:00:23. > :00:23.Hello and welcome to Dateline London.
:00:24. > :00:27.Is it conceivable Republicans could dump Trump?
:00:28. > :00:30.And could the Labour Party really vote to replace Jeremy Corbyn?
:00:31. > :00:32.Plus what the humanitarian catastrophe in Aleppo means
:00:33. > :00:38.My guests today are Abdel Bari Atwan who is an author
:00:39. > :00:44.and commentator on Arab Affairs, Agnes Poirier of Marianne,
:00:45. > :00:46.Michael Goldfarb of Politico Europe and
:00:47. > :00:54.We are all well aware of the failures of opinion polls,
:00:55. > :00:57.but in the United States the past week or so has seen a huge
:00:58. > :01:00.swing away from Donald Trump, and even allies like the former
:01:01. > :01:02.House Speaker Newt Gingrich have begun to criticise the
:01:03. > :01:06.Republican nominee for crass comments about the family of a
:01:07. > :01:07.Muslim US serviceman killed in action.
:01:08. > :01:08.Given the discontent in
:01:09. > :01:11.the Republican party is it at all possible that
:01:12. > :01:24.Some people would like to, but it does not seem this is even possible,
:01:25. > :01:33.does it? I don't know that it could happen. But a week ago, in the best
:01:34. > :01:40.polling website I know of, based on all the polls that have been
:01:41. > :01:46.circulating, they had Trump at a 50.04% probability of winning. That
:01:47. > :01:51.was precisely a week ago, today he's down to under 30%. Clinton has had
:01:52. > :01:55.this enormous rise and she is close to 80% probability in their reading
:01:56. > :01:58.of the polls in one week. I'm not sure you can return from that. I'm
:01:59. > :02:03.sure the grandees of the Republican party would love to dump him. They
:02:04. > :02:07.have a huge problem. He may play fast and loose with many facts about
:02:08. > :02:13.himself, but one of fact, when he says I got the most votes, you got
:02:14. > :02:17.the most votes. He was an open Republican presidential primary,
:02:18. > :02:20.nobody hinted that he bought the 40 million votes that went to him. If
:02:21. > :02:25.they were going to dump them, they would be repudiating their own
:02:26. > :02:29.process. This is a huge problem. I don't think they can do it. What
:02:30. > :02:33.they've got is they are literally riding a tiger and they seem to be
:02:34. > :02:39.riding it to a cutter stuff fixed in November as of now. A catastrophic
:02:40. > :02:44.defeat -- defeat for Trump, the party or his people? He has endorsed
:02:45. > :02:49.Paul Ryan after saying he wasn't ready to do so, the Speaker of the
:02:50. > :02:53.house of representatives of the top Republican in the country. He
:02:54. > :03:00.finally has his endorsement. This is the thing. Polling or change back
:03:01. > :03:09.and forth, but a week ago, Trump was likely to take the critical swing
:03:10. > :03:12.state of Ohio and it is 18 electoral college votes. A critical swing
:03:13. > :03:17.state. Now it's winding towards Hillary Clinton. They are concerned
:03:18. > :03:23.all happened down ticket. My guess is if Trump goes to defeat, they
:03:24. > :03:26.will not mind. People like Ted Cruz Marco Rubio who ran him second and
:03:27. > :03:30.third in this process, they are in their 40s. They are thinking if
:03:31. > :03:35.Trump goes down badly, I have a chance to run for president again in
:03:36. > :03:41.2020. But it is the Senate they may lose. If they lose that and Hillary
:03:42. > :03:44.Clinton is elected, then the country can really change direction. I think
:03:45. > :03:51.that is what Republicans are thinking about. We are spectators
:03:52. > :03:57.are very degrees of interest. Some are alarmed, some are amused. What
:03:58. > :04:03.do you make of this? Part of us, because we are experts and therefore
:04:04. > :04:07.not to be trusted in any way whatever, we have looked at events
:04:08. > :04:10.in the last year or so and thought that all our conventional wisdom is
:04:11. > :04:14.been turned on their heads. Therefore, we got into the mode of
:04:15. > :04:18.thinking any catastrophe is possible and anything is possible.
:04:19. > :04:21.Essentially, is like that strictly come dancing when voters kept voting
:04:22. > :04:29.John Sergeant spike and despite the judges think he could not dance. --
:04:30. > :04:33.back in. They've said it over Brexit and over Jeremy Corbyn who we will
:04:34. > :04:37.be coming to and we've lost confidence they would not even said
:04:38. > :04:43.over Trump, particularly last week when the polls turned. However, it
:04:44. > :04:47.has to be said he is a spectacularly bad candidates, a bad candidate from
:04:48. > :04:51.almost every... Not from conventional points of view only,
:04:52. > :04:56.but from unconventional points of view. It would be reassuring to me
:04:57. > :04:59.as a member of the metropolitan elite and an expert of the
:05:00. > :05:05.Establishment is just for once they think was going to run either way.
:05:06. > :05:11.He speaks like a pollster! What do you make of all this? America is a
:05:12. > :05:17.huge mess, to be honest. You have the Republican -- Republican
:05:18. > :05:22.candidate who is a threat to national security and he is going to
:05:23. > :05:26.destroy the country. And the Republican hierarchy wants to get
:05:27. > :05:31.rid of him and they are looking for a contingency plan, a plan B to
:05:32. > :05:34.remove him, find somebody else, just three months before the election.
:05:35. > :05:38.Then you have the Democratic candidate who is actually
:05:39. > :05:41.investigated by the FBI, because of the e-mails and is kind of things
:05:42. > :05:47.and what will happen if she charged for example for argh was charged for
:05:48. > :05:54.wrongdoing. It is unbelievable. But for those in the Middle East, OK,
:05:55. > :05:59.that is fantastic, because maybe leave them to be involved am busy
:06:00. > :06:03.with their problems, because not all problems, because they made a huge
:06:04. > :06:13.mess. Let us let them suffer because of this. Personally, I wish Trump
:06:14. > :06:21.Wentz, to be honest. -- went. It could be the end of the world. Your
:06:22. > :06:24.endorsement will be very heavily... Not for the advantage over the
:06:25. > :06:30.United States and its people, but for our advantage. Because we have
:06:31. > :06:35.suffered a lot because of the American intervention in our part of
:06:36. > :06:45.the world. We will all suffer from Trump. Suffer like us? When shall we
:06:46. > :06:50.suffer alone here? You are being suicidal. No, I am explaining how
:06:51. > :06:56.much we are suffering from American policies. Do you think your views
:06:57. > :07:00.are shared widely? Yes. Seriously, a lot of people in the Middle East in
:07:01. > :07:04.particular are saying if Trump comes, let's Trump,... Many people
:07:05. > :07:10.don't like Hillary Clinton? They don't like either of them. They say
:07:11. > :07:14.let Trump come, what is he going to do more than George Bush, for
:07:15. > :07:23.example? What is he going to do more than them? Fight terrorism? It could
:07:24. > :07:28.be much worse. Eddie you stand on this? I hang hearing Michael said
:07:29. > :07:32.that he might actually face a catastrophic defeat, it's the best
:07:33. > :07:37.news, the best thing I've heard in weeks or months! That would be
:07:38. > :07:44.fantastic. That would be the only possible Pope. For the world. What
:07:45. > :07:50.is interesting... But if he is the choice of the American people... I'm
:07:51. > :07:55.on the side of life, not death. But if the American people decide to
:07:56. > :08:00.elect him, what is the problem? You talk about democracy, people's
:08:01. > :08:04.choice... Valent -- Vladimir Putin has made Trump into an unwitting
:08:05. > :08:09.agent. It's extraordinary what has happened with the two of them.
:08:10. > :08:13.Vladimir Putin is a career intelligence officer, they identify
:08:14. > :08:17.weaknesses in people and exploit them. He started complimenting
:08:18. > :08:20.Trump, Trump fell into the trap saying, oh, Vladimir Putin is a
:08:21. > :08:24.great leader, we will have a great relationship. Putin is a guy who
:08:25. > :08:32.invaded tee-macro countries and killed. Imagine, he is serving
:08:33. > :08:39.Russian interests, not American ones. And the guy who runs the CIA
:08:40. > :08:42.said this guy is not only mad, and qualified, and fits, he poses a
:08:43. > :08:49.security threat. Not only to America, but the world. And I
:08:50. > :08:55.believe him. There are two Russian emigres who have written essays
:08:56. > :09:02.recently, one in the New York Times. And today, in the same paper, there
:09:03. > :09:04.was another one. I trust Russian emigres have left Putin behind. They
:09:05. > :09:12.don't see the connection quite as intensely as we do. Their view is
:09:13. > :09:20.Putin accuses him of the useful idiot rather than as an actual
:09:21. > :09:24.agents. I'd just like to pick up the point about experts. We can laugh
:09:25. > :09:30.about Trump, and when I say catastrophe, that is this week. We
:09:31. > :09:34.will see what the polls say. Experts have the butter pudding across. I
:09:35. > :09:38.know you want to make another point, but of Americans focused on this
:09:39. > :09:42.race? They tend not to get bothered until September. That's the
:09:43. > :09:46.convention was about. We talk about bumps come you get a bump when you
:09:47. > :09:51.come out of your convention if you have done it right. Trump did not
:09:52. > :09:55.get one. There was a historic low of people who said they could not vote
:09:56. > :09:59.for him. In other words, they watched and said, no, constant hits.
:10:00. > :10:05.But I think everybody to be serious for a second has to consider why the
:10:06. > :10:12.Trump phenomenon happened. Because those who voted for him are a
:10:13. > :10:17.legitimate force. There are good analogies, not entire analogies to
:10:18. > :10:20.me, about what happened with Brexit. For decades, America has been
:10:21. > :10:24.heading toward this moment. The Republican party and its -- in its
:10:25. > :10:31.modern iteration has been based on a not too subtle call to racial
:10:32. > :10:36.antagonism. It's a white person's party, which is not to say that all
:10:37. > :10:42.of Trump's support comes from angry white men, which is too easy. The
:10:43. > :10:50.economic situation of the average American worker has over the last
:10:51. > :10:55.two decades gone retrograde. People are angry. They are incoherent in
:10:56. > :10:59.their anger. The media has deteriorated, even the mainstream
:11:00. > :11:04.media talks to people as if they are idiots, and so when you come to this
:11:05. > :11:12.moment, it's important to understand Trump, we can laugh at him, Abdel
:11:13. > :11:16.can condemn the Middle East to Trump presidency, and we can all have a
:11:17. > :11:20.chuckle. But deeper question is that the US is still the sole superpower
:11:21. > :11:22.and American society is very, very divided and very degraded. We have
:11:23. > :11:25.to be careful about that. Jeremy Corbyn and his rival for
:11:26. > :11:28.the leadership of the Labour Party Owen Smith squared up
:11:29. > :11:30.for a debate this week. But is there really any realistic
:11:31. > :11:32.prospect that Labour Party members could replace as leader
:11:33. > :11:34.a man elected overwhelmingly And is a formal split
:11:35. > :11:38.in the party now likely since in obvious ways
:11:39. > :11:52.it is split already? Replacing? Will they? Probably not.
:11:53. > :11:55.-- replace him? It is the remarkable the degree to which people are not
:11:56. > :12:00.listening to each other any more. Really, really remarkable. I watch
:12:01. > :12:05.these discussions, particularly with people who are keen on Jeremy Corbyn
:12:06. > :12:12.and I see no cut through of what you might call traditional arguments
:12:13. > :12:16.about consequences, if you do this, then this will result and so on. So
:12:17. > :12:20.on the whole it will be better not for you to do it and do something
:12:21. > :12:24.else. And some of the scenes at the debate they had this week between
:12:25. > :12:28.Owen Smith and Jeremy Corbyn were really interesting from the point of
:12:29. > :12:33.view of what the people and how the people in the hall were reacting and
:12:34. > :12:37.how people reacted thereafter. I could see a lot of things from
:12:38. > :12:41.people who are ordinary Corbyn and supporters and I mean by that but
:12:42. > :12:51.they are not actually Trotsky its. But that is not the basis of the
:12:52. > :12:55.support. I just have a sense that they either are disconnected from
:12:56. > :12:59.consequences, that is to say they will not see what the polls are
:13:00. > :13:04.telling them very clearly, without any kind of ambiguity whatsoever,
:13:05. > :13:07.they keep on insisting they are saying will say something else or
:13:08. > :13:11.they think we don't care. We just want this thing, is the biggest
:13:12. > :13:14.thing, is the nicest thing that's happened to us, we would really like
:13:15. > :13:18.it to happen and we will put our heads down and not notice what is
:13:19. > :13:21.going on. That point about people not listening to each other is a
:13:22. > :13:26.worldwide phenomenon in which we've touched on a different ways. But
:13:27. > :13:43.it's true, isn't it? We can go back to Trump. Can talk about Facebook or
:13:44. > :13:49.Twitter politics. It is rather scary. With Corbyn, I've got the
:13:50. > :13:56.outside's point of view. What's he is trying to do is extraordinary.
:13:57. > :13:59.Because he wants to remain it in the party rather than run the country.
:14:00. > :14:03.He wants to make the party of social movements which is not the Labour
:14:04. > :14:08.Party. The Labour Party's main aim is to be a party of Government.
:14:09. > :14:14.There is a complete discrepancy between what the party is and what
:14:15. > :14:18.its leader wants. Do you think it has been discredited by Government?
:14:19. > :14:22.People looking back at the Tony Blair years and goes back to the
:14:23. > :14:26.heart of David's point, you get those who say well, he did the best
:14:27. > :14:29.he can with the social measures and other people who said he lied to us
:14:30. > :14:39.about Iraq and it was all the disaster? I'm an outsider, I can
:14:40. > :14:43.see... Of course there is Iraq, but Iraq seems to obliterate everything.
:14:44. > :14:48.One day perhaps in a century from now, Blair will be remembered for
:14:49. > :14:57.what he did. Apart from the Iraq war. David Cameron will be rendered
:14:58. > :15:00.for Brexit. -- remembered for. It is a tragedy, Labour is not the
:15:01. > :15:10.official opposition in Britain anymore and it worked up into the
:15:11. > :15:16.Commons. What you make of Jeremy Corbyn and actually, again it is the
:15:17. > :15:20.same thing as Trump in comic is profoundly popular with a big
:15:21. > :15:27.section of Labour voters. He was elected by the Labour voters. He won
:15:28. > :15:31.a huge majority of the Labour supporter members and we remember,
:15:32. > :15:38.when he was elected, the membership of that Labour Party tripled. So he
:15:39. > :15:43.is not coming by a parachute into the Labour Party, we have to admit
:15:44. > :15:47.that. The second day, the Labour Party is divided. The Conservative
:15:48. > :15:53.Party is divided. Britain is divided. So where is the problem?
:15:54. > :16:01.There are huge numbers of British people who are unhappy with the
:16:02. > :16:06.establishment. Disgruntled. Those people vote for Jeremy Corbyn. And
:16:07. > :16:15.to be fair to him, he should be listened to. When he was leading 2
:16:16. > :16:22.million demonstrators in London, people thought he was mad. He
:16:23. > :16:35.wasn't. I think it will be 3 million by next week. Amnesty want? 100,000.
:16:36. > :16:41.They proved they were right. They were right. Look at Iraq now. Look
:16:42. > :16:48.at Saudi Arabia, look everywhere. We have to listen to this manner. He
:16:49. > :16:55.never had a rest, from day one. The media, the establishment they were
:16:56. > :17:00.all against him. He never had a chance to breathe. Let us listen to
:17:01. > :17:05.him. He was elected by a democratic means. So we have to listen to him
:17:06. > :17:17.and seriously, we have to give him a chance. He has been given a chance.
:17:18. > :17:24.It is a very important point, because that was an astonishing
:17:25. > :17:38.events. On Monday I was on a similar march of 2000 people. There were a
:17:39. > :17:41.million people, that was the beginning of a coalition. How many
:17:42. > :17:45.went on the next March and the one after that and the one after that?
:17:46. > :17:51.This is the point about Corbyn. He has a safe seat in Islington. He has
:17:52. > :17:55.never, in his entire political career, prior to becoming leader had
:17:56. > :18:00.to persuade anybody except is voters in a safe Labour seat. He has no
:18:01. > :18:08.persuasive skills. That is what has come up. The essence of political
:18:09. > :18:11.leadership, not back Benesch barracking, but the essence of
:18:12. > :18:14.political leadership is to be able to convince people outside your
:18:15. > :18:21.comfort zone. And he is very, very bad at it and that is why Labour is
:18:22. > :18:22.sinking in the polls. We may return to this in coming weeks.
:18:23. > :18:24.Aleppo has been a trading centre for centuries.
:18:25. > :18:30.Now Syria's biggest city is a humanitarian disaster.
:18:31. > :18:32.If it falls to the forces of the Syrian Government,
:18:33. > :18:36.what will be the consequences for the Middle East?
:18:37. > :18:43.Maybe you could bring us up-to-date with the situation as using it? And
:18:44. > :18:48.I I saw in the past week the barrel bombs for the chlorine gas have
:18:49. > :18:53.allegedly been dropped on people? -- filled with chlorine gas. It is
:18:54. > :18:59.changing, why, simply because Turkey is getting out of it. American
:19:00. > :19:05.administration realised that, Islamic State which is bombing
:19:06. > :19:12.Paris, Brussels, Orlando, everywhere. This is a very ill
:19:13. > :19:16.effects. Is a recognised admission that they going to ground in Syria.
:19:17. > :19:23.They are concentrating mainly on rooting out radical Islamic
:19:24. > :19:28.organisations or fighters in the whole of Syria. Aleppo is actually
:19:29. > :19:33.the Stalingrad of the whole situation of the Middle East. It is
:19:34. > :19:42.the mother of all battles. If they manage to root out these radical
:19:43. > :19:46.organisations, they could actually turn to plan B, which is the
:19:47. > :19:49.political solution, and I believe that there is an American and
:19:50. > :19:55.Russian understanding to put an end to those particular people in that
:19:56. > :20:02.part of the world. Take other radicals and keep Assad in power?
:20:03. > :20:10.Yes. The priority now is to find these radical Islamic organisations.
:20:11. > :20:18.Now, Turkey, after the military coup are turning their backs to the west
:20:19. > :20:22.and are going to Moscow. The president will meet Vladimir Putin
:20:23. > :20:26.in the next week. It seems he's going to say, OK, I have had enough,
:20:27. > :20:30.if my country is going to be destroyed and dismantled, I want to
:20:31. > :20:34.get rid of all the policies toward Syria. There will be a human
:20:35. > :20:40.catastrophe, there are 250,000 Syrian besieged in Aleppo. Those
:20:41. > :20:46.people could be massacred, we don't know yet. Turkey sealed its border
:20:47. > :20:55.completely. Today, Kurdish forces managed to capture an area and will
:20:56. > :20:58.control the Syrian Turkish border. This is the problem, this human
:20:59. > :21:03.catastrophe is coming. Those people, they do not know where to go. In the
:21:04. > :21:08.past, Turkey opened its border for those people. They have 2 million
:21:09. > :21:14.Syrians there. Now, both of sealed completely. Unfortunately then, I am
:21:15. > :21:19.sad to say, we are witnessing or about to witness a human catastrophe
:21:20. > :21:23.and that is it. And that has profound consequences for the whole
:21:24. > :21:26.of the European unit that, most obviously, simply the humanitarian
:21:27. > :21:31.disaster we will be witnessing? Absolutely. Those people are not
:21:32. > :21:36.allowed to go to Turkey. The people are living in terrible conditions
:21:37. > :21:41.there and I mean, it seems that we are so worried about what is going
:21:42. > :21:47.on in Europe, we have lost the plot of what is going on in Syria and we
:21:48. > :21:53.are absolutely obsessed by blocking and eradicating the Islamic State
:21:54. > :21:59.and we forget about the people, but what can we do? And we still talking
:22:00. > :22:04.to the about this? It's also the end of the Obama administration in a few
:22:05. > :22:08.months. Germany and friends have general elections in eight months'
:22:09. > :22:15.time and there will be a period, a longer period of low before we get
:22:16. > :22:21.together again and there's the question of the cessation of
:22:22. > :22:27.hostilities. Where have we got to? Where has that gone? The latest
:22:28. > :22:33.things I've seen all week is Aleppo being cut off. There has been a
:22:34. > :22:36.fightback. So long as there are weapons aplenty on the ground, let
:22:37. > :22:41.the Russians wants to commit even more, they lost a helicopter this
:22:42. > :22:44.week, five Russian soldiers were killed, we didn't see in the West,
:22:45. > :22:48.but I saw pictures coming out of the Middle East. Their bodies were
:22:49. > :22:54.abuse. These are all things that will affect decision-making in the
:22:55. > :22:59.Kremlin. The fight never seems to run out of steam. In the way that...
:23:00. > :23:05.When I was in Bosnia after two or three years of civil war, vicious
:23:06. > :23:10.war, people were exhausted. And so when the opportunity came to finally
:23:11. > :23:13.have discussions, all sides were ready to stop. People are not ready
:23:14. > :23:19.to stop yet and I don't quite know where this ends. If Hillary Clinton
:23:20. > :23:25.is re-elected, you may see a research, because she certainly
:23:26. > :23:29.disagreed with Obama about his red line that he didn't enforce. If she
:23:30. > :23:40.is re-elected in November, that's a whole new cards to play in this. We
:23:41. > :23:46.said after the Balkans that we wanted to try and help such
:23:47. > :23:51.situations not occur again. For five years, since 2011, the West's
:23:52. > :23:56.approach toward Syria has been one of minimum involvement, despite what
:23:57. > :24:01.Barry says. I know, according to you, the West is to blame for
:24:02. > :24:07.absolutely everything. Don't interrupt me, let me finish. This
:24:08. > :24:14.is, if you like, the expression of whether logic takes you. When we
:24:15. > :24:18.didn't go in in 2013, when we let President Assad used chemical
:24:19. > :24:26.weapons and so on, when we failed to interdict the Islamic State and it's
:24:27. > :24:30.taking of those all. We sent a message we were not there.
:24:31. > :24:35.Eventually, the Russians were there helping Assad. We now have a
:24:36. > :24:39.situation in which no one can win, we have no strategy of dealing with
:24:40. > :24:43.all saving the people of Aleppo, rather than in the West moaning
:24:44. > :24:48.about refugees who were forced out as a consequence of our own neglect
:24:49. > :24:52.of policy. In the region. The whole disaster has now come pretty much as
:24:53. > :24:56.people predicted it would if we stood back from it. I understand the
:24:57. > :25:00.reasons why we stood back from it. It looks pretty likely that we will
:25:01. > :25:06.assist with the taking of most of the Islamic State territory in Iraq
:25:07. > :25:10.fairly soon and quite a lot of it in Syria. The question will then become
:25:11. > :25:16.for the next president, it will be, and for the rest of the countries,
:25:17. > :25:22.what then? I don't agree with his analysis on Syria at all. Add in the
:25:23. > :25:24.Turkish president is far more interested in what is going on in
:25:25. > :25:28.his country at the moment which is hardly surprising. After he has done
:25:29. > :25:35.that, he will look at the situation in Syria, but his policy will not
:25:36. > :25:42.change enormously. To be honest, if Hillary Clinton is coming and
:25:43. > :25:49.decides to intervene in Syria this could ignite the third World War.
:25:50. > :25:52.Because they have their forces and bases there, the Russians, and they
:25:53. > :25:57.are giving cover to President Assad and that is why his force is moving.
:25:58. > :26:01.We have to be very careful here. The Russians are there.
:26:02. > :26:02.That's it for Dateline London for this week.
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