accused of scapegoating the media in order to snuff out the truth on tonight almost a year to the day that donald trump moved into the white house a fellow republican warns that trump is moving the world to a dangerous place. this is the day. when he seventeen was a year which saw the truth of empirical evidence truth more battered and abused than any time in the history of our country. every word that a president utters projects american values around the world true things faults and faults saying it's true they are shameful repulsive statements the free press is the despots enemy it is the people's right to criticize their government and it is our job to take an american president who cannot take criticism who must constantly

deflect and distort and distract from us find someone else to blame is charting a very dangerous path no president ever have dominion over objective reality let us resolve to be allies of the truth and not partners in this destruction. also coming up tonight north and south korea. and the same fate if a nuclear conflict were to ever break out what comes next month they'll share something very different teen spirit. south and north korea will march together under one flag at the opening ceremony of the kyung chang winter olympics and. we begin the day drawing parallels between a u.s. president and a soviet dictator just as the first year of the trunk presidency draws to a close today in a speech before the u.s.

senate but clearly written for a global audience u.s. senator jeff flake a republican from arizona ripped into u.s. president donald trump for terrorizing the truth he said that trump's use of the term fake news had alienated america's allies any embolden the world's despots and he accused the president of putting the lives of journalists in the u.s. and around the world at risk the enemy of the people was how the president of the united states called the free press and twenty seventeen mr president. it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by joseph stalin to describe his enemies it bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase enemy of the people that even if he to khrushchev forbade it use telling the soviet communist party that the phrase had been introduced by stalin for the purpose of quote annihilating such individuals

unquote who disagreed with the supreme leader. well that is the reckoning there from a fellow republican and that just after one year in the white house well not everyone is ready to join in and condemn president trump and that includes my first guest tonight mr todd to get mr hunter to work as a u.s. diplomat in belgium luxembourg mexico in germany just to name a few his latest book is entitled what europe can learn from trump mr i think it's good to have you on the day let me get your reaction to the speech today that we heard from u.s. senator flake what did you think well i like to start by saying that you know i respect senator flake courage and in saying what he believes is true. and i believe that he believes that to be true. however it's. just

simply ridiculous i would say to compare donald trump with joseph and there's absolutely no comparison you know trump was kind of open about opposing flake in the in this election because flake didn't support him and senator flake is angry about that and has his views of trump are colored understandably by that but he's going way too far but it was certainly don't you don't think this is just a politics the mr heins i mean he was totally that the systematic attack on the media and on what is the truth the president has a very bad track record when it comes to telling things that do not correspond to the truth you know. i don't believe that there's a systematic attack against the media by donald trump in fact i think that donald trump's honesty in saying what he thinks about certain people in the media or certain reporting about him is refreshing and i think that you need to realize that

you know in the united states eighty percent eighty five percent i don't know of journalists you know democratic voters now that means that as democratic voters who are surrounded at the workplace by other democratic voters they're going to be biased it doesn't mean they're bad people it doesn't mean they're not intelligent but i think that's a big assumption on your part there was no no seriously seriously that they're going to think something that because someone else thinks that there's a way to know that it is that it's based on the experience of the media in the united states. and you know there's a huge huge division in the united states now between conservatives and liberals which is you know very unfortunate but it's reflected also in the media i mean nowadays you don't really have anymore what they're supposedly was earlier in the united states namely kind of objective media you have kind of fox news you know. report. the conservative perspective you have c.n.n.

reporting the liberal. did do you think that is doing a great disservice to american democracy no i don't i think it's good that we have a debate in the media that reflects the differences in the american population but where's the debate happening though everyone is living in their own silos i mean if i'm watching c.n.n. and you're watching fox we never debate that is so true that is absolutely true that's what's happening is in that's why i for example try and watch fox you know but when i'm in the car i listen to n.p.r. on the radio which is you know quite a progressive station because i want to remain kind of in contact with how the other side thinks and i do believe that we you know we need to respect each other i think donald trump does respect people he gets along with democrats quite well on a personal basis he's from new york he says what he thinks is very boisterous about

it and i think people misunderstand that i want to we're going to come back to that hopefully later on i want to talk about your new book and its focus on trump and europe and in your book you write we've got a quote we want to show our viewers you write that donald trump will not bring the long enduring transatlantic friendship to an end on the contrary there is much to be learned from donald trump with tolerance for each other and with a restoration of democracy by and for the people on both sides of the atlantic our partnership could continue to strengthen the entire world stands to benefit over the next four to eight years of a truck presidency and beyond as a very positive outlook i want to start with this restoration of democracy. how do you do you connect that with what trump says is wrong with the media. i connect a restoration of democracy with trump's response of the us to the voters with his willingness to listen to voters before he listens to the elite. with his

willingness to kind of i think see the the truth of the very simple fact that since all people are basically the same same dignity the same flaws similar flaws and cetera that the average person all things being equal knows more about how he or she should live his or her life then elites in washington d.c. and i think that that really brings back democracy but where is he getting this insight into the common man i mean we know he's admitted it bay he watches a lot of cable television he's a billionaire as you said he's from new york he has very few experiences that the man from peoria illinois has had so how in the world is he supposed to understand what joe blow american is experiencing well you know i think it has more to

do with kind of your political perspective very often than it has to do with your background george bush was the farthest thing from an average guy george bush comes from kind of the conservative royal family that say of the united states that's right but the man. was a texan because the identified so much with texas became governor of texas that cetera that he became kind of the common man of texas in the same way you know bill clinton. is a man who really connected with real people you know mainly liberals of course so i think it has more to do with the perspective than has to do with a background i want to stick with the media for just a second our washington bureau chief alexander phenomena she just produced a documentary on covering the first year of the truck presidency i want to take a look at a clip from that. you are fake dues the fake media is trying to silence

us they are the enemy of the free and i am. only against the fake news media or press fake fake. for the last year i have been reporting from the white house on the president who says he's at war with the media who craves positive coverage and yet who calls us fake nice. i think that's the most dishonest discussed thing to speckle thing the president has ever said. after new mistress accusations heated exchanges doing white house briefings relations with the media are tense who can only say that it's an honest mistake when you are purposely putting out information that you know to be false. but not everyone is concerned alex five for works for the daily caller a conservative website he says he doesn't take trump's attacks on the media

seriously. he's an insecure guy you know he's the supermodel why this be so unhappy so the fake news flash that's he's just angry at a show i don't he's not like there's a want to people i think unfairly comparable to an autocrat but he wants the room press freedoms or the president is calling up reporters on the phone. to president's campaign to discredit the press goes down well with his base men and women who feel that they've been ignored by america's youth connecting with like you know the. i really insane child smee so we as a journalist i don't want to be attacked this way are switched out to tell the story like this you have to worry about yeah yeah but i'm telling the story and then you know i see it and i think maybe sam it was coming from me that. trump speak news attacks help him to troll the. tension away from the chaos and he's a strange move from the investigation into question in the last election so you now

the world is watching look at all the fake news back there. we're all white no one enjoys being boot but we should not back down says brian karriem he's made a name for himself by asking tough questions at the press briefings and i look at her face but he says that after that confrontation she received death threats. i'm not worried about me and worry about some twenty four year old reporter first time doing his job working in montana or south dakota right now and another twenty four year old who sees the president of yale at school you know they're going to go and get a reporter and they're going to be dumber string him up or something or kill him that's the guy you worry about. some media however seem to be profiting from the conflict the new york times says that subscriptions have risen recently and it's higher it's new reporters. despite all these attacks on the press seems to me right

now in my world stronger than ever i do think that there is a challenge overseas and you see here and the fact that a lot of foreign leaders particularly authoritarian ones have begun seizing on the phrase fake news to basically suppress information in their own society. in the us however journalists hope they'll come out of this experience with a new sense of mission. and longer have to donald trump has left the white house correspondents will still be here reporting on the president's sexy team. toward banker the big table now with former u.s. diplomat todd hines a good he's the author of what europe can mourn from truong. mr hines let's talk about brags that has been a for the past year and a half

a very traumatic experience for the e.u. what can the europeans and the brits learn from trump about rex. well you know one of trump's main kind of emphases in foreign policy or when he looks at the world as the united states is part of the world is that donald trump sees as most americans traditionally have seen it the world is made up of sovereign nations with governments that are elected by the sovereign people and that sovereignty national sovereignty is deeply connected with democracy i mean if you look at the your european union i know very intelligent europeans very politically interested europeans astute europeans who do not understand the european union it's simply too far away and even if the intent might be to be democratically accountable the fact is the european union is not democratically kind of that because people don't really understand what's going on and they don't and they don't they aren't

consenting to the kind of gradual loss of sovereignty of their elected governments to the e.u. speaking about this this is a democratic deficit that we hear a lot about in the e.u. i want to pull in i were brussels correspondent this georg it's good to see you you cover the european you know the daily basis well i mean what do you say about this is that that truong and trump's allegiance to this or famously of the nation state that that is something that the european union could take a lesson from. i think we should start this conversation here with a very common misunderstanding and that is the picture that european affairs are run by brussels by a euro crack ticket leap that like it's supra national state is running affairs and it can be self-critical here maybe part of the reason that that impression is come across is that we as correspondents as well sometimes refer to russell's and

brussels says this brussels does this you ask me what how is brussels reacting the truth is this is a club of twenty eight nation states and in the past five years in brussels if i've learned one lesson it would be that affairs are run by nation states they are in the driving seat they're the sovereigns here nothing moves without a summit where everybody agrees on policies there are some things where we need unanimous decisions by all member states all hands up there's not been a single decision where british prime minister did not put his hand up so there's a tradeoff in sovereignty it's not that sovereignty is different away and things are run by brussels i mean it's got a good point there is trying to get me he's not talking there's no mention there in an erosion of national sovereignty well you know i have had the pleasure and i do mean the pleasure because it was fascinating to work in two different assignments

at the u.s. mission to the european union for a total of five years so you know i do know european union and how it works and i also know that the european union is vague enough and complex enough and. will endure stringless i can't think of the un transparent enough i guess is that anyone can say when they want about the european union and you know there are facts that support that but the fact is that the european union is very much an organization that exists and was founded to. each piece on the european continent by building institutions into which nations pooled their sovereignty yeah and just because the nations are there you know in the council talking with each other does not mean that they haven't lost a lot of sovereignty to the european commission to the european parliament and to the way they act within the council as kind of half elected officials of their own

government and the half european union officials it's much more complex than your correspondents what is your take on that. very simple here there's the all the big decisions when it comes to defense when it comes to the crucial stuff they they are unanimous decisions we need twenty eight hands up and now it is right this is a is a complex enterprise about that is because you know you have things where for instance the european parliament can veto a decision but that does not infringe on the sovereignty of the of the nation state there are some ways where a nation states can be voted by a majority of others so that their sovereignty can be trumps and but that is on the smaller things like for instance of the wheat chemical ifas eight you know you could have slovenia saying we would like to keep it and then if there's

a majority of other states to say no we want it out it's out and then that there are seventy technically has been trumped but you know there's european treaties to this there's been a member states who agreed for a trade off in sovereignty and that is something you have in every day politic a life you trade sovereignty in return for political gain and geyer get you know you never hear do you hear people there in brussels saying that there is a trump model that the european union maybe should try to adapt to or should try to follow. i think clearly there's there there is some interest into this sort of a social media marketing that's trump has done that is also true for breakfast by the way you know punchy slogans let's make the u.k. great and make make america great again make the u.k. great again. these are things that to take back control these are slogans these are this is a way of running affairs that is something that the u.s.

the european union would have to learn when you look at rather sometime stalled press conferences that are boring or complicated documents that are handed out when it comes to the facts it that is something where the european union is very good at and when you look at bricks to tears for instance and you hear things like three hundred fifty million sent to brussels which is a blatant lie it is just wrong and it's never officially been corrected for instance by the politicians in the u.k. . let me pull this back to what we're hearing from mr trump. and his profanity in the past week for example we've had to deal with you know the whole episode certainly you can't you know you can't want to sit here and tell us that that is something that other countries other heads of stage should want to emulate. well you know as i said trump is very blunt he says

what he thinks he's kind of off the cuff that's very unusual for a president there are good sides to it because people really know kind of where he's standing on various things and people can identify that and he communicates directly with people through twitter without the fear that filter of politicians or journalists give it you know there's a bad side to you but you would as a human i don't talk that way i mean if i spoke that way i would lose my job and you would lose your job too because it's not considered acceptable there's a level that we're not supposed to drop but need isn't the us president supposed to be the standard bearer of a higher level isn't that what we're supposed to do all over the world are our heads of states are supposed to be examples not something that's a carbon copy of the worst in us it would be great if all presidents were great examples in every way. but you know unfortunately we're all human beings including presidents and if you look at past presidents there are all kinds of ways in which past presidents who were good presidents in many ways you know were not examples

bill clinton. with his you know with monica lewinsky richard nixon who is foreign policy wise a very good president and when the tapes came out what did we what did we see the tapes in the oval office parks melson president of st that's true. when it comes to when it comes to this yes whole comment. you know that was a private meeting and. most of the democrats at the meeting say he said that most of the republicans at the meeting say he didn't. know that the some of the republicans are backtracked on what they said originally which of course just makes the whole notion of what is truth in the white house even even cloudier before we run out of time or will more question to you this notion of language and trying to keep up a standard. is is that something that you deal with on a daily bases in europe i mean do people talk about the

a lot of the trash that that's coming out of the u.s. president's mouth do people talk about that in brussels. of course brant they do and when you look at politicians like the foreign policy chief federica mcdreamy who chooses her votes very carefully there is clearly a retention on the european part how the american president can run affairs but the bigger concern really apart from the language here is that we have to talk to diplomats i've talked to lawmakers that went to the u.s. that talked to their counterparts and when they asked them you know where is the ship going they had no idea and that is the big concern on the european site that there is a president who is running a country by twitter who is throwing out his slogans and reaching out to the to the small man making promises but when it comes to the the the ally that the european part is looking for to see which direction are we moving on things like in

the iran where are the foreign policy agenda where are things going they say their counterparts are often uninformed they don't know what the white house the kind of direction the white house is setting well there's a lot more we can talk about unfortunately we're running out of time gear montanus our correspondent in brussels obviously a man passionate about his job right here at the big table with me todd i'm sure the author of what europe can learn from trump has joined the i will give you credit you're passionate about your position is well we certainly respect that here thank you for taking the time to be on the day we appreciate it thank you. right. now we want to move to the two koreas they are taking a step that could lead down the path of reconciliation in the demilitarized zone that separates north and south korea representatives met today and agreed to march under one flag of the opening ceremony of next month's winter olympics they also

agreed to send a joint women's ice hockey team to the tournament if the i.o.c. approves a small step to. but it won't be the first time the two koreas have marched together in the two thousand and three world university games they entered the stadium under the so-called korean unification flag since two thousand they've also marched together at three olympic games all eyes will be watching in february. oh they is nearly done but the conversation continues online and you'll find us on twitter news or you can. use that hash tag today and remember whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day we'll see you then everybody.

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