:00:24. > :00:24.Hello and welcome to Dateline London.
:00:25. > :00:27.Donald Trump cannot manage to persuade enough Republicans
:00:28. > :00:30.in Congress on his first big leadership test ? health care.
:00:31. > :00:38.Plus, the European Union at 60 - comfortable middle age
:00:39. > :00:50.Our top team of guests today - on what will be my last
:00:51. > :00:53.Dateline London before I leave the BBC - are Abdel Bari Atwan, who
:00:54. > :00:59.Jef McAllister, who is an American commentator.
:01:00. > :01:01.Donald Trump - the self-described great deal-maker, whose ghost
:01:02. > :01:04.written biography was The Art of the Deal - has failed to convince
:01:05. > :01:07.even Republicans in Congress that he knows what he is doing
:01:08. > :01:12.In what polls say is the most unpopular presidency ever at this
:01:13. > :01:15.stage, can he convince Americans he knows what he is
:01:16. > :01:30.How much trouble is he in? He starts in trouble because he is unpopular.
:01:31. > :01:35.It was an election which Hillary Clinton won by 3 million popular
:01:36. > :01:38.votes. He said health care was easy, Republicans can do this because we
:01:39. > :01:43.have been saying for seven years that we can do health care better,
:01:44. > :01:48.quickly. It turns out their ideas cannot even pass their own caucus.
:01:49. > :01:53.They were unworkable. He is not a deal-maker. He thought he could do
:01:54. > :01:57.his fairy tale thing. He disappoints his base. It makes him look and
:01:58. > :02:02.competent. It is a mess. Does it give him a chance to pivot? It is
:02:03. > :02:07.interesting. In many ways he is not a Republican. He is not a classic
:02:08. > :02:11.small government Republican. This was Paul Ryan's health care bill.
:02:12. > :02:19.Trump probably doesn't know most of the content. The freedom caucus, the
:02:20. > :02:23.very right-wing, that is not Donald Trump. He is a nationalist, he
:02:24. > :02:29.believes in infrastructure. He was pro-choice before he anti-choice. I
:02:30. > :02:35.was thought he had an opportunity to pivot to the centre and go with
:02:36. > :02:41.Democrats. He could get Democrats are lots of issues if he wanted to.
:02:42. > :02:47.Most Republicans are right wing. And his chief strategist, there is
:02:48. > :02:56.talkie wanted the outcome on health care because he hates Paul Ryan so
:02:57. > :03:01.badly. As you both know, anyway you go in America you will hear people
:03:02. > :03:06.saying, big government is terrible but no government appears to be the
:03:07. > :03:12.implication of this. In other words, they won't do a deal on anything?
:03:13. > :03:16.This is a form of gridlock. An eccentric former gridlock. He has
:03:17. > :03:19.discovered he wasn't elected emperor. He really thought he could
:03:20. > :03:26.run the country the way he runs his business, in a not aquatic way. He
:03:27. > :03:28.doesn't seem to understand the most basic institutional truths,
:03:29. > :03:32.constitutional truths, about how American government works. He
:03:33. > :03:39.thought he could sack the legislator, I think. -- legislature.
:03:40. > :03:44.Politically, he can recover from this. A lot of people have rocky
:03:45. > :03:48.start. George Bush, Ronald Reagan. But it is his personality that is
:03:49. > :03:51.the problem. I don't think psychologically he will find it easy
:03:52. > :03:57.to recover. We know what he thinks about losers and winners. If these
:03:58. > :04:00.wounds him in a way that it is impossible for his narcissistic
:04:01. > :04:04.personality to recover from, that will be the real crux. Let's stick
:04:05. > :04:11.to the constitution before the psychotherapy! We may get back to
:04:12. > :04:13.that. In terms of the pillars of the Constitution, you have the
:04:14. > :04:18.legislative Branch saying, thank you very much. We have already had on
:04:19. > :04:23.immigration the courts saying something similar. These are two
:04:24. > :04:30.huge setbacks on two of the biggest things he said he would do? I can't
:04:31. > :04:35.understand it. He doesn't understand his own constitutional setup. When
:04:36. > :04:38.you become a correspondent in Washington, the first thing you
:04:39. > :04:44.learn is that Congress is the other arm of government. That is the
:04:45. > :04:48.statutory description. He has no idea what happens when he over
:04:49. > :04:51.promises that he can do magical things and then he runs foul of the
:04:52. > :05:01.other arm of government. It damages his credibility terribly. Managing
:05:02. > :05:07.Congress is really an art. It is not like decision-making in an executive
:05:08. > :05:14.environment. It is an art of compromise. Ronald Reagan did it.
:05:15. > :05:17.Bill Clinton did it. One wonders if he can forge compromises in the
:05:18. > :05:22.first place because he is so full of his own importance and his own
:05:23. > :05:28.magnetism. This particular incident will undermine him terribly. It is
:05:29. > :05:32.an old Ade Azeez Washington that you can't be strong abroad if you are a
:05:33. > :05:40.week at home. -- it is an old saying in Washington. If you are North
:05:41. > :05:43.Korea, you might perhaps be kind of careful about how you go through the
:05:44. > :05:51.next few months in terms of missiles. Do you agree?
:05:52. > :05:59.LAUGHTER. Just a suggestion. Do you know what I'm talking about?! Where
:06:00. > :06:04.are the advisers? Does he listen to anybody? The wrong people. He
:06:05. > :06:09.doesn't listen to advisers. He couldn't fix it inside. How is he
:06:10. > :06:15.going to fix it outside? How can he have a foreign policy which could
:06:16. > :06:21.actually be very influential? The problem is he wants to make America
:06:22. > :06:25.great, or the greatest, as he promises people. But if he cannot
:06:26. > :06:30.tackle the internal problems, and if he is actually motivated by hatred
:06:31. > :06:37.towards Obama and the Democrats, how is he going to run the country? The
:06:38. > :06:41.statement he made when it went down, the statement he made was
:06:42. > :06:45.interesting. There were two guys standing over him, his vice
:06:46. > :06:52.president and health secretary. They had obviously given him a script.
:06:53. > :06:55.And he actually stuck to it. And it was surprisingly diplomatic. He was
:06:56. > :07:00.saying, Obamacare is bloody collapse and when it goes, the Democrats can
:07:01. > :07:05.come to us and we will be open to negotiation. It almost seems as if
:07:06. > :07:10.the shock of this has made him say something. I was ready for him to
:07:11. > :07:13.throw an absolute tantrum, to be completely irrational. In fact what
:07:14. > :07:18.he said under the circumstances was about as rational as it could be.
:07:19. > :07:24.Why would Obamacare necessarily collapse unless Congress denies
:07:25. > :07:28.funding? The difficulty is it is this funny hybrid of a government
:07:29. > :07:34.programme and an insurance market, an idea put forward by the Heritage
:07:35. > :07:39.foundation, a Republican think tank. It is a very Republican idea to
:07:40. > :07:42.begin with. It requires insurance companies to set premiums and get
:07:43. > :07:47.subsidies from the government. In some states, some insurance
:07:48. > :07:51.companies have withdrawn because they don't like the particular risk
:07:52. > :07:55.pools they have got. In some states, for the first couple of years
:07:56. > :08:01.premiums went down. This year they increased by 22% on average. In some
:08:02. > :08:11.markets, 100%. If they go so far, people don't sign up. Young people
:08:12. > :08:14.who are healthy $ up. -- sign up. It is not that hard to do. We have made
:08:15. > :08:21.health care more complicated in America then we need to. The problem
:08:22. > :08:24.is, in the Ronald Reagan days, the Republicans believed in smaller
:08:25. > :08:28.government but they believed in making government work. Richard
:08:29. > :08:33.Nixon imposed wage increase controls. They believed the gunmen
:08:34. > :08:38.had imported things to do. People in the House Republican Party now are
:08:39. > :08:42.so anti-government, they can't figure out how to make it work. That
:08:43. > :08:48.bill would have been chaos for the insurance parties -- companies. How
:08:49. > :08:52.much does it matter to those people who voted for Donald Trump anyway,
:08:53. > :08:58.given that he said he needs to drain the swamp because Washington doesn't
:08:59. > :09:05.work... He doesn't work. As an executive he has no prizes -- he's
:09:06. > :09:08.had no previous experience. Reagan did have. There was more cohesion
:09:09. > :09:11.among the politicians who were the big shots of the day. There was a
:09:12. > :09:19.sense of responsibility to come together. I think they are all in
:09:20. > :09:25.for a big fight. Fur Trump to say he wants to clean the swamp, his
:09:26. > :09:30.mindset is a swamp of contradictions that people can't quite make out. I
:09:31. > :09:35.agree. We are going through a perilous phase in international
:09:36. > :09:39.politics where some people might take advantage of this weakened
:09:40. > :09:43.position. Do you think there could be a foreign policy crisis that
:09:44. > :09:51.someone will Manufacturer? Maybe somebody in the White House. Wagging
:09:52. > :09:55.your dog is always possible. When you get to making war and other
:09:56. > :10:00.countries, the sober people tend to show up at the table. And the
:10:01. > :10:04.president himself, even one as feckless and strange as this man is,
:10:05. > :10:07.will get the picture that he's not supposed to be ordering people to
:10:08. > :10:15.their deaths without some good reason. There are lots of
:10:16. > :10:20.opportunities to do funny things in Ukraine and to take advantage on the
:10:21. > :10:25.edges, which I think will tie him in knots.
:10:26. > :10:29.When you look at the foreign policy, for example, until now we haven't
:10:30. > :10:33.seen any. He said a few days ago we should not withdraw troops from
:10:34. > :10:38.Iraq. We should occupy the oilfields, control the oil fields of
:10:39. > :10:45.Iraq. Just imagine. In Syria, for example, we don't know what he is
:10:46. > :10:48.going to do. When it comes to the Palestinian question, he says there
:10:49. > :10:57.is no two state solution, there is no one state solution. It's chaos.
:10:58. > :11:01.It's chaos. It's completely incoherent. There is also another
:11:02. > :11:05.question in terms of foreign policy, the Russia connection. If it is true
:11:06. > :11:08.that there are real connections between his people and Putin's
:11:09. > :11:11.Russia, we are in big trouble. That is very, very serious.
:11:12. > :11:13.Let's move it on. The security services in Britain
:11:14. > :11:15.and the United States have advised that laptops and similar devices
:11:16. > :11:18.should no longer be allowed on certain flights, to counter
:11:19. > :11:20.the threat from sophisticated bombs. But in London this week -
:11:21. > :11:23.as we have seen in France and Germany in the past year ? low
:11:24. > :11:34.tech terrorism is also deadly I mean, in some ways many people
:11:35. > :11:41.have said it's not surprising this happened because we know big open
:11:42. > :11:45.democracies will always be a target. Big open democracy is what we have
:11:46. > :11:48.and what we want. We don't want to do anything to mitigate the
:11:49. > :11:53.freedoms. This is what it's all about. If we destroy the social
:11:54. > :11:59.values and the political values the country stands for in the name of
:12:00. > :12:02.stamping out any conceivable possibility of any misfit, any
:12:03. > :12:09.hanger on, any lunatic going over the edge and doing something on a
:12:10. > :12:12.one-off basis, what is the point? Clearly, this particular action
:12:13. > :12:17.might have been preventable in the sense that had there been armed
:12:18. > :12:21.guards on that date at Westminster, possibly. But those are technical
:12:22. > :12:24.questions. The idea that you can actually control the behaviour of
:12:25. > :12:31.every conceivable person who might get hung up on this obsessive thing
:12:32. > :12:36.for his own private pathological reasons, no, it isn't possible to
:12:37. > :12:41.prevent it. Did any of you think in some ways this was a very good week
:12:42. > :12:44.for British democracy? It was horrible to watch, but politicians
:12:45. > :12:48.rose to the occasion. They kept going. They made statements which
:12:49. > :12:54.were very statesman-like. The Prime Minister and others. It was a good
:12:55. > :12:59.week for Theresa May. Incidentally, I was in the Parliament when the
:13:00. > :13:04.attack took place. I was actually detained for six hours. What I
:13:05. > :13:12.noticed, honestly, the confidence, the crisis management impressed me.
:13:13. > :13:16.Suddenly, in a few minutes, the Terror squad was there in the
:13:17. > :13:21.Parliament with their arms, with their masks. Everybody was quiet,
:13:22. > :13:26.everybody was calm. Everybody wanted like to go on as if nothing
:13:27. > :13:38.happened. The British are inherently calm! It was well orchestrated calm.
:13:39. > :13:45.Which is very, very impressive. The message of this terrorist attack, it
:13:46. > :13:51.did not actually affect people. It did not reach its destination. One
:13:52. > :13:54.is the calmness and that a big democracy, an ancient democracy like
:13:55. > :14:02.Britain does not allow itself to be forced its knees because one maniac.
:14:03. > :14:07.And the second is, as Janet says, you can add 100% safeguard yourself
:14:08. > :14:12.against that kind of attack. We have already 3000 or so presumed
:14:13. > :14:22.terrorists who are being watched night and day. Then suddenly someone
:14:23. > :14:27.comes in who is not on the radar screen. We have two ask ourselves,
:14:28. > :14:35.why do we spend so much time covering an individual like this on
:14:36. > :14:39.the news? It gives him extra fame, as it were. We accept the
:14:40. > :14:46.inevitability that such acts occur and we have to continue with our
:14:47. > :14:51.inner strength. I think sang fraud is really the only way. --
:14:52. > :14:54.sangfroid. The purpose of terrorism is to terrorise. If you are not
:14:55. > :15:02.terrified, it makes a big difference. If you look at how
:15:03. > :15:07.people really die in the world, toddlers killed more people in
:15:08. > :15:11.America last year through handguns left around the house, than
:15:12. > :15:20.terrorists did. But we don't get rid of toddlers. There are so many road
:15:21. > :15:23.accidents on the roads in Britain. People are using their mobile phones
:15:24. > :15:28.when they are driving. I you going to get rid of mobile phones? No, you
:15:29. > :15:32.figure out a solution. In this way, better policing, better security
:15:33. > :15:37.work is the only way to go. Otherwise we give up society. I
:15:38. > :15:48.would question whether society is cohesive enough to contain this. You
:15:49. > :15:51.have to talk in terms of prevention, telling the Mohsin -- Muslim
:15:52. > :15:58.community to reporters going on early on. Is our society performing
:15:59. > :16:03.properly? How we creating little ghettos? The enclaves of Islamist
:16:04. > :16:07.indoctrination have to be dealt with. There is good evidence to show
:16:08. > :16:11.there is considerable intelligence being received from the Muslim
:16:12. > :16:18.community. The security services tell us they have forestalled any
:16:19. > :16:22.number of incidents. I think you have to think of it like the cold
:16:23. > :16:27.War. It took a long time to win the Cold War. There were Communists in
:16:28. > :16:32.our midst. There were lots of ways this video that you worked. 20 years
:16:33. > :16:37.ago there were not Muslim men driving their cars down streets to
:16:38. > :16:45.kill people. We hope in 20 years from now they want again. Cold War
:16:46. > :16:49.was an argument. You can persuade people communism was not the answer.
:16:50. > :16:55.This was not an argument. This was a confrontation with insanity. For
:16:56. > :17:01.some of the people, yes, they may be insane. But it is an ideology. There
:17:02. > :17:11.is an infrastructure and a belief. It is just the extremist you're
:17:12. > :17:14.getting. Talking about the Muslim community, in this country
:17:15. > :17:18.particularly, they were extremely cooperative. They rejected this kind
:17:19. > :17:22.of terrorism immediately. They were or operating with the security
:17:23. > :17:26.services. That is why, for ten years, this country never witnessed
:17:27. > :17:32.anything like this since the 7th of July 2000 and five. It tells first
:17:33. > :17:35.the efficiency of the security forces, the cooperation of the
:17:36. > :17:36.people with the security forces to prevent these kinds of things.
:17:37. > :17:40.The European Union is celebrating - if that is the right word -
:17:41. > :17:42.the 60th birthday of the great project which has help ensure
:17:43. > :17:44.democracy has spread across Europe, from former Soviet satellites
:17:45. > :17:46.in the Baltic, to former fascist-style dictatorships
:17:47. > :17:53.But as Britain begins to leave, is the European project now
:17:54. > :17:55.running out of steam, out of ideas, and out
:17:56. > :18:10.The ever closer union we hoped would emerge is a more fractious union
:18:11. > :18:14.now. We don't seem to be able to deal with the problems, starting
:18:15. > :18:21.with external borders, the refugee problem, the euro, which hasn't been
:18:22. > :18:25.solved. And also, importantly, the imbalances between peoples lives in
:18:26. > :18:32.union. The Pope made a great point yesterday. The unemployment and the
:18:33. > :18:36.austerity consequences of one size fits all currency is a dramatic
:18:37. > :18:42.damage to people's hopes, young people's hopes for the future. That
:18:43. > :18:51.has to be tackled. The refugee crisis, also, will now come down to
:18:52. > :18:55.Turkey and all countries to solve. Turkey used to be a pillar of
:18:56. > :18:58.stability. Now look at the 3 million refugees in Turkey, and look at
:18:59. > :19:05.President Erdogan threatening Europe. We find building sites all
:19:06. > :19:15.over the place. It doesn't look as if it is in very stable condition.
:19:16. > :19:18.You need a face-lift at 60, the European Union! You need innovation,
:19:19. > :19:24.you need new ideas. Think seriously about this. Look at Europe now after
:19:25. > :19:27.60 years, they are facing immigration, they are facing
:19:28. > :19:34.terrorism, they are facing slow growth. I don't believe any of this
:19:35. > :19:40.was anticipated when this treaty was signed. This is the problem. The new
:19:41. > :19:45.reality is taking place. You have to look at it from a different
:19:46. > :19:53.perspective. I'm believe there must be some innovation. -- I believe. We
:19:54. > :19:58.have had ideas, the Lisbon agenda, where they promised to overtake
:19:59. > :20:04.America within ten years in terms of growth. We have two owned up to our
:20:05. > :20:10.on declarations and be truthful to what we set ourselves. You have to
:20:11. > :20:15.remember the founding philosophy of this. It was built after the Second
:20:16. > :20:20.World War, after a terrible period in which nation states had disgraced
:20:21. > :20:25.themselves. The anti-democratic nature of the European Union is not
:20:26. > :20:28.an accident. The idea was that terrible people had been elected by
:20:29. > :20:32.the democratic process in Europe and this was a terrible sort of shame
:20:33. > :20:36.and guilt, and the abolition of the power of the nation state and the
:20:37. > :20:41.National comment was built in right from the outset. And ironically,
:20:42. > :20:46.this is now conducive to a new nationalism and the new xenophobia,
:20:47. > :20:52.which was almost inevitable if you anticipated it properly. The point
:20:53. > :20:55.is the democratic nation state, with a government elected by the people
:20:56. > :20:58.for the people, answerable to its own population, was one of the
:20:59. > :21:02.greatest progressive ideas in human history. They wanted to wipe it out
:21:03. > :21:09.because of the terrible 20th century crimes. Three lots of no champagne
:21:10. > :21:16.corks popping! Say something nice about the EU. It has prevented wars.
:21:17. > :21:24.Has it? I think you have to look at it... It has encouraged democracy.
:21:25. > :21:26.When you look at the appeal. After the fall of the Soviet Union, so
:21:27. > :21:32.many eastern European countries wanted to join the EU and lives to
:21:33. > :21:37.its standards -- live up. Of course they and to be part of the larger
:21:38. > :21:40.families -- family, but the EU meant something. It was seven democracies
:21:41. > :21:44.and cultures that had attractive power. I think we really do have to
:21:45. > :21:52.thank it for a tremendous amount of contribution to peace and security.
:21:53. > :21:57.It has always been bumpy. Where was the EU during the war in the
:21:58. > :22:03.Balkans? I agree. But that is still part of the European family. You
:22:04. > :22:07.have to look at those institutions. Is there any way of separating the
:22:08. > :22:12.problems of the euro, with the problems of the European Union? In
:22:13. > :22:16.other words, do you consider now that the euro itself has been such a
:22:17. > :22:21.big step in the wrong direction for the people of Greece, for the people
:22:22. > :22:25.of southern Europe? The original idea may have been a good one but we
:22:26. > :22:29.admitted Sunni countries that should not have been admitted. It was fair
:22:30. > :22:34.weather decisions when, after the 2000 agenda, when Europe said it was
:22:35. > :22:41.great to be a growth area, it didn't act on it. A year later, they
:22:42. > :22:45.accepted Greece. It was a scandalous decision. There was no thought to
:22:46. > :22:52.what was going to happen. I would disagree. They didn't meet the
:22:53. > :22:58.economic criteria. Neither did Italy, actually. You have to help
:22:59. > :23:04.each other. They have made a basket case of Greece. Look at the social
:23:05. > :23:09.problems. We have to give the European Union a social face, a
:23:10. > :23:15.caring face. They have created an enormous welfare state. Greece is a
:23:16. > :23:18.prominent beneficiary. That is terrible for that country. The
:23:19. > :23:23.freedom of Europe -- movement within Europe means that the optimistic
:23:24. > :23:28.young will leave those countries and come to the successful northern
:23:29. > :23:32.countries. The United States has one: -- currency and lots of
:23:33. > :23:38.different economies. People go from the poorer areas to New York City to
:23:39. > :23:44.make their fortunes. You could say it is just that Germany wasn't
:23:45. > :23:47.generous enough to Greece. State governments in the United States
:23:48. > :23:51.have more power than governments within Europe. The United States
:23:52. > :23:57.fought civil war over differences of opinion as well. As well as slavery,
:23:58. > :24:05.of course. There are different economies bound together by the same
:24:06. > :24:09.currency. The conflict between states to govern our economy and
:24:10. > :24:19.federal states, causes tremendous damage sometimes. Not nearly as
:24:20. > :24:22.problematic as you have with 27 nationalistic entities. It is
:24:23. > :24:25.difficult enough in America. But it is most impossible to bring
:24:26. > :24:30.everybody under one roof under such rules as Greece had to follow. We
:24:31. > :24:35.should have done something to help Greece but not by subjecting them to
:24:36. > :24:41.these rigorous rules of austerity, which they surely could not meet.
:24:42. > :24:54.What a -- will there be a European Union of 27 countries in ten years?
:24:55. > :24:59.That is the $100 million question. There is going to be a German
:25:00. > :25:04.Europe. Please don't tell the Germans. They don't want to be
:25:05. > :25:10.leaders. Lord Heseltine predicted this would be to the glory of
:25:11. > :25:17.Germany becoming the dominant power. We don't want to dominate anywhere.
:25:18. > :25:19.One of the reasons I am optimistic about the outcome of Brexit is
:25:20. > :25:25.because Germany will not allow Britain to go to the nether world
:25:26. > :25:28.and be forgotten about. Ironically, although the Germans don't want to
:25:29. > :25:31.be dominant powers, they do in a sense dominate the ethos. They say
:25:32. > :25:37.effectively the Greece have to behave more like Germans if they are
:25:38. > :25:40.to survive economically. That was the creed which was expected by the
:25:41. > :25:46.other nations. It may have been the original German idea. To be honest,
:25:47. > :25:51.I believe the European Union will be stronger. They will repair or reform
:25:52. > :25:54.a lot of mistakes. More countries will join, including Turkey.
:25:55. > :25:57.Thank you for the optimism. That's it for Dateline
:25:58. > :25:58.London for this week. And that's it for me on this
:25:59. > :26:01.wonderful programme which, across the world, has been one
:26:02. > :26:04.of the most watched BBC News And no doubt the next 20
:26:05. > :26:11.will be even better. Let's see what happens to the
:26:12. > :26:14.European Union then.