08/11/2017 Newsnight

We are showing a plane that has just

arrived back at Heathrow. We cannot

be sure she is on board. If she is,

she may look out of her window and a

couple of helicopters and realised

that her arrival is much

anticipated.

It was a long flight

back for Priti Patel.

The joke was that she was soon to be

duty free on her return.

After a day that made

the Thick of It look

like The Churchill Diaries,

Priti Patel finally resigned.

Was it even a form

of Remainer revenge?

If you go into how did Priti Patel's

visit get leaked in the first place,

was it leaked by the Foreign Office,

was it leaked by somebody

in the Foreign Office

who resented her and probably

the Foreign Secretary,

as well, and Brexit,

you may well find something.

Is this government capable of

anything other than political drama?

And I'm in Washington a year

on from the night Donald Trump

was elected president: We're asking

what we've learnt from the biggest

political gamble the world

has perhaps ever seen.

And ahead of the next big race, we

have been in Alabama. How do things

look from there?

The opinion of most

people at any distance from Alabama

is that we are ignorant and

prejudiced. Most of that is

justified!

You really think that?

Yes.

And does he exemplify that?

He

preys on it.

Hello.

It was either a day to laugh

at comedy politics:

a slow-motion,

transcontinental cabinet-sacking

with a build up that

played out on TV,

the stuff that makes for a good week

on Have I Got News For You.

Or it was a day to cry

at a country with a distracted

and dysfunctional government,

and about to be hit by a freight

train called Brexit.

While political obsessives

here enjoyed tracking

Priti Patel's Kenyan Airlines flight

from Nairobi back to the UK,

some on the continent,

like the European Parliament's

Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt,

were warning that talks

still remain very deadlocked.

Meanwhile, the prominent

Brexiteer Priti Patel herself,

sacked from the cabinet,

sits as a potentially vocal

critic on the backbenches.

Will that upset the delicate

balance of hard and soft

Brexit in the cabinet?

Are we paralysed by a divided

Government that can't muster

a majority for either Brexit,

soft or hard, let alone

do anything else?

Well, lots to talk about.

First, here's Nick Watt

on the day of drama.

His film contains flash photography.

When you are weak and vulnerable,

life can be, well, downright cruel.

Out of the blue, you can be ensnared

in a moment. Theresa May has

thankfully not been eaten for dinner

on a remote island. But Downing

Street could be forgiven for

wondering where the next danger is

lurking. Priti Patel was forced to

resign after her mishandling of a

trip to Israel seemingly burst onto

the scene from nowhere. So Priti

Patel has just left Downing Street

not through that door, but through

the back door down there, after a 30

minute meeting with the Prime

Minister in which she formally

resigned as International

Development Secretary. There then

followed the ritual exchange of

letters with a rather pointed remark

from the Prime Minister saying, it

is right that you decided to resign.

Friends of Priti Patel say she still

has leadership ambitions, but she

will be taking time out, adopting a

low profile. But she will be back in

the new year for what they regard as

the next chapter in her very live

political career.

I'm a fan of Priti

Patel. I think she's done a good job

at DFID as someone who was sceptical

about some of the aid budget. She's

good at communicating to people who

are sceptical where aid budget has

not been spent as well as it could

have been. She's made changes where

it is defensible, and she has given

a strong defence. Clearly, it was a

major mistake to do these meetings

and not report them to the Foreign

Office and not have officials. It is

normal for ministers went on holiday

to take some time out and do some

official engagements. There are many

countries to which if a cabinet

minister went and did not pay a

courtesy call, they would be

offended.

And who can blame Priti

Patel for steering clear of the

cameras to my? She had after all

spent the best part of two days

shuttling between Heathrow and

Nairobi. It was the most eagerly

awaited return flight to Heathrow

since the Fab four flew in from

their sell-out tours of America.

Sadly, today these were not

screaming fans, but journalists

scenting prey. This may all have the

feel of a Whitehall farce, but we

are witnessing a Prime Minister

struggling to hold together her

government. It is exactly a week

since Michael Fallon resigned as

Defence Secretary and her effective

deputy Damian Green is fighting for

his political life.

Theresa May has

picked people that she believes need

to be close to her. Some people say

you have your enemies close to you.

Whether that is the case or not, I

will never know. But unfortunately,

the people in her cabinets are out

of control and it is really showing

her up. She needs to sort it out.

The sooner, the better for her,

because the damage control at this

point in time is serious.

She's in a

bad place. A senior editor who found

himself at odds with Downing Street

the Priti Patel visit Cisse

government in difficulty, although

not on the scale suggested by some.

It's interesting, the parallel with

the Suez crisis and the enviable

month of the British government

then. I think there is a more recent

example, which is the John Major

government. It is a similar sense of

everything collapsing around it.

A

smiling Theresa May did have a brief

outing today. This turned out to be

her new waxwork at Madame Tussaud's.

No doubt the real Prime Minister

will be hoping that she too can

regain her stride.

Nick Watt missed one other

item of government news:

International Trade minister

Mark Garnier apologised

to his constituents for having

asked his secretary to buy sex toys.

He said the episode had been

reported

"outside the context

in which it occurred".

Funny old day.

Well, Nick is with me.

I have used the phrase sacked and

resigned in the course of my

introduction today. Which is the

right one?

I think this was a

sacking dressed up as a resignation.

I said last night that there was a

feeling at the centre of government

that if any more details emerge

about this visit to Israel and the

subsequent meetings that took place

that had not been disclosed to the

Prime Minister, there would be

trouble. I suggested that there was

one meeting they were concerned

about, and details of that emerged

today. Priti Patel met the Israeli

security minister on the 7th of

September in the House of Commons.

That emerged today, and that message

went down to Nairobi. It was

basically over. So Priti Patel, in

her letter, offered a fulsome

apology to the Prime Minister, and

this was the key line in the Prime

Minister's letter to her, saying

"Now that further details have come

to light, it is right that you have

decided to resign". We all know what

that means - you have decided to

leave my government.

What happens

now to Priti Patel? She is a

backbencher now.

Priti Patel is

taking this in her stride

backbencher now.

Priti Patel is

taking this in her stride. As she

was flying back, a message went back

to her supporters finger bash "Don't

bother defending me, I know what is

going to happen". I have known Priti

Patel for 20 years. She is a very

determined politician. She started

her political career in the

referendum party, the Jimmy

Goldsmith Eurosceptic party. Then

she worked for William Hague, made

it to parliament and then made it to

cabinet. My instinct is, her friends

have told me she still has

leadership ambitions, but she has a

much bigger job to do which I think

we will see her doing in the new

year - the Guardian of Brexit. Look

at the final line in her letter to

the Prime Minister - "I will also

speak up for our country, our

national interests and the great

future that Britain has as a free,

independent and sovereign nation. "

We have not heard the last of Priti

Patel.

Nick, thank you very much.

A little earlier, I spoke

to the leading Tory Brexitieer,

Jacob Rees Mogg, darling

of many activists.

Now, last night, Nadhim Zahawi

suggested on this programme

that the focus on Priti Patel

and Boris Johnson may be a sort

of Remainer revenge motivated

by Brexit divisions.

Did Mr Rees Mogg think that?

As a general rule, conspiracy

theories are wrong.

People aren't behaving

according to some

grand Marxist plan to

overthrow the Government.

Nonetheless, there are some people

who are still very bitter

about the result a year ago,

and inevitably,

that colours their behaviour.

So if you go into how did

Priti Patel's visit

come out in the first place,

was it leaked by the Foreign Office,

was it leaked by somebody

in the Foreign Office

who resented her and probably

the Foreign Secretary's

role in Brexit,

you may find something.

Does a Brexit Secretary of State

have to be replaced by another

Brexit-supporting

Secretary of State?

Is it one for one at the moment?

I don't think so.

I think there are many people

within the Conservative Party

who supported Remain who are now

comfortably in favour of Brexit.

If you take the appointment

of Gavin Williamson, I thought

that he had come to accept Brexit

and was pushing, as Chief Whip,

the bills through Parliament

to implement Brexit.

And although he was replacing

a Remainer, I wouldn't have been

in the least worried if somebody

like Gavin Williamson had

replaced a Brexiteer,

because he's come round to it.

There are, on the other hand, some

Remainers who will never accept it.

So if Kenneth Clarke

were brought in to replace

Priti Patel, I would think

that was a bit extraordinary.

But as long as it's somebody who has

accepted that Brexit is happening

and will support it properly

and won't be a frightful Eeyore,

I don't think

there will be a problem.

But aren't you underestimating

the division?

A lot of Remainers have accepted

Brexit, but they don't necessarily

accept your version of Brexit.

No, that's true.

There is a divide between people

who want Brexit to mean

we're basically staying

within the European Union.

They are essentially the Remainers

who are unchanged and give

a veneer of acceptance,

but haven't truly accepted it.

I think there are quite a lot

of people who were quite evenly

balanced when they made the decision

as to which side to support,

who are now enthusiastic

about Brexit and want us to get

on with it properly.

And for you, it has to be one

of those rather than one

of the phoney converted...

Absolutely.

It has to be somebody

who accepts Government

policy and is enthusiastic

about Government policy.

Would you take a job as

International Development Secretary?

I'm not going to be offered!

And it's a department

that I have my doubts

about in the first place.

Is the Government in as big a mess

as it looks at the moment?

No, it isn't.

If you look at the history

of ministerial resignations,

these happen to strong governments

as much as they happen to

governments with small majorities.

Two in a week?

Well, think back to the same person

resigning twice under Tony Blair.

Peter Mandelson was popping in and

out of the Cabinet the whole time.

Or Cecil Parkinson leaving

Margaret Thatcher.

These things do happen, and it's

part of the life of politics.

Politics is always changing.

Things are emerging.

Things happen.

So no, I don't think it's

a commentary on the state

of the Government.

So it's not, in your view,

the divisions that are causing

a sense of chaos in government.

Is it the leader?

It is not the Prime Minister's

fault that

while she's been Prime Minister,

a sex scandal has erupted

affecting all parties.

She's getting on with the job.

There is a clear path to Brexit.

The bill is coming

through Parliament.

So I think it's easy

to overstate the difficulties.

Can we really go five years?

Well, '74-79.

Yes, of course we can.

We're joined from Nottingham

by the Conservative MP Anna Soubry,

a fervent Remainer.

Plus, to help us digest the day,

the LBC presenter Iain Dale

and the Times columnist

Jenni Russell.

Let me start with you, Anna Soubry.

Two cabinet ministers gone in a

week. What leads to happen now?

The

first thing that needs to happen is,

you need to stop calling people like

me a fervent Remainer. We have to

move on. People like me have voted

in accordance with the promise we

made to our constituents that we

would abide by and respect the

result of the referendum. I voted

against my conscience. I voted to

trickle Article 50 out of respect

and I am abiding by that promise. We

have to change the language. We need

to bring our country back together

so that we form a consensus so that

we can get the best Brexit for our

country.

But it is funny you say

that, because one of the theories

about this government is that it is

paralysed by a division which is the

old Brexit remain the vision now

manifesting itself in those who are

happy with no Deal and those who are

not happy with no deal or any of the

other arguments over Europe, and it

can't get anything done. Or can get

anything done until it resolves,

whether it is the Anna Soubry bring

in charge or the Jacob Rees Mogg

wing?

I don't accept that it is Anna

Soubry and Jacob Rees Mogg. I think

Jacob represents a small number of

members of Parliament in my party,

and then there is a huge swathe of

other people in the Conservative

Party and Parliament, Conservative

members of Parliament who have

accepted the result, and they want

us to get on and get the best deal,

and I am one of those. I accept that

I want us to stay in the single

market and the customs union, and

not everybody agrees with me. But

what is interesting and is

unfortunately not often reported is

that the consensus that is

undoubtedly growing, and we saw it

on Monday night, we had a good

debate about the organisations, not

reported by you unfortunately, and

you didn't look who was speaking in

favour of that.

I hadn't meant to get into Brexit,

that just happened. Sorry. What does

Theresa May need to do now to

eradicate this view of the

government being indicate?

First of

all we have to say, as Jacob said,

she had to take firm action with

Michael Fallon last week. Sorry to

see him go that it was absolutely

the right thing. She didn't mess

about as we now know, as you now

know. Michael went within two hours

of a complaint coming forward about

his behaviour. Now we seen the

action ever Priti Patel. I'm sorry

she has had to go on a personal

level. I hugely like her. She is

exceptionally talented. I'm sure

we've all seen the last of her. Now

she has got to get her Cabinet, all

of them, in a row, get them working

together. You know my views on

Boris, those are just mine. She

brings them all together. We have

got the Budget coming up. We have

got the European Union talks in

December. We've got an industrial

strategy. That's going to be very

positive. Good news. We need to just

get on with it now. That's what

people in the real world want. They

are pretty cheesed off with people

falling out and all of this sort of

stuff, they want a government that

is competent. Theresa May has that

ability.

Thank you very much.

Let's died yesterday.

-- lets digests the day.

How long

have we got?

Are these really deep

wounds?

It is the mark of a

government that doesn't know what it

is doing and a Prime Minister that

cannot control her Cabinet. We would

have all been talking about Boris

Johnson had it not been about Priti

Patel today. He is endangering a

British woman in Iran. She may face

another five years in jail possibly

because Boris Johnson could not be

bothered to read his brief. It may

seem like she cannot sack him

because she's already lost two

Cabinet ministers in a week and he

represents a part of the party that

she doesn't want to alienate

further. Yet he is making Britain a

laughing stock.

It does come back to

the divisions in the outcome to some

extent, you think, because she is

trying to keep this coalition

together?

It comes back to the

divisions and the fact that he went

to the country and said, I want a

majority for a heart Brexit, didn't

get it, misplaced her hand, now has

persisted in acting as if the

country has said, go ahead and carry

on like you were last January. --

she went to the country. The country

doesn't agree with her. She isn't

powerful enough to enforce her views

on the party or on Parliament.

That

is pretty damning.

I don't think she

can last.

Am I living in a parallel

universe? Probably. Most of that

interview with Anna Soubry was about

Brexit, not Priti Patel, most of

what you said is about Brexit, and

not Priti Patel.

It is about the

position of the government.

How was

Theresa May to be held responsible

for Michael Fallon going or Priti

Patel? There is nothing she could

have done to bring Priti Patel into

line and Abate ministerial...

Isn't

that the nature of the government...

Is it divided? -- owed a

ministerial...

There are divisions

in all political parties. Political

parties are basically coalitions.

You demonstrated it tonight with

Anna Soubry and Jason Rees Mogg. For

obvious reasons. You will go to the

politicians at either extreme of the

party to give their opinion and

create further havoc. It's right for

you to do that. But we shouldn't be

surprised that any of these

differences of opinion. That get

real. This has happened today

because Priti Patel ignored the

ministerial code. It's as simple as

that. It's the most clear-cut reason

for a minister to be sacked. She was

sacked. That's not...

Layla she

misled the Prime Minister. --

she

missed that the Prime Minister. Give

Theresa May credit, she allowed her

to leave with some dignity.

Has any

government that has looked as

accident prone comeback and been

through a period of serenity and

stability? Can you think of one?

Not

that I can remember. The point was

making was slightly different. It

isn't that Theresa May is

responsible for Michael Fallon or

Priti Patel, although perhaps the

fact Priti Patel felt she could be

such a free agent is an example that

the Cabinet pays less and less

attention to the Prime Minister.

Since she is already in that mess

she cannot now afford to take

powerful action against a minister

not seem to be doing his job. Boris

Johnson has been characterised by

the Financial Times as the least

distinguished Foreign Secretary

since 1945. And who isn't on top of

history. And is in danger of

endangering our position in the

world and in the Brexit talks.

All

of the papers are leading on it.

Another day another crisis, the

Telegraph. The turmoil grows as

Priti Patel quits, in the Guardian.

The Times fears that the Cabinet

will collapse. Is this a collapsible

government? -- at the Times, fears

that the government will collapse.

The Callaghan government lasted for

five years. So did John Major. But

this has an air of a John Major

government about and where you have

one crisis on top of another and one

resignation on top of another. I

think Theresa May's task now is to

effectively lost until Christmas.

We've got the Budget. You could the

EU summit. Some pretty big hurdles

coming her way. You have the Sue

Gray report into Damian Green. If he

was forced out, now, that's a real

crisis. But we shall see. I don't

know when that is coming out.

Last

question, asking for a friend, are

the politicians who are running

things now lower calibre than they

were in the 1990s and the 1980s?

Yes. I think that's true.

They were

better then than now?

We did not

think they were great them, but they

were better. There was a raft of

able people who came in as Tory MPs

in 2010 and 2015 and 2017 and they

are not getting their shot at

government.

They have only been

there for two years.

They are very

impatient.

You know how politics

works. Tony Blair wouldn't have done

that. There is a certain bit of old

gittism here. Saying it wasn't like

that in the 1970s.

It wasn't.

Let's

leave it there. Thanks.

Well, it's a programme

of two halves today,

a transatlantic alliance

because from the news here,

it's over to a memorable

anniversary in the US,

and Emily is there.

Good evening.

Good evening from Washington.

Donald Trump won the presidential

election a year ago today:

It has been divisive, it has been

surreal, it has been like nothing we

have ever seen.

MUSIC: You're Welcome

by Dwayne Johnson.

# OK, OK.

# I see what's happening

# You're face-to face

with greatness and it's strange.

# You don't even know how

you feel

# It's adorable!

From this day forward,

it's going to be only America first.

America first.

CHEERING

# What can I say

except you're welcome...

As you know, I have a running

war with the media.

# Hey, it's OK,

it's OK, you're welcome...

Are you sure Russia

was behind hacking?

They sort of made it

sound like I had a feud

with the intelligence community.

It has nothing to do with Russia.

Are you really, really sure?

# So what can I say

except you're welcome

# For the islands

I pulled from the sea

# There's no need to pray, it's OK

# You're welcome, ha!

# I guess it's just

my way of being me

# You're welcome...

Thank you, everybody.

# Well, come to think of it...

Oh, my God, oh, my God,

people are badly hurt.

Oh, my God.

We condemn in the strongest possible

terms this egregious display

of hatred, bigotry and violence -

on many sides.

# Well, anyway, let me

say you're welcome

# For the wonderful world you know

# Hey, it's OK, it's

OK, you're welcome

# Well, come to think

of it, I got to go

# Hey, it's OK to say you're welcome

# Cos I'm gonna need that boat

# I'm sailing away,

away, you're welcome...

The Russia story is

a total fabrication.

What the prosecutors should be

looking at are Hillary Clinton's

33,000 deleted e-mails.

# And thank you!#.

Candidly and was perhaps the biggest

gamble the world has ever known.

Donald Trump's election rocked the

foundations of politics as we knew

it. Even a year on it can still the

heart and body. Tonight, 12 months

on from the day America chose its

new president we are back in

Washington asking whether the gamble

has paid off. How do those who put

him in power think he is doing? Last

I saw victories for the Democrats in

Virginia and New Jersey. That

doesn't spell the end of the Trump

experiment but it does hint that his

own Republican party is divided on

how to win with him in power.

We've been in the Deep South state

of Alabama ahead of a critical

senate election next month.

In the primaries,

the establishment candidate

there was beaten by Roy Moore -

a man who takes Trumpism now

to new heights, who's backed

by Steve Bannon and who's been

accused of reopening the wounds

of the state's racial past

at a time when America is already

intractably divided.

Alabama is a state

you rarely hear about

on the presidential campaign trail.

Its soul is deep, deep red.

It hasn't seen a Democrat win

here since Jimmy Carter in '76,

yet now, suddenly, it's the talk

of the town.

Next month's Senate election

to replace Jeff Sessions,

now Attorney General,

is one of the weirdest races

anyone has ever seen.

And it poses the bigger question:

Has the election of Donald Trump

a year ago created

a new normal for America?

Evening rush hour in Selma,

Alabama, is a gentle affair.

No queues, no jams.

But the noise, when it

comes, is passionate.

They're trying to get out the black

vote for the Alabama Senate race

next month, telling those willing

to wind down their window

how critical it is.

One vote, sir, can

make a difference.

One vote can save lives.

Faya Rose Toure was Alabama's

first black female judge.

We believe that December 12th

is a life-and-death election.

We truly believe, as statistics

show, that one vote

can make a difference.

Selma's a birthplace

of the civil rights movement.

It was here in 1965 that

Martin Luther King led demonstrators

demanding suffrage on the 50 mile

march into the state capital.

On this bridge, they were beaten

back like dogs by state troopers,

violence sanctioned by Selma's

mayor and governor.

The bridge was named

after the Confederate general

Ku Klux Klan leader and,

yes, Democratic senator

Edmund Pettus, responsible

for taking away the vote of black

men in 1902.

The fact that it still bears

his name, says Faya,

is a reminder that this is not

a past struggle,

but a very living one.

We're trying to get people

to understand that the people

who support the Trump agenda will be

running on December 12th,

will be running next year.

And it's extremely important that

you stop all of the President's men,

because he cannot carry forward this

agenda without them.

She will not say his name,

but she means this man,

Republican candidate for Senate,

Roy Moore.

Our foundation has been shaken.

Crime, corruption, amorality,

abortion, sodomy, sexual

perversion, sweep our land.

He's called for gay sex to be

illegal, claimed parts of America

already live under Sharia law.

He believed Obama was a Muslim

who was not US-born.

Doug Jones is Moore's Democratic

rival in the race.

He is known for being soft spoken,

but when I meet him,

he doesn't hold back.

What I think people in this country

worry about is that Roy Moore

will be the foreshadow

of things to come.

I think he divides people by race.

I think he divides

people by religion.

I think he divides people

by your sexual orientation.

Unless you are a part

of the population that he is OK

with, he thinks you're

a second-class citizen.

Roy Moore is one of half a dozen

candidates for Senate now backed

by the former White House strategist

Steve Bannon, the man nicknamed

the brain behind Trump,

the rump of the ideological right.

And you're going to see in state

after state after state,

people who follow the model

of Judge Moore that do not need

to raise money from the elites,

from the crony capitalists,

from the fat cats in Washington, DC,

New York City and Silicon Valley.

A year on from the election

of Donald Trump, we have

all still got a lot of figuring

out to do.

Has he reset politics in his image?

Will there be a major backlash

to his style of governing?

Or perhaps the question

we are in town today to ask: has

he and those who have helped him

to power paved the way for more

extreme versions of mainstream

politics than America,

yes, even here in the deep

South, has ever imagined?

Is the future of the Republican

Party now for characters

who will make Donald Trump himself

seem rather moderate?

The Alabama state symbol could be

the pick-up truck and in Roy Moore's

hometown of Gallant,

we stumble upon his nephew Steve,

whose own licence plate

tells of his twin loves,

tracking and Trump.

So do you think Trump's

draining the swamp?

The whole idea was that he came

to Washington to drain the swamp.

Do you think that's happening?

I do.

I hope it continues.

Who would you like

to see cleared out?

Anyone that doesn't

agree with Trump.

A dozen or so members of the Moore

family still live here.

But down the road, we find one

lone voice of dissent.

Charles, a long-time military man,

reminds me that Roy Moore has twice

been forced to stand down

from political office.

He invites me in to share

his views of Alabama.

And then his views of Alabama.

I've travelled a lot.

I have spent a lot of time overseas.

But the opinion of most people any

distance from Alabama is that we are

ignored and prejudiced.

-- ignorant and prejudiced.

Most of it is justified!

You really believe that?

Yes.

And does he exemplify that?

He preys on it.

Now, he's well-educated in law.

He is a West Point graduate.

So he's well-educated.

But I think a professional

politician tells the people

what he thinks they want to hear.

And once he is in office, then he

can do, to a degree, what he wants.

They still like their Confederate

statues here in Dixie.

Moore's views may not be so wild

to those who live here.

Roy Moore is not a racist.

He is not homophobic,

and he is not someone who in any way

can be seen as anything less

than what we would be

proud of as a US Senator.

As we get ready to leave the deep

South, news comes of a governor

tour win for the Democrats

in Virginia against a moderate

establishment Republican.

Alabama will be the next big race.

Roy Moore is expecting an easy win.

So is that what the Republican Party

will look like next?

The work of Trump

may be almost done.

Steve Bannon's has barely begun.

I'm joined by Clarence Page

and Mica Mosbacher.

Clarence is a columnist

at the Chicago Tribune.

Mica is a Republican strategist

and member of the Trump 2020

advisory committee.

Clarence, let me start with you.

Those who voted for Trump have

remained loyal and like what he is

doing.

It reminds me of the early

days of the Obama administration,

when Obama supporters were very much

behind what he was doing even though

he had some opponents out there. The

difference is that Mr Trump has

really defied norms here in

Washington, to a degree where he

makes proposals and then goes to

Congress and this, bring me

something to sign and when they

don't, he blames Congress. And his

bass buys it. They believe that

everything that is going wrong is

somebody else's fault and Mr Trump

is doing the best he can and give

him time.

The difference with the

Obama campaign, maybe, was that

Obama promised hope. Where is he

made concrete promises. There was

going to be the wall, the travel

ban. He was going to bring back jobs

from Mexico. Do the voters who put

him in power mind that those things

have not materialised, and may

never?

Absolutely. He is already

keeping his campaign promises.

Firstly, his pick of Neil Gossage

for Supreme Court has satisfied his

Conservative base.

That was quite a

long time ago.

It was recommended to

him.

It was his final choice and it

resonated well with the base.

Additionally, he has put in place

several executive orders, many which

will increase the independence of

the United States, like the keystone

pipeline. There are prototypes right

now under way for a wall. We do have

to get funding through Congress, but

he is moving forward. And we cannot

argue about the stock market. It is

at an all-time record high.

I

welcome to the economy, but in

factual, tangible terms, what about

Obamacare, what about repealing and

replacing?

And immigration reform.

There is no reform. And he never

said he was going to build a bridge

type for a while, he said he would

build a wall.

He will and it would

get through Congress. As a

Republican, I will say that I, along

with many Republicans and Republican

donors, are extremely frustrated

with our do nothing Congress,

especially the Senate, and the fact

that we did not replace Obamacare.

But there is only so much the

president can do. What I feel he has

done lately which will be important

to this country is that he is trying

to reach across the aisle. That is

how you get the best legislation in

this country. If Republicans and

Democrats can find some area to

compromise, I think that that would

benefit everyone's constituents.

That is what everyone wants,

Clarence, triangulation.

We should

be able to work together across the

aisle. That has not happened, partly

because Republicans are so divided

among themselves. They control all

three branches of government now.

But no major legislation has been

passed so far this year. I don't

know when a president in their first

year couldn't get anything done.

Trump has enemies within his own

party.

Ed Gillespie lost in Virginia

because he was an establishment

candidates who tried to repackage

himself as a populist.

This was the

Republican running for governor who

did not endorse Trumpism and who was

then rejected today.

And he did not

endorse Trumpism because he knew it

was a loser in Virginia, which has

been a swing state that is trending

blue now. He knew he couldn't go too

far one way or the other, either

towards the right or too much in the

middle to please the base, and he

wound up getting stuck with a huge

loss.

He was an establishment

candidate.

Do you think a Trump

candidate could have won Virginia?

Probably not.

Let me look wider than

Virginia.

Let's look at the

candidates that Steve Bannon is

supporting.

You are saying there

must be a shift toward something

more Conservative and more

ideological than even Trump has

proved himself so far?

Well,

remember, this election was

emotional, not logical. And a lot of

it was a push against big business,

government as usual and the old

dinosaur establishment candidate. I

am a previous member of the Bush

administration. My husband was

secretary of commerce. I was the

ultimate establishment person, and I

went through a sort of 12-step

programme to realise that that was

not working.

But that is totally

confused. He is big business. Do you

like it or do you hate it?

But

here's a businessman, not

politician.

His problem is that he

doesn't seem to like legislating or

learning about legislating. He loves

the campaign, but Mr Trump hasn't

even read his own health care bill

which he endorses and then gets

angry with the Republican

legislators who don't want to go

along with it without him engaging

in the process. That is why they

have not got anything done on

Capitol Hill.

Thank you both very

much.

Now, when Trump won the election

a year ago, one writer,

Kurt Anderson, was halfway

through a book

that he would title Fantasyland.

It put the birth of fake news,

hyperbole and false claims into

a much wider historical context.

In it, he argues that America has

long been a place where renegades

and freaks came in search of freedom

to create their own realities.

It began, he suggests, with the

pilgrim fathers and the Salem witch

trials and goes right through to the

present day. He looks at religious

America and what he terms the unspun

rebooting of Christianity from

Moomins to charismatics. -- from

Moomins is back to charismatics. It

takes us through New Age quackery

and self-help practitioners to the

free for all era of the 1960s, where

he says liberalism run amok,

conspiracy theories flourished and

America believed in UFOs. And it

ends here in the current day.

Creationist belief, climate change

denial, Disneyland and a sense that

it must be true if you read it on

the internet. All this, he says,

helps to explain the rise and

acceptability of Donald Trump

himself and an America where the

difference between opinion and fact

is crumbling. Kurt Anderson joins us

now. You write that Trump, who won

the election just as the book was

finished, understood that a

breakdown of shared public reality

built upon widely accepted facts

represented an opportunity. You

think he appreciated the fantasyland

that you describe in that book?

I

don't think he would have put it in

those words, but I do think he

understood in some visceral sense

that now was the time, after having

flirted with the idea of running for

president for 30 years, that it

could work, that the Americans'

sense of reality versus fiction had

become iffy enough that he had a

chance.

That is too far-fetched.

Trump believes his own reality,

surely?

Yes and no. He lies, and he

believes. It is both. He simply has

no fixed commitment to factual

empirical reality. It is whatever

serves him at a given moment, like

the ultimate salesman that he is.

So

when you talk about the history of

America, what you build up is a

sense that people have been

following their own realities for

500 years. Some of that will sound

very critical of religion, very

unforgiving of faith and of people

being able to believe something that

is just less dictated than science.

I have nothing against faith and

religion as practised in Christendom

in most of the rest of the developed

world, including the UK, Europe,

Australia and the rest. It is the

extreme and extravagant religion of

various kinds, in which the United

States has always specialised and

which has made it even more

diverging from the rest of the

developed world today. And if that

is not bad in itself, it has led to

our politics, where an entire half

of the country could be persuaded

that climate change doesn't exist,

for instance, almost that many who

believe that evolution isn't real

and should be taught in public

schools and so on. Some of those

religious ideas and some are not,

but they are all about believing the

empirically unfounded and improbable

and untrue.

You don't arrive at a

conclusion to why America seems to

break the mould of being a deeply

religious country, and yet a very

economically successful one. We tend

to see the correlation in the other

direction.

Yes. We have been an

exceptional country in many ways. I

believe that this worked, that this

allowing a thousand flowers bloom in

all kinds of fantasies to be engaged

and propagated worked for several

hundred years because there was a

set of establishments in control. It

wasn't allowed to go crazy and get

out of control, whether it was in

religion, where the mainline

Protestant churches ruled, and in

the economy where, when it got

extreme, it was brought back. I

would say in many different ways,

starting in the 1960s and certainly

in the last 20 years, economically,

religiously and spiritually, we have

got out of control.

But what would

you change? You don't want America

to stop being free to think or

believe what it chooses.

No. It

cannot be fixed. We cannot say here

are the laws we need to pass. I

believe, however, that serious

people of all political stripes,

Conservatives as well as liberals

and everybody in between, have to

recommit to reality. They don't have

to give up their faith, their

hunches and superstitions, but we

have to have a shared set of facts

if we are going to have a society, a

country and an economy that

continues to thrive as it has.

Kurt

Anderson, thanks for coming in. That

is all from Washington for tonight.

We will be back with more from DC

over the coming nights. Kirsty is in

the chair tomorrow, but from both of

us here and in London, good night.