouraged to see how brave reporters have banged their heads against the wall trying to expose hard truths during this era but the fact that it is in the midst of an all-out rhetorical assault and that there is a a siloing and deepening partisanship in the media that is separating people from the truth and breeding distrust is troubling it's the the rhetorical assault isn't it so their rhetoric Lhasa you still have your rights and you still have the First Amendment et cetera etc but if nobody believes anything and you see it sometimes in Russian propaganda that sometimes it's said of it actually they're not intending that you believe it they're just intending that you get angry and confused and I just wonder whether that has a genuine effect when it comes from the Trump White House yeah so I think it very much does and this is why even though there hasn't been wholesale shutting down of press outlets the culture of democracy is basically built around a combination of laws and norms and norms are like the soft guard rails around democracy Trump is breaking those and and I also use the analogy of democracy like a sand castle it's something where it takes a very long time to perfect but it can be washed away reasonably quickly and I think that what's happening is you know we are careening towards a moment in which a significant proportion of the u.s. population believes the press is the enemy of the people that anything reported in mainstream outlets is fake because negative towards the president that they think the judiciary is just a bunch of Democrats I have to get them and these things have lasting consequences that's why even if Trump is removed from office or if the Democrats win the midterms there is a cultural shift that is not in favor of democratic norms I think that is a significant if they don't think those things under Bush now I can remember quite feisty conversation I've been going to a Bush rally in Ohio I think it was to say I'm from the BBC and there you go around America basically with my accent and people are incredibly friendly I just arrived I'm from the BBC and I spent you know my whole eight years basically at impersonating Hugh Grant with not in every respect had that go for you but you know so you go out so you go to rural Ohio and you say you from the BBC and I can remember then actually it was a group of Republicans waiting in line to see and quite I mean they're very polite because they're American but there was there's a fair bit of hostility and I wonder whether so the point I'm getting to is whether actually the dam breaking and those people getting their man into the White House is a sense a part of democracy and a part of democracy that was missing under your system where it was always the same corporate interests that won every election this is what these people might say every time and actually the bursting of the dam has been a good thing for American democracy boy that would be a tough sell he'll be a tough sell well I gave it a go okay well but in another sense no I mean certainly there are problems with democracy right it's a kind of political regime that has limits and characteristic faults and they're being exploited right now but coming back to the press question too on your point the press is not only protected in order to haul out those in power it's also as Thomas Jefferson said they're to create an informed citizenry right and so the more the press simply pays a role of shouting at those in authority if it's the opposition party no one's doing the job of informing the public all right I agree I think one of the biggest and potentially most lasting casualties of this presidency is what has happened to the mainstream press it has abandoned any pretense of neutrality and so and I'm not talking about not the editorial pages but but the but the reporting and and it's not just the times it's the Washington Post it's all the cable news they are unabashedly partisan in a way they never used to be before of course you always knew there were some leanings but this is this is you know the conceit is that the Republic is in danger to its we're in an existential crisis and you don't have to obey to the old Ruth rules anymore even the ones that that pertain to your own professional yeah ESCA mommy you look at CNN domestic where were the flailing about in the middle that suddenly they get the bit between their teeth and there are a lot of people presumably now I'm seeing their ordinance figures recently but there are a lot of people presumably who want that stuff and and under the American system particularly the broadcast system where you have to give the people what they want or a significant number well you know the advertising have you a distaste you feed them junk food they're gonna want junk food yeah it's not like this is a red meat if they want red meat if you and if you're not feeding the red meat then people will go off and several different things in a way that I think is quite intellectually lazy I think that the long-form investigative journalism happening at places like The Washington Post right now is extraordinary and indispensable and is exactly the spirit of creating an informed citizenry that we so desperately need right now and those are incredibly brave reporters producing that work and I'm thankful for them every day and moved as I see that every day that is real public service and it is stronger than it's ever been conflating that with lazy partisan shouting on cable television is I think not grounded in the reality of those two things there are pernicious trends in media there is the superficial and the crass and the Craven and the partisan and the endless repetition of the same surfacey headlines on a dying medium like cable news but that has nothing to do with the quality of reporting happening right now mark if America decides it has had enough of Donald Trump how does it get rid of him in other words how do the Democrats deal with not just the midterms that are coming very soon November this year but also of course crucially with 2020 well the first thing it has to do is to digest what has happened and not run away from it and not act as if we can run the tape back as lie set and to measure the kind of loss that Democrats suffer and to see that this is the culmination of a much longer process that right now for example Republicans control two-thirds of the governorships in the United States they control two-thirds of the legislative branches in the states Republicans control twenty-five states outright were they to win a couple more they could call a constitutional convention and that would mean real change deep change in America so this loss has been coming right Democrats have lost a presence in the middle of America both geographically and in the ideological sense we are now a party of the two coasts we are both an elite party and a minority party without many people who have fewer and fewer in between and so confronting that should be job one for Democrats right now I mean there's a fire to put out granted but without some long-term thinking about how from 1980 until the president until the present the Democratic Party lost what was this its base in really a in working class mainly white voters but if you if you if you accept that loss as a Democrat and say actually it doesn't matter now because we can put it together people who are atheists people who are keen on transgender rights people who say and otherwise you can get his entire rainbow coalition of people people who like public transport always used to amuse me when I was there that peak for the keenest people on public transport were often regarded as kind of dangerous socialists particularly in Florida Florida cities where they were trying to get light rail involves anyway you get this group of people and you stick them all together and you say look there's nowhere else to go at least for every four years come together and vote for the Democrat as president can that work not at all for a couple of reasons one is that in the places where we would need to get votes among likely voters who are in the middle 75% of them are white and Christian so that's the old America that we need to convince but more importantly one forget were too obsessed with the presidency in the States we forget that the states themselves hold tremendous power under our system so for example there's a constitutional right for a woman to have an abortion in America and there are states where de-facto it is virtually impossible for a woman to get an abortion in America that's a scandal oh and you know what they just passed in Iowa yes now it's not there they have passed a law in Iowa that you have to be able that as soon as you can detect the feel heartbeat you can't get an abortion which means six weeks max most women don't even know they're pregnant by them that's right and so with that I think in order to protect the right of a woman in Iowa to have an abortion you must win elections in Iowa to win elections in Iowa you must convince Iowans who were overwhelmingly white and belit tasks of the Democratic Party right now the brain trust of the party is to think about that and to think about you know long-term being present in all these places we've abandoned now I also think the Democratic Party has to decide what else it believes aside from a minority rights I mean Democrats have been very vocal on all these fronts and I think that that position of backing minorities rights is established but they need more content to their platform and you know the truth is we still have a massive crisis in health care in in the United States that the Affordable Care Act has not fixed just on the level of say what it costs we speak we spend 10,000 dollars per person per year on health care and you know the average family of four makes an average of about fifty seven thousand dollars forty thousand of that is going to health care I mean it's bad enough that I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the escalating health care cost you have the have the ability to implode the American economy it's an employment but the Democrats are all over the place on this well I was simply gonna ask you that because before the election it was Trump who said Big Pharma and murderers it was Hillary Clinton saying about the talks of course they're Democrats should be brave for once and say yes we do want a national health care system yeah I just wanted to add two quick points I mean one is I think that one thing that I deeply agree with mark on is that the Democrats need to win if they want to change things for for the way that they see see fit and that's that's something I think that's lost in American politics is that you can win the argument and lose the election and I think the 2018 election is the most important election in modern American history and the reason I think that even more than 2016 is because because Trump was this trial balloon in 2016 he was this person who you sort of thought let's let's roll the dice with him now we've seen what he is and if he's if 2018 is a is a continuation of Republican control of the House and Congress all Republicans are just going to double down on trumpism if there's a rebuke to them they will reform the party and I think that's massively important the other thing I'll just quickly add is that we also need institutional reform the average margin of victory in the 2016 House races the 435 races for house of representatives in the Congress was 37.1% now part of that is gerrymandering where people politicians are able to pick their districts and effectively draw the lines themselves part of it is demographic sorting which is something that I think is very important to Mark's argument where you cannot draw a competitive district in San Francisco and you cannot draw a competitive district in Texas but that is destroying our politics because if you're in a district that's 70% Republican and 30% Democrat the only incentive you have is to back Trump no matter how much you loathe him personally because you might lose the primary but you'll never lose the general election and the exact same thing is true for the districts that are 80% Democrat and 20% Republican it's polarizing the country and without that long-term reform it's not Trump that's the problem it's a simple of it he's a symptom of it and we have a long-term challenge to the democratic system itself and we should make it clear this year in the in the midterm elections this year the whole of the House of Representatives up again for election as it is every two years and a third of the Senate and at the moment how many seats would the Democrats have to win in the house - it's about 23 so it feels doable and yet actually I doubt any of you are completely confident that it absolutely will were just an anecdote on this question of sorting I found recently online an advertisement for a real estate firm in Texas and their line is they're looking for people out of state to move there and their advertising message is are you tired of living in a blue state you tired of being surrounded by all them liberals we'll come on guys and they're reaching out around the country and apparently there are copycats now yeah I think there's a very real chance that for the first time in a long time we may see the next two election cycles turn out to be foreign policy elections and I say that because of just how extreme the decimation of America's diplomatic standing in the world is just how extreme the ramifications of something like withdrawing from the Iran deal could turn out to be the signal that sends to our allies the signal that sends to North Korea and other rogue states the fact that we are embarking disarmed if you will of our experts in our diplomats on these international adventures that have such incredibly high stakes and could so rapidly turn into tinderboxes of conflicts gives me great fear that this could become both a real crisis on the ground and also a political tool I think Ronan's right because I mean you we're all living in the same world and it's it's a there's always this feeling that within 24 hours everything could change and of course that's always been true really but now now it feels most immediate and you know we can make predictions about what will happen in the midterms but who knows what's going to happen from now to then I have never had an a year and some months passed more slowly in my life and and so it that now seems that now seems a long time from now but that then leads to what I think should probably be the final question actually before we get thrown open to people and that is if given all those things are true what then either a name or a type of person who should the Democrats choice be to try to topple Trump after one term is it obviously Brian Oprah Winfrey or are the other candidates I very much hope that we do not make that mistake I think the idea of fighting and unqualified celebrity with an unqualified celebrity is foolish and I think that there are many people in the party in the Democratic Party who would make fine presidents I think one one thing that's worth highlighting is that if you ask this question in the first year of Bush's second term Barack Obama was not a name that a lot of people knew and there there are people who you know will emerge as real candidates and I think that that's how it should be because you have a real competitive process hopefully they will pick someone who can stand up to Trump so solid governor I mean is that the kind of person who can do it or do it do they need to look if we're talking about personalities what person what person should be running we've already lost and why is that that's because what the Democrats lack and the Republican Party had from 1980 until 2016 was a picture a vision of the country they wanted to create if Democrats cannot look within and figure out what that is that they want to offer to the public it will not matter who is there because even if that candidate wins he or she will be hamstrung in Congress and in the States it will not matter until we have a national narrative to offer Americans again we will simply be playing this game at every election trying to win by one or two points and achieving nothing in the end right look I just want to be a part of Oprah's Book Club xand contests and I want to get a car and I want to be validated and I want to believe in the power of positive thinking I'm an investigative journalist I can't handicap upcoming races good answer okay let me throw it out we'll take several at a time but maybe start with just one just to kick us off and next to number one I can see someone with their hand raised so they are you first dibs hello and first may I say thank you is this working yeah to all of you for such an insightful somewhat frightening but very informative discussion today my name is Carol Moore I am a member of Democrats abroad UK I am retired so I also work for Democrats in Florida three or four months a year and my point is to remember Democrats have been winning elections over the last 18 months that is because of grassroots activity that we haven't seen before that is because of anger and it is also because we do have policies that are positive on key issues like health care like the economy like the inequity in America today that will make a difference if we can take that Congress we only need 23 seats now and the non-biased advisors political analysts cook reportin sacra port etc suggest that we're on course to take 40 seats in November it's not guaranteed I agree we have to get the voters out there all right but my question to the panel is what else do we need to do to win in November besides getting the grassroots out which we're doing and getting good candidates which we are also doing and we haven't done in the past that's absolutely true thank you yeah okay that's specifically on that candidates point mark what I mean there it is a fact isn't it that the Democrats have either come very close to winning or have actually won special elections what we would call by-elections and another contest there has been some movement already but is that it when it comes to it and the selection of candidates for 2018 and indeed beyond do they go down the kind of range route so its horses for courses it's people who suit particular areas and specifically on something like abortion or gun control quite a wide range of views within the party or do they double down and go for the kind of well as you would say that kind of single core message that you take to the American people well I would just be repeating myself as if I said that you know the larger message has to proceed simply a collection of causes and issues and policy papers but what does that mean in candidate selection because that can't it candidates who who understand that that either they they have a larger message and right now the Democratic Party is not generating that or they have a story you know one of the interesting people that I've met since my book came out is a woman who runs an association for the veterans of Iraq and the Afghan Wars she's now in New York she sent me an email after my article came out saying I want you to know that I'm the president of this organization I did several tours of duty I'm LGBT but before anything I'm a citizen thank you for your article I heard from her about six months ago we met for a drink she's running for office in Illinois and if more and so she has a story to tell so right now the Democrats are looking desperately for veterans and what's interesting is they're finding them you know they're finding school teachers doctors and they're finding veterans they're finding people who look more like the people who are going to vote and speak a little more like them that could be an advantage okay couple more and oh yes there are plenty of hands out stop by number three is it yeah hello I just like to hear the panelists answer the question in the title cuz I don't think anyone really that's that so I guess it is what Trump's doing is it permanently damaging or is Trump a fluke and after he's gone in four or god forbid eight years you know is is will things go back to normal what do you think hold that thought let's get a couple more as well yeah yes right up there next to you regardless of whether collision is proven or not is there not damage done as people are willing to defend or dismiss such serious allegations simply as a witch-hunt yeah okay the witch hunt won and son over there yes I'd like to ask the panel what they do to deal with the religious right in America which is clearly aligned itself with a lot of Republican views and how do you change that because the demographic that you're talking about will be persuaded by their preachers that they should follow a certain route fascinating question the religious right of course well from recent surveys seem to have actually doubled down on their support for Trump even after the election and in spite of all the allegations about his behavior said he rather prettily in his BBC when allegations Malad actually we haven't talked about when we should also get to Michael Cohen Trump's lawyer what the allegations are because they are kind of breaking almost around us now but take any or all of those questions so that the permanence first of all the permanence of the damage done anyone got a view on that so I would throw into the mix on that look just looking at the narrow band of America's presence in the rest of the world and what I write about in this book war on peace about the destruction of diplomacy I promised you that I would flog it hard guys you've been treating a word there are typically sides of the coin one is that history tells us that when you have a disastrous and it usually is disastrous sidelining of diplomacy very often what follows is a course correction and that happened in the George W Bush presidency where after the disasters of Iraq we saw a refocusing on diplomacy and development there and also elsewhere in the world with things like the six-party talks with North Korea under Condoleezza Rice it happened in the Obama administration where you had this disastrous Afghanistan review overtaken by celebrity generals where diplomats were kind of forced out of the room and then in the second term in just a few short years you saw the Iran deal the thaw in relations with Cuba the Paris climate change accord so what that teaches us I think is that with just a couple of years of leadership that cares about making peace and undertaking large-scale diplomat diplomacy and diplomatic endeavors you can turn things around you can pull out of the nosedive but the flip side of the coin I was referring to is that the flow of talent into American foreign policy and the prestige and primacy of America around the world is not something even turn around overnight because the people who should be on a track already to become ambassadors in ten years and in 20 years are no longer entering the systems and and again and again you know you have every former Secretary of State expressing some degree of anguish about the fact that even if we start now and we need to urgently this will be years of repair so I think the answer for abroad is semi irreparable for domestic sure so I have one of the final chapters of my book is the ghost of despotism yet to come and it's about you should buy both we're here the only reason I mentioned this is because it's exactly this question about the future and and I have several scenarios but I'll mention three of them one of them is a trump 2.0 figure where Trump is the forerunner right where he he sort of lays the groundwork for somebody who is just as similar in Trump in terms of personality and in terms of his sort of ability to scapegoat minorities and really you know throw red meats the Republican base but smarter and doesn't tweet stupid stuff all the time right that I think is a very dangerous scenario the second one is the possibility of just democratic decay and this is just in very succinct terms if you think about what I said about democracy being a sandcastle it's a lumpy mess right it's still a democracy we're still okay but it's very broken and I think that's where we're heading right now well then that's where you get to that any question over there about about witch hunts that you're actually at then does to your to your are you pre-empting me because I was going to work this into my third Stewart so the third scenario this is this is why I think November 6 2018 is so critical is what I call the Trump vaccine it's where it's where basically there's a rebuke of Trump there's the course correction round and talks about and all of a sudden there's an ability to rebuild the institutions that have been under assault if you think that everything that comes out of the press is either a witch hunt or fake news and the control of Congress retains Israel is retained by the Republicans there are going to be many years of people who continue to parrot that narrative narrative even more aggressively because they just got told that's the way you win elections and as soon as they learn that I think we're in very dangerous territory which is why I think the answer to your question is watch what happens on November 6 2018 if the Republicans control all of Congress I think we're in very deep trouble I think if there's any movement where the Democrats take the house I think it'll be ok the question about the Religious Right is so fascinating isn't it yeah what on earth is going on well I asked my liberal students to take a guess of what percent of the American public myself identifies as evangelical and what percent self identifies as transgender the number of self-identified evangelicals is twenty twenty percent the percent of transgender people is one third of 1% from democratic rhetoric you would not guess that and it's not just a question of Elections it's a question of culture as well we're undergoing now in the United States and also many countries in the developed world to revolution simultaneously one is a political revolution it's populist and it's democratic the other revolution is a cultural revolution having to do with inclusion and respect focused on minorities and on women it's an enlightened revolution Ronan has been an important figure in this but it is elite driven no one gets to vote on what they see on television no one gets to vote on who gets cast in shows in Hollywood or what they see on their screens and so there is a population in the United States of people I would say religious southerners in particular who never see themselves represented in our media and until now that's because of what's going on culturally but it has political effects and somehow the Democrats need to be able to address this quite large group in the population and make them understand that we care about the health and well-being of their families and their communities and that the fact that we're Democrats should not turn them off Ronald Reagan once addressed a group of evangelical ministers back before they used to endorse candidates and he got up and he said I know you can't endorse me but I endorse you it's very difficult to imagine a national figure in the Democratic Party doing that before an evangelical group but it's absolutely not Cerie and if you think of Jimmy Carter which I mean that to me doesn't feel like that long ago but I guess to her people was a long time ago are you seriously saying that there is a chance again that the Democrats could go back to a position where either through the person of their candidate or at least through an outreach they could significantly make inroads into that white evangelical vote again I think they could particularly based on the character of our current president we are not we should be making a religious appeal or values appeal that has abated no we haven't done that with our leaders we do not have people who are the connective tissue between the evangelical population in the United States and generally the religious population in the United States and our party it's not there okay no questions yeah lady yeah I was wondering if you could touch upon the Supreme Court and what Trump can be doing there the damage that can do and maybe explain a bit the importance of the Supreme Court in the American government system yeah very very good question or of course one of the reasons why evangelicals did vote in large numbers for Trump yeah down here on my on my they went to ask about what damage you thought Trump could cause to America's legal culture and it's reverence of it so it's legal culture did yeah yep yeah miss driver in your book we need to talk about Kevin and also in an article for the independent you discuss the issue of gun control to what extent do you believe that this will contribute to an even more disunited states of america there you go gun control first well the gun control issue is one of the big emotional dividing lines between what we're calling Republicans and Democrats but I think that the divide is actually much more profound than party allegiance it's between city and country it's it's between the middle of the country and the coasts and it has to do with I mean we it's it's an overused word but its identity right and I think that's one of the reasons you can get the evangelicals to go along with really what should be putrid behavior for them you know this kind of sexual stuff that the the in with Trump that they should deeply disapprove of but they have identified with this group of people and ownership of guns or at least the the right to buy guns is part of that culture it's a basket of beliefs and and it runs very deep in these in it in these areas because it has become geographical not just not just political and whereas you know the the blue states the the coast the urban elite don't even understand why anyone wants to own a gun they they don't get it I've actually had to go on the news before and explain it to everyone I'm not sure I did a very good job because I'm probably you know I'm part of the coastal elite - and I don't own a gun and I've never owned a gun but I think that's that sometimes we need to extend our imaginations is which which is why I do four professionally - what what what that means to people what is it the what does the right of gun ownership mean to these people and it had I think it has fundamentally to do with people who feel that agency has been taken from them and gun ownership is agency it's the it's the ability to defend yourself you get what you want if only by force and to to if necessary even defy your own government that's what it means so it's not as simple as we just need to buy to pass a bunch of laws and and nobody will have guns anymore and we won't have these horrible mass murders it's it's it's very deep in the culture on to the legal stuff particularly I guess we should talk a little bit about before we get to the Supreme Court about the federal judiciary you think at the moment you were looking in you look at some of the big things that Trump has wanted to do and has been stymied doing them it is the judges at the moment isn't it who've stopped in does that carry on does he get to appoint new ones what goes on there so I think that this will be the most lasting consequence of the Trump administration is they are appointing a huge number of federal judges at an unprecedented pace I mean 16 appellate court judges now and there's five more in the wings which is which could potentially transform the American judiciary so the rule of law I think though is is also under attack I mean I think that there's a real attempt to politicize rule of law by the Trump administration and I think you know this also speaks to the point about us becoming trumpian in response to Trump one of the things that struck me was he had a tweet I think yesterday or two days ago that said 13 Democrats are investigating me right and and my response to this on Twitter was literally every single senior official in the Russia investigation is either a Republican registered appointed by Republican or appointed by Trump or all of the above now of course I'm right about that but the problem is that that's not what's important about them what's important about them is that they're public servants and we used to think about people in that realm of the law as public servants who were appointed by Republicans and Democrats both and had this ethos that the rule of law was important and as a result of that Trump is having an effect even when people push back at him that deepens the sense that the law is an instrument of who's in power and that I think is very dangerous in a democracy which takes us then to that that is the question up there can to can Trump in a sense capture the supreme court I mean there is going to be potentially another pic isn't there so he came to PI he picked someone who'd you can make a case for saying was a perfectly reasonable appointment actually conservative appointment to the Supreme Court no course not not trumpian in the sense of being completely out of left field and certainly a qualified lawyer and all the rest of it and and but but there if there is another pick is that where things get sticky Ronin you know here again I have to be careful about what I say I did actually have a comment following up on what Brian just said which is about partisanship and the way in which the media is both culpable for the environment of partisanship that we live in in the United States and also a victim of that environment of partisanship you know I spent the last several months on back-to-back news breaks about Donald Trump and these secret payments and allegations of corruption around them and each time I broke one of those stories I would be inundated with tweets saying but what about the Democrats but what about Bill Clinton and then you know I turn around and break a story about someone like the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and allegations of domestic abuse against him and I'm inundated with tweets saying well but what about Trump what have you done for us on Trump lately let's focus on Trump a little bit you know and it's a remarkable reflection of I think a conspiring of cable news and algorithmically generated Internet news that leads people to be so siloed that literally these two groups have not seen each other have not seen the other stories are not talking to each other and you can have you know half of my reporting run wild in the conservative blogosphere and half of it run wild in liberal publications and never the twain shall meet and it's deeply deeply troubling to me as we confront this whole range of issues that we're talking in those circumstances the Supreme Court becomes even more important doesn't it yes and and obviously one of the explicit functions of the Supreme Court is to protect against the tyranny of the masses and to protect against the the most vulnerable people in our country they are specifically supposed to push back against political pandering and be insulated from that and so you know yes this is one of the I mean there's no way for me to get into predictions about that without getting in hot water but sir and I wouldn't trust my predictions anyway you know there is seldom a way to reliably predict that but I would say that that is as pivotal an issue as we face as we look at the potential degradation of the rights of minorities in America yeah all right do you wanna say something else no no I'm gonna check with you every time now before I go back I have to stop we should be comforted by the fact that even if there is another opening since you concede that Gorsuch is really not so bad that still leaves eight people relatively sane so in the whole nation numerically we're safe for a time all right yeah hi I'm American living in England for about 15 years when I listen to this in my distress about my wonderful country and I think back I'm old enough to remember when there was a campaign one television to wear seatbelts and a campaign not the litter and I think people were swayed I remember having my great-uncle saying I'll never wear a seat belt over my dead body I'll never wear a seat belt and I think how scared are the people that are patriots in our country on the Democratic Party and the Republican Party to make a stand about crucial issues whether it's gun control or health care about prison reform going through a list and and why aren't those Republicans and Democrats who are scared to speak up for whatever reason that's going on in our country because I feel both parties are really not doing the job that we want them to do okay Patriots speaking up yeah right right up at the back okay yeah Brit big supporter of the USA I I you've covered what it says on the tin to be honest but what I'd like to know is how Trump is preparing to be the second economy in the world when the Chinese overtake them in two three four years and I think that's you know something that's very serious he's pissing off the Chinese to some extent and where does he go from there yeah okay transformation over China that's that's a good one one more down yeah what do you think we love Saudi Arabia is in all of this so the trumpeting out of the Iran deal yesterday I can't help but think it gives Saudi Arabia a stronger pretext for a nuclear weapons program and remitting the lines of Jared Kushner and MBS last year and indeed the dossier it's difficult to avoid the idea that Saudi Arabia where a nuclear weapons program is part of the plan what role do you guys think Saudi Arabia plays and do you think that some their influence in the world and foreign affairs is outweighs geography basically yeah you know Obama turned up to the when the king of Saudi Arabia died Obama was there within 24 hours so as Prince Charles there's no other country that kills gays and and and you know basically it's pretty dastardly so the vast majority of people that has people like a barber turning out for funerals could a barber have been tougher on Saudi Arabia could Trump be tougher and is there an ally that America has really that's stronger a more influential than Saudi Arabia Ronan so I'll take two of those questions was about the rising influence of China and it's important to talk about all that we've said about the erosion of American foreign policy might in the context of you know not the UK or Germany heaven forfend filling the space but China you have Beijing nipping at our heels in each of these areas sending you know envoys to do shuttle diplomacy where we no longer have ambassadors doing large-scale infrastructure projects where we have cut all of our USAID funding so we're very rapidly seeing a world in which China dominates not just economically but also in terms of soft power and I think we should all be troubled for the reasons that this second question touched on you know despite all of the United States foibles and its troubles as a force for human rights in the world it is still a nation that prioritizes those issues to an extent that Beijing does not and that may change over time but right now I think it is worth scrutinizing what a china-led soft power center of gravity looks like likewise you know I think that the erosion of our reliance on experts and long-term strategic thinkers has exacerbated our military-to-military relationships in places like Saudi Arabia and you see you know at times when crackdowns on freed basic freedoms in places like Saudi Arabia and also at times when Saudi Arabia is a malign influence in places like Yemen where one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in the world is playing out we nevertheless are doubling down on arms deals and I think that is because we have an unrestrained center of power occupied by the military in our policymaking and the voices that are supposed to advocate for human rights concerns and the long term costs of those transactional relationships just don't get hurt too often fine yeah I'll actually focus on those two questions as well briefly with the rise of China I think one thing that's really striking I do a lot of research in sub-saharan Africa parts of the Middle East Southeast Asia China is winning a lot of the argument about what model we should follow and there's a lot of even chinese state media is explicitly pointing to trump and dare i say also brexit as reasons why the Western democratic model has failed and it's created self-inflicted wounds now whether you agree with that or not that is persuasive to a certain group of countries who say we don't need elections we don't need democracy we just need growth now what's actually happening because Trump is withdrawing American diplomacy from those areas and America first I would argue is more America alone is that you have an instance where China is actually making serious inroads in those places peeling off partnership and the world is going to be shaped increasingly by China I think that's something that we have not thought about as a forward-thinking country planning for 2030 2040 in terms of Saudi Arabia I think one thing I would add to to the question is the first foreign visit that Trump made was to Saudi Arabia it's the first time put in post-world War two history that the u.s. President did not make their first foreign visit to a Western democracy and Trump did a sword dance after attacking journalists with a regime that the heads dissidents with sorts that's a striking message as a striking image and I think that the US has a lot to own up to not just Trump with its relationship with Saudi Arabia but the combination of these soft power dynamics is going to have real change for the world and I think one of the saddest things about Trump is he captured these people who feel left behind by a changing world and he's not thinking about how it's changing he's his answer is not about inequality that's going to happen it's inequality that happened through trade the real challenges Automation China is thinking about that we're not and I think that's why we have a really stupid and counterproductive foreign policy going forward that's going to catch up to us in the next few years well if I'm gonna step back and be big picture from once and also promote one of my books yeah my last one of my books my wife's novel is called the mandibles and it's set in 2029 and it it foresees a dire future for my country and I'm afraid that future it had with the election of Donald Trump got a little more possible that novel focuses on the economic collapse of the country because of such high levels of debt and his policies so far are only only accelerating that debt now I am a great and this thing on such a big downer but I am concerned that we may be looking at the decline of the American Empire and uh and and Trump is hurrying it along there are a lot of elements that look bad and that including environmental and economic and and political I think the you know not just the presidency but Congress has been breaking down increasingly incapable of passing legislation and addressing the issues of the country and I I think that our ability to elect Trump makes the country look bad and has emboldened our competitors like China and it's had the larger effect of basically the you pull back the curtain and the The Wiz The Wizard of Oz is just a fat man with an orange face I know that note ladies and gentlemen we have reached Harper State it's time to finish applause please for them all [Applause] and also for you thank you so much for coming

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Views: 513,559

Rating: 4.2654209 out of 5

Keywords: ronan farrow, mark lilla, brian klaas, lionel shriver, justin webb, politics, us politics, trump, America, USA, FBI, democracy, white house, debate, oratory

Id: ZFz2jQpkS-E

Length: 81min 18sec (4878 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 20 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/superluigikill]

Yes...ves he is