21/01/2017 Dateline London

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

Two stories dominate the week and are likely

The beginnings of the Trump presidency and the beginning

of the end for Britain in the European Union.

My guests today are John Fisher Burns of the New York Times,

Thomas Kielinger of Die Welt, Polly Toynbee of The Guardian

and Dmitry Shishkin of BBC World Service.

Donald Trump first, and as he begins the job of being 45th President

of the United States, to paraphrase a question

from the presidential debates, let's start by saying something

nice, positive or hopeful about the new President.

This is going to and stretch for you, but have a go! After that

inaugural speech in which he reached out to nobody at all, in which he

trashed all of the previous Presidents sitting around him very

politely, I think the only thing we can seriously hope for is that this

meglomaniac will overreach himself to such a degree that he will be

impeached as soon as possible, hopefully before that four years is

up. And that he will simply be removed. He is utterly unfit to be

President of the United States and I think we saw that writ large in his

speech which was the most outrageously ungracious speech I

think probably any President has ever made at an inauguration. John,

I challenge to you do a bit better than that, just a possibility here!

Um... Well, there was very little for anybody who is not an American

in that speech. There was very little for the people who have felt

that American Presidents in the last 30 or 40 years have achieved

significant things. But I think if we look at what he's promising for

America, rebuilding the infrastructure of America, bringing

jobs back to America, these are going to be df things to do. It's

not clear where the infrastructure he is going to find the money.

Anybody who has travelled through America, particularly anybody who

has travelled through the Ohio Valley will know that an attempt, a

serious attempt to bring jobs back, to rebuild American industries is

long overdue. Therefore, to sum that up in a slogan Put America First,

there is another context in the 1930s, but to say in the 21st

century I am going to put America first that strikes home, doesn't it?

It has, of course some pretty ominous overtones for anybody who

knows American history, including it in the 20th century. Isolationism

and protectionism then. Theagetives rolled out here in the press and the

last few days about Trump, it's hard to disagree on the basis of what we

saw in the campaign with very much of it. But on the other hand, 63

million people, maybe 66 million people voted for Hillary Clinton,

but 63 million people themselves and many of them are far from being

crass, vulgar bullies, they found something in Trump that persuaded

them that he would change the course of America to their benefit. I think

it's far too soon to conclude they were wrong. Thomas, you have covered

- been based in Washington and seen inaugurals, the first inaugural of

Ronald Reagan was greeted in Britain and Europe with perhaps not the same

amount of dismay but there were a lot of headlines saying he is just

an actor which was not true because he had eight years as Governor of

California. This perception continued throughout his years. In

Europe you could never get a set of opinion to understand America is

doing from our way of politics and Reagan comes straight from the bone

marrow of American identity and he was to be a great President. Nobody

recognised that really until today. There is not a single street in

Germany that says Reagan Street or Reagan Plaza although he was the guy

who said tear down this wall. I totally agree with the nature of his

speech with Polly. That leads to a positive conclusion, that he will

unite, not Americans so much because he didn't do much to do that in his

speech, but unite Europe. Nato will begin to understand that something

needs to be done to do better than they have so far. It will also cause

minds to pause in the Brexit debate. I don't think EU and Britain can

afford to go down the route into trade wars. We are going to have to

watch our trade relations with America. That might lead to a

unifying amongst Europeans and in relation to Britain, so it will have

a positive effect on the Brexit debate, I am sure. President Putin

is hoping to talk to Trump sometime soon, I take it the Russian response

has been in so far as we can read it positive? In the BBC interview the

press Secretary of Putin yesterday said they would go and celebrate the

Russian Christian holiday yesterday rather than watch the inaugural

address. However, what we know is the potentially summit with ly --

what Russian television has been saying and the positive thing is

they call him the man of his word and that's interesting in itself.

Politicians generally say they don't know what is going to happen really

because there is nothing to say anything concrete about his policies

moving forward but what they are definitely saying because the tide

is changing, they think actually making Trump think about America

only is actually good for Russia because it means that Russia can

comb and again start asserting its -- can go and aagain start asserts

its influence. In the look at the wish list it's not going to be

dissimilar to Trump's possible agenda. Maybe apart from Middle East

where Syria is one thing but actually long-term Middle East

strategy for Russia and America are quite different. It was also said

that there can't be real progress in Syria without the Americans, in

other words, the possibility of some deal with a deal-maker. Precisely. I

guess this is exactly right about Nato but I think even if America

withdraws itself from different types of bodies, from world bank,

IMF, UN, this is all actually positive, will be seen positive in

Moscow. I thought one of the first casualties of Trump's vision for

America is his hope for improved relationships with Russia and Putin

and the fact that he's appointed, for example, as Secretary of Defence

and he is not alone, amongst the Cabinet nominees, somebody who takes

a much tougher line on Russia. It's indicative and it won't be very long

before Trump and Putin fall out. You are right. That's why I think the

current feeling in Moscow is the feeling of let's wait and see what

will happen because actually I wouldn't actually be surprised by

hearing on the Russian television moving forward that Trump is our

guy, he is good, he really means well but he is surrounded by the

establishment and the hawks of Washington won't allow him. I think

what we see is two rather similar and perhaps impulsive characters. I

think the idea that they're going to somehow make great friendship, it

will take very little, there is a tinder box, it will take little for

either to take great offence at something the other one does. The

possibility of friction seems much greater than the idea of this -

unless of course it is true he is totally in Putin's hands and he has

blackmail material and all of that, but leaving that aside. I would

agree and also say they're both people - actually for Putin to be

seen alone with Trump in this kind of Russia-US really important summit

is an important thing. Interesting this choreography, if there is a

summit. People within the Reagan administration said the President

tried to give away all nuclear weapons. Afterwards people thought

what was wrong about that? Is this possible to dream that kind of

thing? The dream continues, I am sure quite rightly but the way

Reagan went about it without consulting with his allies was

totally negative. Mind you, Reagan started as far as Russia is

concerned with that famous statement in the first press conference the

day after he was inaugurated when he was asked what do you think about

the Soviet Union, he said they lie, they cheat and want to conquer the

world. For Trump to give Putin so much of the benefit of the doubt

already saying you can trust him when Russia has to reearn its trust

after all that happened recently with the Olympics, drugs scandals

and interfering in American debates, so to come out with this statement

to trust Putin, he says I trust Putin as much as I trust Angela

Merkel. It didn't go down well in Germany. In terms of what you think

he might do if he does spend a lot of money somehow domesticically and

rebuilding infrastructure which just about anybody thinks needs rebuilt,

where is the money going to come from, but also he has to persuade

Congress. Isn't one of the big, it may not be as obvious as foreign

policy to people in Europe and around the world but he has to deal

with people in Congress who are in the Republican Party who have power

and some of whom don't like him. The question is will they be close to

him because he is the President and they have to be seen to be or will

they look at the next election which is in two years as far as they're

concerned and say not sure? Many years I spent in China, the Chinese

Government, when asked a question they didn't want to answer, the

situation remains to be determined. This certainly, there are so many

uncertainties we can not know. It seems one plain point of friction is

going to be money. On the one hand Trump has talked about doing

something about this huge multitrillion dollar deficit. On the

other hand he wants to build up the Armed Forces on which the United

States is already spending the best part of $700 billion a year. Now he

wants to rebuild American - where is the money coming from? It has to

come via Congress. Congress, we know Republicans are very loath to spend

money. I think it's going to be a lot of conflict there. It's

interesting how little he was scrutinised. What's been

extraordinary about this election is that any normal election, a

presidential candidate would have to answer that question. You are going

to cut taxes and spend hugely on Armed Forces, huge amount on

infrastructure, you are going to save working class America, where

are the tax cuts coming? They're all for the rich, not for the poor. How

does he square any of that? Nobody ever got to force him to answer

those. I think there are more dissimilarities between Trump and

Reagan. One obvious dissimilarity is that Reagan was a charming

individual. Even his political opponents found him a likeable

individual. It seems to me that's not the case with Trump. In terms of

his relationships with Congress that may prove to be another difficulty.

Could I suggest one thing that - one strong positive you may dislike is

that he is a great communicator. People will look at the speech and

so on but to people he needs to contact or communicate with, the use

of Twitter which is just a thing that's said and is republished,

that's one of the reasons why he wasn't scrutinised in the way you

suggest because he was able to say in 140 characters make America great

again and people thought that's a great idea. Yeah, the Twitter has

been brilliant. He is plainly going to go on with it, all day and all

night tweeting away. It means that he doesn't get challenged or

questioned. He puts it out there to his own followers. That works very

well. I think that's a frightening lesson for modern politicians.

Listening to that rather doll inaugural speech yesterday, it was

indeed -- dull inaugural speech yesterday, it was indeed written by

Donald Trump. He said he was going to eradicate Islamic terror, that's

going to be a difficult job, but setting a tone that is something he

can clearly work with Moscow on. As you remember, the relationship

between Russia or Soviet Union and the West always were - they were

constructive on anything to do with nuclear missile treaties, irrespect

yaf of how bad the relationship were in early 80s, they still were able

to go and do something on the missiles. In terms of the

co-operation between the secret services, definitely post-9/11 when

Putin was the first to call Bush and he was proud of that, he has

suggested his help and this will continue definitely. Let's just not

make mistakes about why, what aims put isn't trying to achieve in the

Middle East or anywhere else and others because obviously as I was

referring to the wish list, the wish list goes much further than that.

There is a question about Ukraine and Georgia and not joining Nato, we

were - this is this legend, nobody knows whether it is true, whether it

was promised not a single country in Europe would join Nato after

reunification of Germany. There is mixed stories about whether this

happened. Here the same thing. I think I agree with you, if they hit

it off it will be really fabulous relationship between them two for

the next whatever years. But it's hard. The difference is Putin has a

plan. I don't think Trump has a plan, he has tweets, I don't think

he knows where Georgia is. A tired phrase already, in a world where

people believe with their hearts and react with their hearts, rather than

their minds, we are talking about scrutiny, we as journalists are

interested in that sort of thing. I guess societies in large around the

world probably are going to the fact that different thing. There are

obvious problems. For instance, Iran is a defacto ally in the Middle East

with Russia and Iran is one of the bogeymen Donald Trump has threatened

to change relations with. That's one of the questions they are not going

to be comfortable talking about. In the Middle East also if America,

obviously sides with Saudi Arabia, Russia clearly with Iran, so that's

the biggest issue. Relations with the rest of the world, the most

important is with the White House relationship with Congress. No

wonder we call Congress the other arm of Government. That is central.

He can't do anything unless he strikes an emoll yant or tolerant

relationship with Congress. Carter had a majority of his own party in

Congress but he was constantly bogged down by fighting in Congress.

He can't make peace with Congress. So it's essential that Congress and

Trump will get on. I am not sure they will. It's a terrible juvenile

habity of his to be pursuing. He communicate with people who will not

listen to White House speeches, it communicate with a lot of people. He

doesn't read anything himself, he says I haven't got time. All he can

read is tweets. He assumes all his followers read tweets. He

overpromises. That speech raised expectations in the wild sort of

fashion which Congress soon will shut down I am sure. We should

remember McMilline, events, dear boy, events. Some events may be

forthcoming and unimaginable, the events of 2016 were unimaginable a

year ago. It could not, for example - what if there is friction on the

borders with Russia and Estonia and Lithuania, how long would that last?

We don't know that, if he is convinced he needs to build

factories and whatever, then he said that America first and potentially,

you know, Estonia... At the end of the queue. I want to come on to

queues about trade and other things. Theresa May made clear her plans

for Brexit this week. Britain out of the single market

was clear enough but if we don't get a deal she said Britain is prepared

to walk away. Does anyone have any idea

what that might mean? And how is Mrs May's

clarity or otherwise First of all, we will get to the

trade talks with the head of the queue, back of the queue, whatever,

but in Germany when people heard what Theresa May had to say was it

much clearer what Britain is aiming for? Well, it's very hard for

Germans to understand the way the British mind ticks. Still to this

day they don't understand how a nation, a member of the EU can even

conceive of leaving it. This notion of the island nation going for the

global sort of horizon is totally strange to the way of thinking. We

are in Europe surrounded with nothing but friends at the moment

and we need to be collectively involved ap for Britain to go it

alone - I keep reminding them - a tradition that sea faring nations

reached out beyond the immediate continent and neighbourhood and

other than that they think they will look at it rationally and the

arrival of Trump on the scene as I said before gives me hope, the two

sides, the EU and Britain will come together at a workable sort of

solution. There is no advantage to be gained from going into a trade

war mindset between the EU and Great Britain. While you have to be

careful not to make it too easy for Britain to leave it because that

would bring up copycat mentalities of other European nations, who might

say we can also leave it. That's probably again unofficial hope from

within the Kremlin is that basically starting an avalanche for the same

trends in other countries. Other countries have their own... The

relationship between EU and Russia always subject to this exercise -

southern countries were more pro-Russian. I am generalising here.

But you definitely have Greece and some former countries... Now you

have Le Pen part-financed... If you look at probably the Britain leaving

the European Union is out of the public debate in Russia, just not an

issue. It's irrelevant? Regular Russians would say I wish we had

your problems generally, that would be one way of looking at it and

other people would say good for you, we all know how bad the European

Union is and go and do it alone because you are a great country. Do

you think we have clarity this week? Absolutely not. We got some fairly

ill-intent and the idea she would say we are leaving the single market

and the customs union but somehow we are going to have magical deal which

is just as good as being inside when the response right across Europe,

whether it was in Brussels or individual capitals was you can't do

that, you are either in or out, there is no way in which you are

going to have a better deal, you will not have to pay in, you will

not have to accept freedom of movement and then of course this

global fantasy, it was extraordinary sort of empire talk. She has an

Elizabeth I fantasy apparently she sees herself in this role and we

will have she is wonderful trade deals. If we want a trade deal with

India, for instance, they will demand more visas. Now a lot of the

impetus against Europe was also an anti-Asian, anti-Islamic feeling

about immigration as much as it was anti-poles or Hungarians, I don't

think people are going to tolerate the idea we have to have more people

from India in order to have an Indian deal. The idea we are going

to have a good deal with Trump, Trump will make a deal, I

interviewed him in 1988, read his appalling book, he always comes out

on top, that's the way you do it. Any deal with us and America means

we have to accept their regulations, not EU regulations. The moment we do

that then we cut ourselves off even more from Europe because we are not

accepting European regulations. I have said this on this programme

before, a lot of of the discussion about Brexit and where it will carry

us is conducted as if we live in a static kind of world and Europe

right now is not in a static condition. We know elections in

France, indeed in Germany and in Italy can radically change the

Europe that Theresa May is negotiating with. Not to mention the

Italian banking system and other economic factors. I wouldn't be

surprised if Theresa May is quite pleased at the possibility of delay

in invoking Article 50 because the further she can push these

negotiations into the era of the emerging Europe, the Europe where

there could be a referendum in Europe, for example, and in Italy

and in France, which could easily go the same way as ours did and I think

we might, a year from now... You hear Labour, most of Labour people,

a few rebels, Corbyn saying we are going to sign it, the Lib Dems

won't, but she will get it through, I am afraid. The other point of

clarity, with due respect, I felt it was clear in one aspect, she's

willing to go for brinkmanship with Europe. She has a way of taking - if

you don't agree, we have another way of becoming a different country.

That's a reasonable negotiating tactic. Expect in a terrible

prospect, she wants us to be a Singapore, a bargain basement lowest

possible tax. We would be cutting off our own nose to spite our face

if we did that. I agree and the impossibility of her suggestion of

course strikes you immediately because there's so many circles to

square as it were. One thing is where is the money? We talk about

money in the Trump case, where does she get the money for reforms she

promised? I think the UK goes into these negotiations with a few

advantages, to cite only one, how many BMWs are sold in this country?

265,000, I think. So where is German industry, the motor industry going

to be on this issue? They don't want to drive the UK into some sort of

isolation. It's holding Europe to ransom on that account. The Germans

and the rest of Europe, like us, are less motivated by economics when it

comes to the crunch than by principle and their principles about

Europe will be stronger, just as ours were. We have done ourselves

terrible economic harm for the sake of a fantasy belief in our great

independented pence. Have we done ourselves harm? We don't know. It's

likely. It hasn't happened yet. We haven't done anything yet. We are

not out. Markets are all predictive. The markets seem to have decided

this is a do-able thing. From somebody who came to this country

about 16 years ago, I can say that I can feel that actually

internationally, globally, Britain as a country where English is

spoken, part of Europe will still be extremely interesting for people

from Asia to come and do business with, from south Asia, east Asia,

Russia, other countries. Africa, as well. There is something culturally

and Britain will remain a big magnet. A large part of that is our

relationship with the United States and the fact that we have a common

language and to some considerable extent common culture. We will have

to leave it there. That's it for Dateline

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with Dateline London. Hello. A hard frost for many of us

to start the weekend, some fog patches around too. Two views