25/03/2017 Dateline London


25/03/2017

Similar Content

Browse content similar to 25/03/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

Hello and welcome to Dateline London.

:00:24.:00:24.

Donald Trump cannot manage to persuade enough Republicans

:00:25.:00:27.

in Congress on his first big leadership test ? health care.

:00:28.:00:30.

Plus, the European Union at 60 - comfortable middle age

:00:31.:00:38.

Our top team of guests today - on what will be my last

:00:39.:00:50.

Dateline London before I leave the BBC - are Abdel Bari Atwan, who

:00:51.:00:53.

Jef McAllister, who is an American commentator.

:00:54.:00:59.

Donald Trump - the self-described great deal-maker, whose ghost

:01:00.:01:01.

written biography was The Art of the Deal - has failed to convince

:01:02.:01:04.

even Republicans in Congress that he knows what he is doing

:01:05.:01:07.

In what polls say is the most unpopular presidency ever at this

:01:08.:01:12.

stage, can he convince Americans he knows what he is

:01:13.:01:15.

How much trouble is he in? He starts in trouble because he is unpopular.

:01:16.:01:30.

It was an election which Hillary Clinton won by 3 million popular

:01:31.:01:35.

votes. He said health care was easy, Republicans can do this because we

:01:36.:01:38.

have been saying for seven years that we can do health care better,

:01:39.:01:43.

quickly. It turns out their ideas cannot even pass their own caucus.

:01:44.:01:48.

They were unworkable. He is not a deal-maker. He thought he could do

:01:49.:01:53.

his fairy tale thing. He disappoints his base. It makes him look and

:01:54.:01:57.

competent. It is a mess. Does it give him a chance to pivot? It is

:01:58.:02:02.

interesting. In many ways he is not a Republican. He is not a classic

:02:03.:02:07.

small government Republican. This was Paul Ryan's health care bill.

:02:08.:02:11.

Trump probably doesn't know most of the content. The freedom caucus, the

:02:12.:02:19.

very right-wing, that is not Donald Trump. He is a nationalist, he

:02:20.:02:23.

believes in infrastructure. He was pro-choice before he anti-choice. I

:02:24.:02:29.

was thought he had an opportunity to pivot to the centre and go with

:02:30.:02:35.

Democrats. He could get Democrats are lots of issues if he wanted to.

:02:36.:02:41.

Most Republicans are right wing. And his chief strategist, there is

:02:42.:02:47.

talkie wanted the outcome on health care because he hates Paul Ryan so

:02:48.:02:56.

badly. As you both know, anyway you go in America you will hear people

:02:57.:03:01.

saying, big government is terrible but no government appears to be the

:03:02.:03:06.

implication of this. In other words, they won't do a deal on anything?

:03:07.:03:12.

This is a form of gridlock. An eccentric former gridlock. He has

:03:13.:03:16.

discovered he wasn't elected emperor. He really thought he could

:03:17.:03:19.

run the country the way he runs his business, in a not aquatic way. He

:03:20.:03:26.

doesn't seem to understand the most basic institutional truths,

:03:27.:03:28.

constitutional truths, about how American government works. He

:03:29.:03:32.

thought he could sack the legislator, I think. -- legislature.

:03:33.:03:39.

Politically, he can recover from this. A lot of people have rocky

:03:40.:03:44.

start. George Bush, Ronald Reagan. But it is his personality that is

:03:45.:03:48.

the problem. I don't think psychologically he will find it easy

:03:49.:03:51.

to recover. We know what he thinks about losers and winners. If these

:03:52.:03:57.

wounds him in a way that it is impossible for his narcissistic

:03:58.:04:00.

personality to recover from, that will be the real crux. Let's stick

:04:01.:04:04.

to the constitution before the psychotherapy! We may get back to

:04:05.:04:11.

that. In terms of the pillars of the Constitution, you have the

:04:12.:04:13.

legislative Branch saying, thank you very much. We have already had on

:04:14.:04:18.

immigration the courts saying something similar. These are two

:04:19.:04:23.

huge setbacks on two of the biggest things he said he would do? I can't

:04:24.:04:30.

understand it. He doesn't understand his own constitutional setup. When

:04:31.:04:35.

you become a correspondent in Washington, the first thing you

:04:36.:04:38.

learn is that Congress is the other arm of government. That is the

:04:39.:04:44.

statutory description. He has no idea what happens when he over

:04:45.:04:48.

promises that he can do magical things and then he runs foul of the

:04:49.:04:51.

other arm of government. It damages his credibility terribly. Managing

:04:52.:05:01.

Congress is really an art. It is not like decision-making in an executive

:05:02.:05:07.

environment. It is an art of compromise. Ronald Reagan did it.

:05:08.:05:14.

Bill Clinton did it. One wonders if he can forge compromises in the

:05:15.:05:17.

first place because he is so full of his own importance and his own

:05:18.:05:22.

magnetism. This particular incident will undermine him terribly. It is

:05:23.:05:28.

an old Ade Azeez Washington that you can't be strong abroad if you are a

:05:29.:05:32.

week at home. -- it is an old saying in Washington. If you are North

:05:33.:05:40.

Korea, you might perhaps be kind of careful about how you go through the

:05:41.:05:43.

next few months in terms of missiles. Do you agree?

:05:44.:05:51.

LAUGHTER. Just a suggestion. Do you know what I'm talking about?! Where

:05:52.:05:59.

are the advisers? Does he listen to anybody? The wrong people. He

:06:00.:06:04.

doesn't listen to advisers. He couldn't fix it inside. How is he

:06:05.:06:09.

going to fix it outside? How can he have a foreign policy which could

:06:10.:06:15.

actually be very influential? The problem is he wants to make America

:06:16.:06:21.

great, or the greatest, as he promises people. But if he cannot

:06:22.:06:25.

tackle the internal problems, and if he is actually motivated by hatred

:06:26.:06:30.

towards Obama and the Democrats, how is he going to run the country? The

:06:31.:06:37.

statement he made when it went down, the statement he made was

:06:38.:06:41.

interesting. There were two guys standing over him, his vice

:06:42.:06:45.

president and health secretary. They had obviously given him a script.

:06:46.:06:52.

And he actually stuck to it. And it was surprisingly diplomatic. He was

:06:53.:06:55.

saying, Obamacare is bloody collapse and when it goes, the Democrats can

:06:56.:07:00.

come to us and we will be open to negotiation. It almost seems as if

:07:01.:07:05.

the shock of this has made him say something. I was ready for him to

:07:06.:07:10.

throw an absolute tantrum, to be completely irrational. In fact what

:07:11.:07:13.

he said under the circumstances was about as rational as it could be.

:07:14.:07:18.

Why would Obamacare necessarily collapse unless Congress denies

:07:19.:07:24.

funding? The difficulty is it is this funny hybrid of a government

:07:25.:07:28.

programme and an insurance market, an idea put forward by the Heritage

:07:29.:07:34.

foundation, a Republican think tank. It is a very Republican idea to

:07:35.:07:39.

begin with. It requires insurance companies to set premiums and get

:07:40.:07:42.

subsidies from the government. In some states, some insurance

:07:43.:07:47.

companies have withdrawn because they don't like the particular risk

:07:48.:07:51.

pools they have got. In some states, for the first couple of years

:07:52.:07:55.

premiums went down. This year they increased by 22% on average. In some

:07:56.:08:01.

markets, 100%. If they go so far, people don't sign up. Young people

:08:02.:08:11.

who are healthy $ up. -- sign up. It is not that hard to do. We have made

:08:12.:08:14.

health care more complicated in America then we need to. The problem

:08:15.:08:21.

is, in the Ronald Reagan days, the Republicans believed in smaller

:08:22.:08:24.

government but they believed in making government work. Richard

:08:25.:08:28.

Nixon imposed wage increase controls. They believed the gunmen

:08:29.:08:33.

had imported things to do. People in the House Republican Party now are

:08:34.:08:38.

so anti-government, they can't figure out how to make it work. That

:08:39.:08:42.

bill would have been chaos for the insurance parties -- companies. How

:08:43.:08:48.

much does it matter to those people who voted for Donald Trump anyway,

:08:49.:08:52.

given that he said he needs to drain the swamp because Washington doesn't

:08:53.:08:58.

work... He doesn't work. As an executive he has no prizes -- he's

:08:59.:09:05.

had no previous experience. Reagan did have. There was more cohesion

:09:06.:09:08.

among the politicians who were the big shots of the day. There was a

:09:09.:09:11.

sense of responsibility to come together. I think they are all in

:09:12.:09:19.

for a big fight. Fur Trump to say he wants to clean the swamp, his

:09:20.:09:25.

mindset is a swamp of contradictions that people can't quite make out. I

:09:26.:09:30.

agree. We are going through a perilous phase in international

:09:31.:09:35.

politics where some people might take advantage of this weakened

:09:36.:09:39.

position. Do you think there could be a foreign policy crisis that

:09:40.:09:43.

someone will Manufacturer? Maybe somebody in the White House. Wagging

:09:44.:09:51.

your dog is always possible. When you get to making war and other

:09:52.:09:55.

countries, the sober people tend to show up at the table. And the

:09:56.:10:00.

president himself, even one as feckless and strange as this man is,

:10:01.:10:04.

will get the picture that he's not supposed to be ordering people to

:10:05.:10:07.

their deaths without some good reason. There are lots of

:10:08.:10:15.

opportunities to do funny things in Ukraine and to take advantage on the

:10:16.:10:20.

edges, which I think will tie him in knots.

:10:21.:10:25.

When you look at the foreign policy, for example, until now we haven't

:10:26.:10:29.

seen any. He said a few days ago we should not withdraw troops from

:10:30.:10:33.

Iraq. We should occupy the oilfields, control the oil fields of

:10:34.:10:38.

Iraq. Just imagine. In Syria, for example, we don't know what he is

:10:39.:10:45.

going to do. When it comes to the Palestinian question, he says there

:10:46.:10:48.

is no two state solution, there is no one state solution. It's chaos.

:10:49.:10:57.

It's chaos. It's completely incoherent. There is also another

:10:58.:11:01.

question in terms of foreign policy, the Russia connection. If it is true

:11:02.:11:05.

that there are real connections between his people and Putin's

:11:06.:11:08.

Russia, we are in big trouble. That is very, very serious.

:11:09.:11:11.

Let's move it on. The security services in Britain

:11:12.:11:13.

and the United States have advised that laptops and similar devices

:11:14.:11:15.

should no longer be allowed on certain flights, to counter

:11:16.:11:18.

the threat from sophisticated bombs. But in London this week -

:11:19.:11:20.

as we have seen in France and Germany in the past year ? low

:11:21.:11:23.

tech terrorism is also deadly I mean, in some ways many people

:11:24.:11:34.

have said it's not surprising this happened because we know big open

:11:35.:11:41.

democracies will always be a target. Big open democracy is what we have

:11:42.:11:45.

and what we want. We don't want to do anything to mitigate the

:11:46.:11:48.

freedoms. This is what it's all about. If we destroy the social

:11:49.:11:53.

values and the political values the country stands for in the name of

:11:54.:11:59.

stamping out any conceivable possibility of any misfit, any

:12:00.:12:02.

hanger on, any lunatic going over the edge and doing something on a

:12:03.:12:09.

one-off basis, what is the point? Clearly, this particular action

:12:10.:12:12.

might have been preventable in the sense that had there been armed

:12:13.:12:17.

guards on that date at Westminster, possibly. But those are technical

:12:18.:12:21.

questions. The idea that you can actually control the behaviour of

:12:22.:12:24.

every conceivable person who might get hung up on this obsessive thing

:12:25.:12:31.

for his own private pathological reasons, no, it isn't possible to

:12:32.:12:36.

prevent it. Did any of you think in some ways this was a very good week

:12:37.:12:41.

for British democracy? It was horrible to watch, but politicians

:12:42.:12:44.

rose to the occasion. They kept going. They made statements which

:12:45.:12:48.

were very statesman-like. The Prime Minister and others. It was a good

:12:49.:12:54.

week for Theresa May. Incidentally, I was in the Parliament when the

:12:55.:12:59.

attack took place. I was actually detained for six hours. What I

:13:00.:13:04.

noticed, honestly, the confidence, the crisis management impressed me.

:13:05.:13:12.

Suddenly, in a few minutes, the Terror squad was there in the

:13:13.:13:16.

Parliament with their arms, with their masks. Everybody was quiet,

:13:17.:13:21.

everybody was calm. Everybody wanted like to go on as if nothing

:13:22.:13:26.

happened. The British are inherently calm! It was well orchestrated calm.

:13:27.:13:38.

Which is very, very impressive. The message of this terrorist attack, it

:13:39.:13:45.

did not actually affect people. It did not reach its destination. One

:13:46.:13:51.

is the calmness and that a big democracy, an ancient democracy like

:13:52.:13:54.

Britain does not allow itself to be forced its knees because one maniac.

:13:55.:14:02.

And the second is, as Janet says, you can add 100% safeguard yourself

:14:03.:14:07.

against that kind of attack. We have already 3000 or so presumed

:14:08.:14:12.

terrorists who are being watched night and day. Then suddenly someone

:14:13.:14:22.

comes in who is not on the radar screen. We have two ask ourselves,

:14:23.:14:27.

why do we spend so much time covering an individual like this on

:14:28.:14:35.

the news? It gives him extra fame, as it were. We accept the

:14:36.:14:39.

inevitability that such acts occur and we have to continue with our

:14:40.:14:46.

inner strength. I think sang fraud is really the only way. --

:14:47.:14:51.

sangfroid. The purpose of terrorism is to terrorise. If you are not

:14:52.:14:54.

terrified, it makes a big difference. If you look at how

:14:55.:15:02.

people really die in the world, toddlers killed more people in

:15:03.:15:07.

America last year through handguns left around the house, than

:15:08.:15:11.

terrorists did. But we don't get rid of toddlers. There are so many road

:15:12.:15:20.

accidents on the roads in Britain. People are using their mobile phones

:15:21.:15:23.

when they are driving. I you going to get rid of mobile phones? No, you

:15:24.:15:28.

figure out a solution. In this way, better policing, better security

:15:29.:15:32.

work is the only way to go. Otherwise we give up society. I

:15:33.:15:37.

would question whether society is cohesive enough to contain this. You

:15:38.:15:48.

have to talk in terms of prevention, telling the Mohsin -- Muslim

:15:49.:15:51.

community to reporters going on early on. Is our society performing

:15:52.:15:58.

properly? How we creating little ghettos? The enclaves of Islamist

:15:59.:16:03.

indoctrination have to be dealt with. There is good evidence to show

:16:04.:16:07.

there is considerable intelligence being received from the Muslim

:16:08.:16:11.

community. The security services tell us they have forestalled any

:16:12.:16:18.

number of incidents. I think you have to think of it like the cold

:16:19.:16:22.

War. It took a long time to win the Cold War. There were Communists in

:16:23.:16:27.

our midst. There were lots of ways this video that you worked. 20 years

:16:28.:16:32.

ago there were not Muslim men driving their cars down streets to

:16:33.:16:37.

kill people. We hope in 20 years from now they want again. Cold War

:16:38.:16:45.

was an argument. You can persuade people communism was not the answer.

:16:46.:16:49.

This was not an argument. This was a confrontation with insanity. For

:16:50.:16:55.

some of the people, yes, they may be insane. But it is an ideology. There

:16:56.:17:01.

is an infrastructure and a belief. It is just the extremist you're

:17:02.:17:11.

getting. Talking about the Muslim community, in this country

:17:12.:17:14.

particularly, they were extremely cooperative. They rejected this kind

:17:15.:17:18.

of terrorism immediately. They were or operating with the security

:17:19.:17:22.

services. That is why, for ten years, this country never witnessed

:17:23.:17:26.

anything like this since the 7th of July 2000 and five. It tells first

:17:27.:17:32.

the efficiency of the security forces, the cooperation of the

:17:33.:17:35.

people with the security forces to prevent these kinds of things.

:17:36.:17:36.

The European Union is celebrating - if that is the right word -

:17:37.:17:40.

the 60th birthday of the great project which has help ensure

:17:41.:17:42.

democracy has spread across Europe, from former Soviet satellites

:17:43.:17:44.

in the Baltic, to former fascist-style dictatorships

:17:45.:17:46.

But as Britain begins to leave, is the European project now

:17:47.:17:53.

running out of steam, out of ideas, and out

:17:54.:17:55.

The ever closer union we hoped would emerge is a more fractious union

:17:56.:18:10.

now. We don't seem to be able to deal with the problems, starting

:18:11.:18:14.

with external borders, the refugee problem, the euro, which hasn't been

:18:15.:18:21.

solved. And also, importantly, the imbalances between peoples lives in

:18:22.:18:25.

union. The Pope made a great point yesterday. The unemployment and the

:18:26.:18:32.

austerity consequences of one size fits all currency is a dramatic

:18:33.:18:36.

damage to people's hopes, young people's hopes for the future. That

:18:37.:18:42.

has to be tackled. The refugee crisis, also, will now come down to

:18:43.:18:51.

Turkey and all countries to solve. Turkey used to be a pillar of

:18:52.:18:55.

stability. Now look at the 3 million refugees in Turkey, and look at

:18:56.:18:58.

President Erdogan threatening Europe. We find building sites all

:18:59.:19:05.

over the place. It doesn't look as if it is in very stable condition.

:19:06.:19:15.

You need a face-lift at 60, the European Union! You need innovation,

:19:16.:19:18.

you need new ideas. Think seriously about this. Look at Europe now after

:19:19.:19:24.

60 years, they are facing immigration, they are facing

:19:25.:19:27.

terrorism, they are facing slow growth. I don't believe any of this

:19:28.:19:34.

was anticipated when this treaty was signed. This is the problem. The new

:19:35.:19:40.

reality is taking place. You have to look at it from a different

:19:41.:19:45.

perspective. I'm believe there must be some innovation. -- I believe. We

:19:46.:19:53.

have had ideas, the Lisbon agenda, where they promised to overtake

:19:54.:19:58.

America within ten years in terms of growth. We have two owned up to our

:19:59.:20:04.

on declarations and be truthful to what we set ourselves. You have to

:20:05.:20:10.

remember the founding philosophy of this. It was built after the Second

:20:11.:20:15.

World War, after a terrible period in which nation states had disgraced

:20:16.:20:20.

themselves. The anti-democratic nature of the European Union is not

:20:21.:20:25.

an accident. The idea was that terrible people had been elected by

:20:26.:20:28.

the democratic process in Europe and this was a terrible sort of shame

:20:29.:20:32.

and guilt, and the abolition of the power of the nation state and the

:20:33.:20:36.

National comment was built in right from the outset. And ironically,

:20:37.:20:41.

this is now conducive to a new nationalism and the new xenophobia,

:20:42.:20:46.

which was almost inevitable if you anticipated it properly. The point

:20:47.:20:52.

is the democratic nation state, with a government elected by the people

:20:53.:20:55.

for the people, answerable to its own population, was one of the

:20:56.:20:58.

greatest progressive ideas in human history. They wanted to wipe it out

:20:59.:21:02.

because of the terrible 20th century crimes. Three lots of no champagne

:21:03.:21:09.

corks popping! Say something nice about the EU. It has prevented wars.

:21:10.:21:16.

Has it? I think you have to look at it... It has encouraged democracy.

:21:17.:21:24.

When you look at the appeal. After the fall of the Soviet Union, so

:21:25.:21:26.

many eastern European countries wanted to join the EU and lives to

:21:27.:21:32.

its standards -- live up. Of course they and to be part of the larger

:21:33.:21:37.

families -- family, but the EU meant something. It was seven democracies

:21:38.:21:40.

and cultures that had attractive power. I think we really do have to

:21:41.:21:44.

thank it for a tremendous amount of contribution to peace and security.

:21:45.:21:52.

It has always been bumpy. Where was the EU during the war in the

:21:53.:21:57.

Balkans? I agree. But that is still part of the European family. You

:21:58.:22:03.

have to look at those institutions. Is there any way of separating the

:22:04.:22:07.

problems of the euro, with the problems of the European Union? In

:22:08.:22:12.

other words, do you consider now that the euro itself has been such a

:22:13.:22:16.

big step in the wrong direction for the people of Greece, for the people

:22:17.:22:21.

of southern Europe? The original idea may have been a good one but we

:22:22.:22:25.

admitted Sunni countries that should not have been admitted. It was fair

:22:26.:22:29.

weather decisions when, after the 2000 agenda, when Europe said it was

:22:30.:22:34.

great to be a growth area, it didn't act on it. A year later, they

:22:35.:22:41.

accepted Greece. It was a scandalous decision. There was no thought to

:22:42.:22:45.

what was going to happen. I would disagree. They didn't meet the

:22:46.:22:52.

economic criteria. Neither did Italy, actually. You have to help

:22:53.:22:58.

each other. They have made a basket case of Greece. Look at the social

:22:59.:23:04.

problems. We have to give the European Union a social face, a

:23:05.:23:09.

caring face. They have created an enormous welfare state. Greece is a

:23:10.:23:15.

prominent beneficiary. That is terrible for that country. The

:23:16.:23:18.

freedom of Europe -- movement within Europe means that the optimistic

:23:19.:23:23.

young will leave those countries and come to the successful northern

:23:24.:23:28.

countries. The United States has one: -- currency and lots of

:23:29.:23:32.

different economies. People go from the poorer areas to New York City to

:23:33.:23:38.

make their fortunes. You could say it is just that Germany wasn't

:23:39.:23:44.

generous enough to Greece. State governments in the United States

:23:45.:23:47.

have more power than governments within Europe. The United States

:23:48.:23:51.

fought civil war over differences of opinion as well. As well as slavery,

:23:52.:23:57.

of course. There are different economies bound together by the same

:23:58.:24:05.

currency. The conflict between states to govern our economy and

:24:06.:24:09.

federal states, causes tremendous damage sometimes. Not nearly as

:24:10.:24:19.

problematic as you have with 27 nationalistic entities. It is

:24:20.:24:22.

difficult enough in America. But it is most impossible to bring

:24:23.:24:25.

everybody under one roof under such rules as Greece had to follow. We

:24:26.:24:30.

should have done something to help Greece but not by subjecting them to

:24:31.:24:35.

these rigorous rules of austerity, which they surely could not meet.

:24:36.:24:41.

What a -- will there be a European Union of 27 countries in ten years?

:24:42.:24:54.

That is the $100 million question. There is going to be a German

:24:55.:24:59.

Europe. Please don't tell the Germans. They don't want to be

:25:00.:25:04.

leaders. Lord Heseltine predicted this would be to the glory of

:25:05.:25:10.

Germany becoming the dominant power. We don't want to dominate anywhere.

:25:11.:25:17.

One of the reasons I am optimistic about the outcome of Brexit is

:25:18.:25:19.

because Germany will not allow Britain to go to the nether world

:25:20.:25:25.

and be forgotten about. Ironically, although the Germans don't want to

:25:26.:25:28.

be dominant powers, they do in a sense dominate the ethos. They say

:25:29.:25:31.

effectively the Greece have to behave more like Germans if they are

:25:32.:25:37.

to survive economically. That was the creed which was expected by the

:25:38.:25:40.

other nations. It may have been the original German idea. To be honest,

:25:41.:25:46.

I believe the European Union will be stronger. They will repair or reform

:25:47.:25:51.

a lot of mistakes. More countries will join, including Turkey.

:25:52.:25:54.

Thank you for the optimism. That's it for Dateline

:25:55.:25:57.

London for this week. And that's it for me on this

:25:58.:25:58.

wonderful programme which, across the world, has been one

:25:59.:26:01.

of the most watched BBC News And no doubt the next 20

:26:02.:26:04.

will be even better. Let's see what happens to the

:26:05.:26:11.

European Union then.

:26:12.:26:14.

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS