20/05/2017 Dateline London

This week: Donald Trump's travels abroad and trouble at home.

And now Britain's political parties have published their manifestos,

their contract with the people, if we vote for one of them,

With me: Annalisa Piras the Italian writer and film-maker.

Nabila Ramdani the Algerian journalist.

Stryker McGuire, London Editor for Bloomberg Markets.

Donald Trump may have been onboard Air Force One Friday night,

en route to Saudi Arabia, but his team was still trying

to fire fight the latest twist in the sacking of the FBI Director

and the Russia Connection- if there is one.

"I just fired the head of the FBI He was crazy,

a real nut job," the New York Times claims he told the Russian Foreign

Minister, "I faced great pressure because of Russia.

Well, if he did say it, that last part looks premature.

John McCain, the veteran Republican Senator, is among many

to observe that this all feels horribly familiar.

Stryker McGuire, They're all thinking of Watergate.

You were in Washington in the early 1970s.

I was a mere child. Journalists started at a young age back then. Is

it like Watergate? No and yes. One thing is that Watergate began with

the two break-ins. May and June 19 72. It built rather slowly to break

in was a cover-up. Nixon resigns. In this case, it starts out much

bigger. The germ of all of this is the possibility of Russian

interference in the US electoral process. That is where you begin.

You begin at a highly, serious level where you are protecting your

national electoral integrity. Then you have all of these revelations

while Tromp is in the White House. The quote that you just gave, that

is in a White House document. The White House has said it is

authentic. There was no question about what he said. What is

interesting here is the sourcing of all of this stuff. It is coming from

officials in and out of government. Most of them still serving officials

and that, I think, is super important because it tells you there

are people who are really worried about the conduct of the presidency

and the way, not just what he does, but why he does it and how he does

it. He seems totally unable to separate anything that happens from

himself. It's all about him. In the bids -- middle of these revelations,

we have Tromp going to give a commencement address at a university

where we all know what happens at commencement addresses. You talk to

the young people, you talk about their lives ahead. No, he talks

about himself and talks about how he is the most vilified hounded

President in the history of the United States. Politician in the

history of the world. No one has been treated more unfairly. There is

this poisonous drip of stories coming within government. In a

sense, some of these officials are behaving worse than the President,

aren't they? No, of course they are not. Do they not have an allegiance?

You presume they have some obligation to the people of the

United States. We have difficulty. The fact that you use the term,

alleged, it is not alleged, it is true. We all know it. You have a man

that is not fit to be President of the US war President of democracy.

He shows he is temperamental. To call the previous director of the

FBI a nut job and to do that to the Russian intelligence agent, you

don't actually have the words to describe it. For a while been White

House officials sucked it up and gave him a couple of months to see

what he would do and how he would react. We have created this

narrative that he might be all right, he might be captured by the

system, he might be modified by it it will close in around him, there

will good things. It is nonsense because the man is ignorant, he's

not... He's incurious. It is observations. When he said, lay off

old Flynn, would you? It wasn't just wrong to do it, it was profoundly

ignorant because he had no idea how the FBI worked and he hadn't been

interested enough to find out. The thing with Donald Trump is there is

no way you can get in. He is fall inside his skin. He is so full

within Donald Trump that there is no room for anything from the outside

to get in. The only thing about people on the outside is loyalty.

Mike Flynn, after he fired him, he continued in private to defend him.

That is because he had this feeling that Mike Flynn was on his side. I

think you were asking about similarities with the Watergate.

There are echoes of Watergate in a sense that we were talking about

allegations of immense corruption at the heart of the American

government. I suppose it is worth remembering that Nixon resigned by

his own accord and was not impeached and that will give confident that

confidence to Donald Trump. There has been so much hyperbole about the

Donald Trump 's surgery -- story that he has been one of those

stories that people expect will end in a cataclysmic way almost all the

time. He seems to be able to ride the most scandalous of allegations

and accusations and he keeps on going. It has to be said that the

witchhunt Tom analogy that he uses reflects his own typical language.

The question is whether his opponents and those investigating

him will be able to sustain the assault on him to get him out. I

would contend that he will be difficult indeed and in the end, a

populist politician like him thrives on scandal. He has spent the last

couple of years through his campaign through becoming President, turning

a lot of the negatives into positives. Do you think he can carry

on doing that? I don't think so. I think it is a matter of time because

at the end of the day, what is at stake here is the imbalances of the

American system. All the evidence points to the fact that it needs to

take a certain course and the only obstacle to it is the electoral

power of a deterrent for the Republicans and Congress. It is

worth noting that investigations into highly classified subjects take

a lot of time and they are unlikely to be resolved not in the short

term. Also bearing in mind that Donald Trump has the look of a one

term President is written all over him, I don't think he will be caring

too much. That is a problem for the Republican agenda. This is

overshadowing everything. There could come a time when what he

thinks doesn't matter, that the party will go to him and say, "This

has to stop." There is not only the special counsel investigation but

there is the Senate intelligence committee and the House Intelligence

Committee. You have three investigations that are about to

begin. It hasn't even begun yet. There are mid-term elections and

they are not that far away. That is very serious for the party. If the

economy starts taking a real knock... The American economy did

rather well after Barack Obama. There was a difficult period. There

was this weird economic equivalent of a fake war period where there was

a so-called Donald Trump trade and markets were going up. This is

largely because people thought they weren't going to be taxed any more

or regulated or anything else. The Trump trade seems to be over. The

dollar has weakened. Is seems there is a lot of debate and supporters of

Tromp and himself believe that Hillary Clinton got away with dodgy

dealings when she was Secretary of State. Why shouldn't he. It is

interesting that Lindsey Graham who is regarded as one of the more

erudite senators often a critic of Donald Trump, observed that a lot of

us here quite glad he is leaving for a few days. He may be leaving

Washington and they may have got a breather. There was a lovely

picture. It was taken on a long lens. His face is the nearest thing

to a little smile that Mike pence has given. He has landed as far as

Saudi Arabia has concerned and he's on the rest of the week, an

eight-day tour. His first tour around the world. What is important

about this tour? What should we be looking out for? He has embarked on

his first international trip. He has arrived in Saudi Arabia will go to

Israel and Palestine. He has made out that he can make some progress

with the Israel Palestine situation and that has been his claim all

along. We have to know his most memorable statement was the

possibility of moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem. That would have been a

disaster. He was well thought through and it is typical of the

kind of headline grabbing, shocking tactics he revels in. He seems to

have gone quiet with this idea. To give him some limited credit, he

also, when he first met Binyamin Netanyahu, he asked him to hold onto

the building of illegal colonies. A settlement bill which is illegal

under international law and has been condemned under international law

and is a huge sticking point. In terms of progress and peas. This

trip is about armament. He will sell weapons to Saudi Arabia and Israel.

DC and opportunity -- do you see an opening here because we have had

words from Mahmoud Abbas, relatively positive sounds out of the Israeli

Prime Minister. Is there an opening here? Without the smile, but with a

kind of a quip. What is it about this American President, even his

senior officials, which will give us any reason to believe that they

would have the sophistication and the subtlety to succeed where their

predecessors had failed? What is it about the circumstances in the

Middle East that will give rise to a belief that there was a significant

opportunity being created now that didn't exist in the immediate past?

What he's going to talk to the Israelis about is Iran because that

is the principal concern that they have. We should note that it is

pretty good news that Rohani is winning the election. Possibly by

not reimposing sanctions. The major game is Syria. I don't imagine that

Donald Trump wants to invest. A centre-left of his energy and status

in question of what happens between and the Palestinians. I think we

have been talking about openings since the late 70s. They just occur

and then the window closes. It just doesn't happen. As David is making

is a -- as Davies making a point, this Administration is distracted.

Where are these people that are going to make this happen? The first

son-in-law. How can you talk about an opening the peace when this man

is going to Saudi Arabia to sell weapons? Saudi Arabia is a country

in the world that is spending more money in proportion of his wealth

into weapons. It is antagonising Iran and Donald Trump is there to

give them more weapons. I don't know how you can talk about openings. It

is certainly not the piece, in my view. He would be at the nation

summit in Brussels and goes to Sicily for the G7. He also meets the

Pope and will have some interesting conversations not just with Pope

Francis but he has a first meeting with Emmanuel Macron who is the new

President of France. It is quite hard to see much meeting of minds.

It would be a steep learning curve, even for a man like Donald Trump. He

will meet them and learn something. They will tell him that the world is

not as he sees it. Especially what is relevant and important to watch

is the 25th of May, Nato summit in Brussels. Donald Trump and his view

of the world and Nato is going to have a very big wake-up call and the

reality. We have this intriguing briefing we've had an apparently the

notes for this summit are being designed in such a way that they

keep mentioning the President's name to keep them interested but they are

trying to keep them short because he doesn't apparently have a big

attention span. What are the chances he will be back in the White House

and have a delegation say he met the post and was very impressed with

him? There is a big chance that is what he will do. The Pope says,

actually, we want greater human rights, except, around the globe and

more emphasis on property. And Donald Trump says, I have learned a

big lesson here. I think I will change my outlook. Or is he going to

go around saying the Pope is a nut job? Let us leave this question

hanging in the air. Just under three weeks until polling

day, and Britain's major political parties have

published their manifestos. The policies are there,

but which are the vote winners? David, when you look at these

documents, do you feel, I know now where they stand? I have a clear

idea when I go into the polling stations and I know what I would be

voting for? It is important that we know the manifestos matter. This is

the BBC. I don't know whether we are sold on the rules the BBC has by our

-- abide by. We have to put in the manifestos matter. The House of

Lords stands in any way of the legislation and it doesn't stand in

the way of manifestos. I don't think many people vote on the basis of

what they think the House of Lords is going to do in three years' time

will stop you could and we saw from the National Insurance debacle, but

if you have something ruled out by the manifesto, it is more difficult

to enact. There are a few of those things. You have an incredible wish

list of things you will spend money on which someone else is going to

pay for. In the Tory manifesto, you have a man launch of people --

things that are tough. You have to learn from the Brexit vote which is

you are going to take up the left behind to make sure... Somebody

pointed out that the word, protect, runs through this manifesto. It

gives you an idea of the way in which Theresa May thinks of itself.

She is the Oliver Cromwell, the Lord protector of the British people.

What about the return of the state striker. -- return of the state,

Stryker. There is an old-fashioned view of Labour that Jeremy Corbyn

has. It is their very strongly in the Conservative manifesto also. I

find it hard. Maybe like David, I don't believe that this manifesto

represents the soul of the Tory party. What she seems to be doing is

she's casting an incredibly wide net. She wants to get the Blair

electorate of 1997 and get that same group of people. When the Tories

were not wiped out but cut back. What is happening now is I almost

feel she could say whatever she wants to see because there is no

real opposition. The Labour Party seems to be simply designed as

protest to whoever is in power. They don't seem to have aspirations of

power themselves. They seem to be content with trying to do whatever

they can do to change the agenda of a bet. We talked about older voters

and how in the past there have been a real desire to embrace because

they are the ones most certain to vote. After David Cameron, Theresa

May is offering them candour, as well. These kinds of things are no

longer being given to you. You have to accept things will cost money.

David Cameron resigned after losing the Brexit vote and his job has been

taken over by a Remainer. One thing that fascinates me more generally

speaking as how pragmatic and non-ideological everyone has to be.

Theresa May knows the biggest challenge facing Britain by now is

Brexit. She has to try to shape a Britain to cope with that. Everybody

knows that she was a Remainer and that is why comparisons with the

conviction politician like Margaret Thatcher are ridiculous. Theresa May

is happy to U-turn and there is no jargon. The fact is so obvious and

it has been forgotten in Britain. The rest of Europe looks with dismay

at Theresa May because she is certain as to -- turncoat. She

campaigned to remain and now presents herself as a somatic --

fanatic hard Brexiteer. She is telling the British voters, though

for me so you will give me a strong hand and this will be good for

Britain. The rest of Europe thinks it would be a catastrophe for Europe

because she has been incredibly belligerent and irritated everybody.

It is the country of what she is presenting to the electorate. I

think she seems to be proud not to be a radical conservative. No deal

is better than a bad deal. It is mainly made up of worthy intentions

and a wish list rather than definitive policy. As far as her

vision for Britain is concerned, she is quite sensible to say there is no

such thing as may - ism. She is not like Tony Blair at all and this is

an modernising agenda. It is quite backward looking. It fixes into

that. There is a little bit of that. When it comes to Brexit, one of the

important things in the manifesto is the fact that we will pay up. This

is a big thing in the Tory party because they don't want the pay out.

She is aiming for some kind of trade involvement which as a quid pro quo

is for making payments. That suggests she thinks the manifesto is

aimed at being able to take on the extreme Brexiteer postelection. Sean

is more of an expert on this than I am. I know you can give your opinion

but you cannot. If that's how you see it? I am being Delphic. I see

Theresa May clutching the manifesto and hitting Tory MPs on the head

saying, you stood on this, you elected it. What about her

personality? Are we warming to Theresa May now? Has this election

helped people to embrace her as an individual? No, I don't. I'm not

sure she wants to be embraced and loved. All of a sudden, it is like

Ed Balls doing Strictly Come Dancing and people seeing a side to her that

they never saw before. She was asked about her childhood and she said

twice it was stable. She had horses. The risk, although there is no risk

because she is going to win the election, there is a risk when you

do things that seem to be hurting pensioners, that seem to be hurting

schoolchildren by not feeding them... This is the end of certain

school meals. You risk emphasising the part of your personality that

strikes people as cold. She comes across as reasonable, sensible and

careful. She knows she has an extremely difficult task ahead and

very risky indeed. With no sense of triumphalism or element -- Eminem

victory. Great to have you with us, do join us at the same time next

week. Thank you all for watching. Goodbye.