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Welcome to HARDtalk, I'm Stephen Sackur. | :00:14. | :00:15. | |
Donald Trump promised to be a disruptive President. | :00:16. | :00:18. | |
Right now the thing he's disrupting the most is his own | :00:19. | :00:21. | |
He now has a new Chief of Staff and a new Director | :00:22. | :00:28. | |
of Communications, but what he seems unable to shift is the sense | :00:29. | :00:32. | |
of a Presidency in crisis, at odds with Republicans | :00:33. | :00:35. | |
in Congress and still dogged by Dederal investigations | :00:36. | :00:37. | |
of Russia's alleged meddling in 2016's election. | :00:38. | :00:41. | |
My guess is Sebastien Glory, a deputy assistant to the president on | :00:42. | :00:48. | |
national security. Where does the Trump presidency go from here? -- my | :00:49. | :00:53. | |
guest. Sebastian Gorka in Washington, | :00:54. | :01:22. | |
welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you, Stephen. I want to begin with | :01:23. | :01:26. | |
something you just said five days ago, you said the atmosphere here in | :01:27. | :01:29. | |
the White House is absolutely wonderful. We've got a new broom | :01:30. | :01:34. | |
sweeping through the communications shop in Anthony Scaramucci and we | :01:35. | :01:39. | |
are humming along on all cylinders. Plenty has happened since then. | :01:40. | :01:43. | |
What's the atmosphere in the White House like today? Fabulous. I | :01:44. | :01:47. | |
literally just left the Oval Office where we swore in general killer | :01:48. | :01:51. | |
leak as the President's new Chief of Staff. It was like a family | :01:52. | :01:57. | |
gathering, great, great mood, lots of press interest, so we are very | :01:58. | :02:02. | |
excited about recent developments. Are you? Quite interesting, this is | :02:03. | :02:06. | |
a heck of a family you're living in at the moment and Mr Scaramucci, who | :02:07. | :02:11. | |
you so warmly welcomed last week, with his words to the New Yorker has | :02:12. | :02:16. | |
surely throwing a bomb into the building behind you, the White | :02:17. | :02:21. | |
House. Not at all. I know that's what our colleagues on the hill on | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
the left and in the chattering classes of the leftist media would | :02:27. | :02:30. | |
want people to believe, but it's not at all like that. We don't live in | :02:31. | :02:37. | |
the rarefied bubble of boilerplate and assessing about things that | :02:38. | :02:43. | |
aren't real, such as the Russia collusion delusion. We have a job to | :02:44. | :02:47. | |
do. The president in the last six months has achieved things that most | :02:48. | :02:51. | |
presidents to achieve in years, if you look at immigration, the | :02:52. | :02:56. | |
economy. We broke an historic record for the stock exchange just in the | :02:57. | :03:03. | |
last two days. So the fact is we are excited, the agenda, make America | :03:04. | :03:06. | |
great again, is working. We've strengthened to the team. We have | :03:07. | :03:10. | |
people who can communicate to the base that elected as president in | :03:11. | :03:15. | |
the form of Anthony and we have a 4-star general who, in six months, | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
turned the Department of Homeland Security around, made the illegal | :03:20. | :03:22. | |
migration across the southern border drop not just by 10% or 50% by 73%. | :03:23. | :03:28. | |
And we're just going to keep on going forward despite what our | :03:29. | :03:34. | |
detractors wish to say. What Anthony Scaramucci said, and of course he | :03:35. | :03:38. | |
pre-empted the departure of Reince Priebus, was the chief of staff at | :03:39. | :03:43. | |
the time, since gone, was a bleeping paranoid schizophrenic, he said the | :03:44. | :03:47. | |
chief strategist in the White House was pursuing his own brand and used | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
a sexual euphemism that I can't repeat to suggest that he was | :03:53. | :03:55. | |
somebody that Scaramucci did not rate in the slightest. He also | :03:56. | :04:00. | |
suggested that other White House staffers in the communications shop | :04:01. | :04:04. | |
as you call it would have to take lie detector tests because he was | :04:05. | :04:08. | |
going to bleeping kill all the leakers. That suggests to me that | :04:09. | :04:11. | |
this is the most deeply dysfunctional White House team I can | :04:12. | :04:15. | |
possibly imagine. Then how do you explain the results, Stephen? | :04:16. | :04:20. | |
Literally... We have had 24 weeks in a row. Market breaking records. We | :04:21. | :04:27. | |
have seen illegal migration planet. We've seen a to revitalise. We've | :04:28. | :04:33. | |
seen 800,000 jobs, almost 900,000 job... With respect, none of those | :04:34. | :04:37. | |
pieces of data. How is that possible? And none of those pieces | :04:38. | :04:41. | |
of data reflect my question at all. They have to be connected. My | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
question is how do we regard the White House as anything other than | :04:46. | :04:48. | |
deeply and profoundly dysfunctional today? Because it isn't. If you want | :04:49. | :04:54. | |
to persist in harping on about fake news concepts of what's going on in | :04:55. | :04:58. | |
the White House, I actually work in the side the White House and I can | :04:59. | :05:04. | |
tell you there is no rises and we are creating the results expected of | :05:05. | :05:07. | |
us and which got the president elected. You can live on that | :05:08. | :05:14. | |
illusion if you want. Look at the track record. I'm going to look at | :05:15. | :05:21. | |
the track record but I want to take seriously what your director of | :05:22. | :05:27. | |
communications said. He said four example he would get lie detectors | :05:28. | :05:31. | |
in to find out who was leaking from inside the White House. Have you | :05:32. | :05:35. | |
faced yet the prospect of taking a lie detector test? I don't work for | :05:36. | :05:40. | |
the comms shop, I work for the chief strategist, Stephen Bannon. I don't | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
really wish to comment on what I think was meant to be a private | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
conversation between Anthony and this reporter that the reporter | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
clearly recorded. It's just sleazy journalism. It's just unseemly. We | :05:54. | :06:00. | |
have a leak problem, if you look at the Congressional report from last | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
week, we've had 125 leaks in 126 days. 62 of them have been deemed by | :06:05. | :06:10. | |
Congress to be of national security import. That is a problem that will | :06:11. | :06:14. | |
be dealt with, not primarily by Antony, his remit is the comms shop, | :06:15. | :06:20. | |
but when you have a 4-star general like a general Kelly come in, the | :06:21. | :06:23. | |
Chief of Staff is responsible for things like discipline, and these | :06:24. | :06:28. | |
things have to end because it is bad for national security. With that in | :06:29. | :06:34. | |
mind one more question about the teamwork and the way the logistics | :06:35. | :06:38. | |
works inside the White House. Anthony Scaramucci made it very | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
plain that he reports directly and personally to the president. He said | :06:43. | :06:46. | |
that at a time when Reince Priebus was still Chief of Staff and it was | :06:47. | :06:50. | |
clearly frankly some kind of comment on his relationship with Reince | :06:51. | :06:54. | |
Priebus but to the best of your knowledge, is Scaramucci still going | :06:55. | :06:58. | |
to have that direct personal route to the president or, as in most | :06:59. | :07:02. | |
presidencies, is the new Chief of Staff going to be the gatekeeper who | :07:03. | :07:08. | |
controls all access by others to the President? The Chief of Staff was | :07:09. | :07:11. | |
literally sworn in about 52 minutes ago. So he is setting in place the | :07:12. | :07:18. | |
procedures by which he will run the White House internally. Were Anthony | :07:19. | :07:21. | |
fits into that, you would have to ask general Kelly or talk to Anthony | :07:22. | :07:26. | |
but let's give more than 52 minutes and find out later in the week. | :07:27. | :07:30. | |
Let's talk about the relationship between the White House and the US | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
Congress, would you accept that on a series of different matters, from | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
the failure of a key plank of Mr Trump's policy agenda, that is the | :07:41. | :07:44. | |
repeal of affordable healthcare, so-called Obamacare, to the | :07:45. | :07:49. | |
Congressional reaction to Mr Trump's comments about the Attorney General, | :07:50. | :07:53. | |
the Republicans in the US Congress are deeply out of sympathy with and | :07:54. | :08:04. | |
alienate from Donald Trump today? I look at it significantly | :08:05. | :08:07. | |
differently. You call the president a destructor, in many cases he is, | :08:08. | :08:12. | |
he's a positive disruptive force in Washington and that's why we call | :08:13. | :08:15. | |
Washington the swamp. The thing that has to be remembered is that he may | :08:16. | :08:19. | |
have formally been the GOP Republican candidate for president | :08:20. | :08:22. | |
but Donald J Trump wasn't an establishment individual. Think | :08:23. | :08:26. | |
about the fact, the first time since 1766, the first time in American | :08:27. | :08:30. | |
history we have a President of the United States who has never served | :08:31. | :08:36. | |
in public office before, not even as a governor, and who has never held | :08:37. | :08:40. | |
senior military rank like Eisenhower or Washington. First time ever. | :08:41. | :08:43. | |
Stephen, why do you think that is? Because the American people are fed | :08:44. | :08:46. | |
up with the establishment writ large, including the GOP, left and | :08:47. | :08:51. | |
right. Looking at the last 20 years they say you haven't served us well, | :08:52. | :08:55. | |
whether it is wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, the state of the | :08:56. | :08:59. | |
economy, the bloated government, the fact if you get a job in government | :09:00. | :09:03. | |
it's a job for life. The president is not from the establishment. As a | :09:04. | :09:10. | |
result members of the establishment GOP will probably have problems with | :09:11. | :09:14. | |
him but if you're surprised then you haven't watched his campaign and you | :09:15. | :09:17. | |
don't know who this man is. Interesting analysis but if I may | :09:18. | :09:21. | |
suggest one of the reasons the GOP, the Republican Party, is so | :09:22. | :09:23. | |
concerned about Donald Trump's first six months is that his approval | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
rating is at historic lows. Politicians look at the polls and | :09:28. | :09:31. | |
whatever you say about the markets, and indeed it's true, the market is | :09:32. | :09:35. | |
high and unemployment is low, but the bottom line is even with the | :09:36. | :09:39. | |
economy performing well, Donald Trump is historically one of the | :09:40. | :09:43. | |
most unpopular presidents after six months in the entire history of the | :09:44. | :09:48. | |
United States. Stephen, I don't like are these the same polls that said | :09:49. | :09:52. | |
Brexit wouldn't happen and Hillary would become president, are they the | :09:53. | :09:55. | |
same polling companies? I'm talking about the way the Republican Party | :09:56. | :09:59. | |
is reacting to the popular disapproval of Donald Trump. What do | :10:00. | :10:03. | |
you base that popular disapproval on? Polls that predicted there would | :10:04. | :10:06. | |
be no Brexit and that Hillary Clinton would win, those polls? | :10:07. | :10:11. | |
You'd better ask the Republican politicians because I'm going to | :10:12. | :10:14. | |
quote to you the sort of politicians, like for example Jock | :10:15. | :10:19. | |
Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who looked at | :10:20. | :10:23. | |
the way Donald Trump has hung out his attorney general to dry, calling | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
him very weak, saying he is disappointed in his beleaguered | :10:29. | :10:31. | |
Attorney General and Chuck Grassley said this is wrong and if you even | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
think about firing him, we in the Senate will thwart your attempts to | :10:36. | :10:40. | |
appoint a six. That's what I think is the problem with the | :10:41. | :10:43. | |
establishment on Hill. They don't understand. Last Tuesday I flew with | :10:44. | :10:48. | |
the president to Youngstown, Ohio, where he had Aorangi and you should | :10:49. | :10:52. | |
check out the footage of that rally, this is steel Valley, where the | :10:53. | :10:56. | |
factories were closed down because of outsourcing and other issues in | :10:57. | :11:01. | |
the last two decades. We are talking about a political type a rally, | :11:02. | :11:05. | |
presidential type rally, eight months after an election. The | :11:06. | :11:11. | |
atmosphere was electric. They barely allowed the president to talk | :11:12. | :11:15. | |
because they were chanting so much for his agenda, make America great | :11:16. | :11:20. | |
again. Doctor Gorka... I need to finish, Stephen, I'm going to | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
finish. I need to make a point. I need to make a point. I didn't | :11:25. | :11:28. | |
suggest Donald Trump didn't have passionate supporters, that's not | :11:29. | :11:31. | |
what I was saying. I need to make the point the Paulding you have | :11:32. | :11:37. | |
talking about has become like chronology, a fake science, the | :11:38. | :11:40. | |
pollsters that Rodrigo Duterte a job and don't have the plus ten | :11:41. | :11:47. | |
oversampling... Rasmus Elm, they just established a pole and just | :11:48. | :11:51. | |
published one last week where they have 70%, 70% of the American | :11:52. | :11:56. | |
populace are finally optimistic and happy in their general situation and | :11:57. | :12:00. | |
their expectations. How is that possible, Stephen, if they are | :12:01. | :12:04. | |
displeased with the President? How did we win a majority? You are | :12:05. | :12:07. | |
shifting the ground because you dismissed polls and now you want to | :12:08. | :12:11. | |
trade polling data. I could say ten polls if you want to do that that | :12:12. | :12:15. | |
say he has historic low approval ratings. You can make your point | :12:16. | :12:21. | |
about polls, I will make mine. The bottom line is this, if you take the | :12:22. | :12:25. | |
reaction of the Republican Party both to his treatment of a | :12:26. | :12:29. | |
Republican Attorney General that he appointed, Jeff Sessions, and if you | :12:30. | :12:35. | |
also look at the failure of his signature policy platform pillar, | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
that is to repeal Obamacare, you look at a president who after six | :12:40. | :12:43. | |
months cannot get the support of his own party in the US Congress. Yeah, | :12:44. | :12:48. | |
because the establishment doesn't understand what happened on November | :12:49. | :12:53. | |
the eighth. Let's be clear here, you said Obamacare repeal and reform was | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
a signature platform of his administration, not correct. It was | :12:58. | :13:00. | |
important that the signature 3-part platform on which a billionaire real | :13:01. | :13:04. | |
estate magnate from New York became the most powerful man in the world | :13:05. | :13:09. | |
was to revitalise the economy, build the wall and defeat Isis. That speed | :13:10. | :13:15. | |
3-part platform and we are going to make those things happen. With | :13:16. | :13:19. | |
Obamacare, the president, in recognition, really you have to doff | :13:20. | :13:23. | |
your hat to him, in recognition of the checks and balances and division | :13:24. | :13:29. | |
of power in America said OK, GOP on the Hill, Congress, I'm going to let | :13:30. | :13:33. | |
you lead the way on Obamacare reform. Why? Because they've been | :13:34. | :13:36. | |
talking about it for seven years, Stephen. Not the president, Stephen, | :13:37. | :13:41. | |
the president has been in office for seven months. These people have been | :13:42. | :13:48. | |
saying for seven years we will repeal and we will reform and when | :13:49. | :13:52. | |
he says gentlemen, lead the way, what happens? They failed. Not | :13:53. | :13:55. | |
Donald Trump, the Republicans failed and now they're trying to make it | :13:56. | :13:58. | |
look as though this is Donald Trump's fault, it isn't. You're | :13:59. | :14:02. | |
making my point that there is now a profound rift between the president | :14:03. | :14:05. | |
and the controlling party of both houses of the US government but | :14:06. | :14:08. | |
let's move on from that and let's talk about the impact of the | :14:09. | :14:13. | |
continuing extensive federal investigation into those allegations | :14:14. | :14:16. | |
that Russia meddled in the US presidential election and further | :14:17. | :14:20. | |
allegations that there may have been collusion with senior people in the | :14:21. | :14:26. | |
Trump campaign. The investigation is digging ever deeper. How on earth... | :14:27. | :14:32. | |
And finding nothing. How do you know? What do you mean how do I | :14:33. | :14:39. | |
know? How do you know finding nothing, you privy to Robert | :14:40. | :14:42. | |
Mueller's Special Counsel investigation? Ten months of | :14:43. | :14:46. | |
hysteria and nobody, not one individual can point to one illegal | :14:47. | :14:48. | |
act, not one. Isn't that strange? Robert Miller has not been working | :14:49. | :14:58. | |
for more than a few months. How do you know that he is not finding | :14:59. | :15:04. | |
incrementing evidence? -- Mueller. Orlando is the bubble has in excess. | :15:05. | :15:15. | |
It is just absurd. -- all I know is the bubble has been obsessed. Have | :15:16. | :15:19. | |
you ever heard of a story that has run for ten months, based on legal | :15:20. | :15:25. | |
action, but has found none? I find it fascinating that just last week | :15:26. | :15:29. | |
at Chuck Schumer from the Democrats have started to admit, you know | :15:30. | :15:33. | |
what, in Hillary lost the election, and it was not about Russia, or a | :15:34. | :15:37. | |
budgie is Comey. When the Democrat party is starting to do press | :15:38. | :15:42. | |
conferences that say we need to look at the mirror, finally, because we | :15:43. | :15:49. | |
haven't... -- James Kelly. As far as I understand it, this is not about | :15:50. | :15:55. | |
who won the election, but about what the links work between Russian | :15:56. | :16:00. | |
interference, which you know, the FBI and the intelligence agencies | :16:01. | :16:05. | |
are 100% convinced happened, but the connections between that Russian | :16:06. | :16:08. | |
interference and senior people in the current campaign. Now, we note | :16:09. | :16:12. | |
because of revelations in the New York Times that would then backed up | :16:13. | :16:16. | |
by e-mail evidence, we know that Donald Trump's son and Kushner had a | :16:17. | :16:24. | |
meeting in June 2016, with a lawyer who had clear contact with the | :16:25. | :16:28. | |
Russian government. -- Jared Kushner. And Donald Trump took that | :16:29. | :16:32. | |
meeting knowing it was designed to give dirt on Hillary Clinton. That | :16:33. | :16:36. | |
is a profound problem for your president. Now it is not. It is not. | :16:37. | :16:42. | |
After the statement made by Jared Kushner last week of this superb | :16:43. | :16:45. | |
statement he gave outside the West Wing after the testimony he gave | :16:46. | :16:50. | |
behind close doors in congress, the thing is dead in the water. You need | :16:51. | :16:55. | |
to read how the New York Times are now distancing themselves from the | :16:56. | :16:58. | |
story, because they reel it is a massive nothing. You know who does | :16:59. | :17:09. | |
not believe it? I do. Donald Trump himself tweeted that he was being | :17:10. | :17:15. | |
investigated for firing the FBI Director why the man who told him to | :17:16. | :17:26. | |
fired the direct. Donald Trump deals under investigation, so surely that | :17:27. | :17:29. | |
is not nothing. You mentioned is meaty and Trump Tower long before | :17:30. | :17:35. | |
the hysteria of Russia began. That was requested by a busy promoter. As | :17:36. | :17:42. | |
a favour. There were misrepresented herself because she had some | :17:43. | :17:46. | |
politically relevant information on Hillary Clinton. It turned out that | :17:47. | :17:50. | |
she didn't. Then she switched the conversation immediately to adoption | :17:51. | :17:54. | |
laws between the US and Russia. At that point, Donald Trump Jr entered | :17:55. | :17:58. | |
the meeting, because it had been requested on false pretences, and | :17:59. | :18:02. | |
nothing but a happen. At the same time, Hillary Clinton is embroiled | :18:03. | :18:07. | |
with Russia after an act. Why? Because the DMZ, the Democrat | :18:08. | :18:10. | |
National Congress, actually sent one of its consultants not to collect | :18:11. | :18:17. | |
dirt on the trunk campaign, I will finish this, they said their own | :18:18. | :18:20. | |
operative to the Embassy of a foreign nation, Ukraine, not just to | :18:21. | :18:24. | |
collect dirt on the trunk campaign, but to co-ordinate an attack. That | :18:25. | :18:31. | |
is a story. We will put in our next interview with a democratic | :18:32. | :18:37. | |
representative, but you are here. But I say that when Robert Miller | :18:38. | :18:42. | |
has expanded his investigation to investigate ties between Donald | :18:43. | :18:47. | |
Trump and Russia, you have a profound problem that will not go | :18:48. | :18:51. | |
away. -- Robert Mueller. You can call that a nothing burger as much | :18:52. | :18:55. | |
as you like, but this is a burger with meat on it. It does not even | :18:56. | :19:00. | |
have tofu, I'm afraid. It is an irrelevance. There is nothing there, | :19:01. | :19:04. | |
and they spend their wheels as much as they like. How can you say there | :19:05. | :19:11. | |
is nothing there when you have no idea what Robert Mueller is | :19:12. | :19:17. | |
collecting? No idea at all. You can sell now television, but I actually | :19:18. | :19:21. | |
work for the President of the United States, and when it does mean there | :19:22. | :19:26. | |
is nothing there, I am going to trust my employer. -- insult me on | :19:27. | :19:34. | |
television. You can insult me, but I will trust the President of the | :19:35. | :19:37. | |
United States. And if you don't like that, you should look at the mirror | :19:38. | :19:41. | |
and not insult your gas. No insult intended, just an observation. And | :19:42. | :19:49. | |
don't call me names. You cannot tell me what Robert Mueller is | :19:50. | :19:57. | |
discovering. I know what the President of the United States told | :19:58. | :20:00. | |
me, and that is enough me, because I trust that man. I have no | :20:01. | :20:04. | |
connections to Robert Mueller, and I trust the President of the United | :20:05. | :20:08. | |
States. And for you to insult me is churlish and unprofessional. You | :20:09. | :20:12. | |
made your absolute trust and Donald Trump very plain. Let's move on to | :20:13. | :20:16. | |
national security, because that is what you are paid to do, advise on | :20:17. | :20:20. | |
national security. North Korea. Donald Trump has issued many tweets | :20:21. | :20:26. | |
telling North Korea it must desist from this missile test programme. | :20:27. | :20:30. | |
The North Koreans are clearly not listening. Donald Trump now says it | :20:31. | :20:33. | |
is China's fault because China is not using the influence it should. | :20:34. | :20:39. | |
So what is the US do now? Well, the first thing we do is we don't give | :20:40. | :20:44. | |
our playbook away. That is the Obama administration. They would tell you | :20:45. | :20:47. | |
in advance what they were going to do, when they were going to Mosul or | :20:48. | :20:53. | |
do XYZ. We don't tell regimes North Korea what we are going to do next. | :20:54. | :20:57. | |
Because that is bad when you play poker, and potentially dangerous | :20:58. | :21:01. | |
when you talk about geopolitics. What I can tell you is that since | :21:02. | :21:05. | |
the Mar-a-Lago summit, when we had high hopes of Beijing exerting | :21:06. | :21:10. | |
pressure on North Korea, we wanted to exert a programme of peaceful | :21:11. | :21:15. | |
pressure with our partners, with the UN Security Council. It is now clear | :21:16. | :21:19. | |
that that is not functional. It is not bringing the results. There is | :21:20. | :21:23. | |
continued escalation by Pyongyang. And now we are looking for | :21:24. | :21:28. | |
alternatives. But I am sorry I'm not there to tell you on BBC what we're | :21:29. | :21:32. | |
going to do next. But Nikki Haley said the time for talk is over. So | :21:33. | :21:36. | |
we have to assume that there are specific actions in the pipeline | :21:37. | :21:39. | |
that we are going to see very quickly. You may assume that, yes. | :21:40. | :21:45. | |
Let's talk about your special subject. You came into the White | :21:46. | :21:48. | |
House of a long record of writing and working in think tanks. You had | :21:49. | :21:52. | |
a clear positions and the United States is at war with radical Islam, | :21:53. | :21:58. | |
and all other foreign policy issues need to be secondary to that. Am I | :21:59. | :22:02. | |
right to assume that you were an advocate of ripping up the nuclear | :22:03. | :22:06. | |
deal with Iran? I agreed with the analysis that I worked with General | :22:07. | :22:11. | |
Flynn after the election, then they can to work for Mr Bannon. And I | :22:12. | :22:19. | |
agree with our analysis from them. The deal is disastrous. It is not | :22:20. | :22:25. | |
stop nuclear acquisition by Iran, but just a laser. And it is such a | :22:26. | :22:30. | |
weak deal that it does not relate to lay them at all. -- it just delays | :22:31. | :22:35. | |
them. -- it does not really delay them. And yet the Trump | :22:36. | :22:41. | |
administration has said that Iran is respecting the deal, and if I may | :22:42. | :22:45. | |
say so, looking at where we sit with the struggle against Isis, please | :22:46. | :22:50. | |
End and push back in Mosul, and look like they will be pushed back in | :22:51. | :22:58. | |
Raqqa, to. But you can say that the one country that is benefiting most | :22:59. | :23:01. | |
from the situation in the Middle East at the moment is Iran. So your | :23:02. | :23:07. | |
record as saying this threat exists, I'm struggling to see how the | :23:08. | :23:10. | |
strategic position in the Middle East today is furthered by United | :23:11. | :23:17. | |
States policy, helping national security. I never stated that Iran | :23:18. | :23:21. | |
is the heart of the threat to the United States. In fact, I said we | :23:22. | :23:26. | |
inherited a world on fire, thanks to the Obama administration's policy of | :23:27. | :23:31. | |
leading from behind, whether it you look at Isis, China, Iran, or North | :23:32. | :23:38. | |
Korea. We inherited a maelstrom. But when it comes to the jihadist threat | :23:39. | :23:43. | |
to America, I concur with Netanyahu, when he addressed congress, saying | :23:44. | :23:47. | |
all you need to know about the inferno in the Middle East and North | :23:48. | :23:52. | |
Africa is that it is a Game of Thrones for the crown of the | :23:53. | :23:54. | |
caliphate. We have two different versions of a caliphate. We have the | :23:55. | :24:02. | |
70s, such as Al Qaeda and Isis, the extreme Sunnis, and we have the | :24:03. | :24:12. | |
others. -- we have the Sunnis. I wish we had more time, Sebastian | :24:13. | :24:20. | |
Gorka. But we don't. Thank you for being on HARDtalk. Thank | :24:21. | :24:21. |