time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. when the race for the white house was a rerun contest between two old white guys, it seemed likely that 78—year—old donald trump would beat 81—year—old and increasingly frail, joe biden. but now the landscape�*s changed. team trump has to rethink its strategy to take on the all—but—certain democratic party nominee, vice president kamala harris. younger, a woman of colour and clearly more energetic. my guest is democratic congressman adam smith. is his party now in danger of overestimating the kamala effect?

congressman adam smith in seattle, welcome to hardtalk. well, thanks for having me. it's a pleasure to have you, congressman. let's start with the withdrawal of presidentjoe biden from the race. you were one of the most outspoken and early democratic party politicians saying that his candidacy was no longer viable. do you right now feel a strong sense of vindication? i don't focus on it that way. i think the right choice was made by the president, by others in the party, and we got to the right place. it's not about me. it's about putting the best possible candidate up there to represent the democratic party. and i think we did that. i think we made the right choice. i think the president

made the right choice. and we're in a better position now because of it. sure, you say it's not about you, but you were clear, you said, and you didn't mince your words, that you were actually getting really angry with, if i can put it this way, team biden and their refusal to recognise what was becoming increasingly regarded as the reality that he simply wasn't up to the task of running for president. i mean, president biden is still there. he is still as incapacitated as you judged he was just two short weeks ago. that makes life very awkward, doesn't it, for you as a democrat? no, it doesn't. i was very clear about this. running a campaign is an extraordinarily difficult thing. this is a tight, close, very difficult campaign. you have to go out there and give two, three, four speeches a day, travel all across the country. i think what was clear from the debate is the president's health at that point did not allow him to present that message as aggressively as it

needed to be presented. he wasn't capable of running the campaign, and i think that's pretty clear to everybody. i was also very clear, in all of the interviews i did, that i thinkjoe biden is doing a greatjob as president. i look at the record of the four years, the challenges of coming out of covid, the global challenges that we've had. i support his policies. i wanted a messenger who could effectively deliver that message, and i think we have that now. but what about honesty in politics? because one of the things you said, you know, when you went public with your concerns is, and i'm quoting you directly here, "it has been obvious for six months now that the president isn't capable of this," ie, running for the office again. "it all strikes me," you said, "as delusional." well, presumably for many months you were part of that delusion, and your own constituents in seattle, around seattle, might consider that when they next have to vote for you. yeah, they might.

um, i did do... i did a lot of interviews. i don't recall putting it exactly the way you just said, because the one thing that i did say in a number of the interviews was when the president gave his state of the union in march, and you remember that — i assume you watched it — it was really good. i think people were nervous heading into that. "he's 81 years old. where is he at? "is this going to work?" and the state of the union was really impressive. er, my nerves, frankly, were calmed by that. he did an hour—plus speech. he responded to questions from the republicans, basically heckling him from the audience, he stayed around for, i don't know, 45 minutes to an hour afterwards, talking to people. at that moment, we were all reassured. i don't think anyone was dishonest about it. i think they were overly optimistic and refused to see the signs. but the debate was the moment. it was after that debate. i'll be perfectly honest with you, after that debate, yes, i felt very strongly that anyone who looked at that and concluded

that we were ok with keeping joe biden as our nominee, was not on it... well, they were mis—assessing the facts. i don't want to get into whether or not anyone was being honest. i mean, people have honest opinions. i think they were wrong in the conclusions and i felt it was fairly obvious. so, ifelt like i had to make that point, and i did. you certainly did. and, of course, the biden candidacy is now history. so let's move on to kamala harris. yes. i just wonder how worried you are that, in the last couple of weeks, it's become clear that it is going to be the anointment of kamala harris, rather than the testing of a harris candidacy in some sort of competition. you staked out a position, saying you don't want to see an anointment, but that's precisely what you've got. well, two things about that. first of all, there's a fundamental misunderstanding here. the democratic party can nominate its nominee any way we want to. gosh, until about, i don't know, was it 30, a0 years ago now, there used to be really not much in the way of primaries.

you elected delegates and the delegates picked the candidate. we are picking the person who we think is going to do the best job of representing us. and, frankly, we can do that any way we want to — it's the democratic party. and we can reach that conclusion. second of all, kamala harris did run for president in 2020. she has been vice president for four years. during the course of the primaries, it was the biden—harris ticket that was on the ballot. so the notion that kamala harris has not been tested in any way is simply not true. well, interesting that you include in that test her attempt to win the white house back in 2020. i mean, you know much better than i, her campaign was a total disaster. she flamed out before she even got to the iowa caucus. she didn't win a single delegate. her support was in the low single digits. i mean, what kind of recommendation does that carry? well, i personally... and i know i'm kind of weird this way —

i think we grow in strength from ourfailures as much, if not more, than we do from our successes. barack 0bama's first federal campaign, he got crushed three to one running against a democratic congressman from illinois, and everyone said it was one of the worst campaigns they'd ever seen run. you learn from that. having come out and run once, she gets some experience. so i don't have a problem with people who have struggled previously. i don't know of a human being that i've ever encountered that doesn't struggle from time to time. the question is, what do you learn from it going forward? and i think what we've seen, frankly, particularly in the last week and a half, is kamala harris learned and she is a lot better candidate, a lot more articulate spokesperson and a lot stronger candidate in general now than she was four years ago. and personally, i would tend to think that part of that is cos she learned from that experience. right, but i guess the truth

is that the ferocious assault that's going to come her way from team trump has barely yet begun. but it is pretty clear that one strand of their strategy is going to be to try to paint her as too liberal for the american mainstream. it seems their sort of broad—brush strategy is to make her seem as out of touch with america as, say, michael dukakis was painted to be, orjohn kerry. they don't want to acknowledge that she has a centrist instinct like, say, bill clinton or even barack 0bama. they want to paint her as a liberal and a progressive, and she's vulnerable to that, isn't she? they did the same thing to barack 0bama and joe biden. you tend to skip over that part. they tried to paint barack 0bama and joe biden exactly the way you described they painted michael dukakis and john kerry. look, you're not breaking any news here. whenever any democrat emerges, that is exactly what the republican party tries to do. and, no, kamala harris is not vulnerable to that. in fact, one of her biggest

problems back in 2020, in the democratic primary, was the perception that she was too conservative by the democratic party standards, primarily because of her time as a prosecutor and as an attorney general. i don't see anything about kamala harris that gives an indication that she's somehow from the far left of our party. well, let me try... let me try a few of her positions on you and see if you think that they're going to be sustained through a harris campaign. for example, the republicans, you know, i've seen it already, they've been digging out what they regard as political dirt on her — her support for bernie sanders�* medicare for all proposals, her suggestion that private health insurance might ultimately be abolished, her position that fracking and offshore oil drilling should be ended in the united states. these are all policy positions which, again, i put it to you, trump is going to say show that she is, in his words, a leftist, and even he's called her a marxist already.

right, i'll let you in on a little secret — republicans lie. 0k? in fact, elon musk is already out there, literally putting out faked videos, things generated by ai and spreading that. so, yes, you're absolutely right. the republican party will do what they always do, and forget the presidential race and congressional races — any democrat who has ever run in a competitive seat has been attacked for being a communist. 0k? they make stuff up. they go to the greatest extreme. i mean, my goodness, jd vance said joe biden is the worst president ever, but kamala harris is a thousand times worse. look, it's just sort of, you know, it's insults. yeah, but you know what, congressman? it would be easy if all this was made up. but there are several areas where the republicans don't have to make up stuff to seem to tap into a public disquiet. they seem like they do have to make up stuff, cos it's what they've been doing for the last week... if you would, stick with my point.

let's take two issues... give me, give me a specific issue and a specific... thank you for the invitation. i would love to. two issues on which it seems the american people have doubts about ms harris, partly because of her connection to the biden—harris record. one, and it's the most important of all, is the economy. if you look at a host of surveys, and you're an elected official, so i know you do care about opinion polls, it is clear that the american public trusts, at the moment, donald trump to deliver them a stable economy and greater prosperity. they trust him more than kamala harris. well, they trust him more than they trusted joe biden by an even wider margin to begin with. but look, democrats absolutely have to make the case here. i was under no illusion, all right, this is going to be a tough election, regardless of who our nominee is. kamala harris gives us a chance. we're now in a 50—50

election instead of one we were almost certain to lose. but we have to go out there and make that case. but part of the problem here is, again, the narrative. you know, pete buttigieg was on fox news the other day, and pointed out crime has gone down under the biden presidency. it went up under the trump presidency. how many people do you think have heard that? they haven't. the economy, coming out of covid right now, is the strongest economy in the world. covid had an impact on it, but the us economy came through covid, because of joe biden�*s leadership, better than any other economy. let me just interject for a second, because you're making important points... one final point, and then i'll let you come at it. one final point is donald trump likes to run around, saying that he's the president who gave us the lowest black unemployment and lowest black poverty rate ever, and he's wrong. statistically, joe biden is the president who did that. so, yeah, we got to get out there and we got to make our case. the republicans are spreading

all manner of disinformation. we got to fight it. but now we have a candidate who can. ifjoe biden could have said any of that in that debate, what, a month ago now, that would have helped. now we have a candidate who will make that case and that will change public opinion. just one more point on the economy before we move on. and it actually seems to me relevant to you personally because, correct me if i'm wrong, but i think your dad was a big union guy in his time. yes. and obviously, you're a democrat and you care about protecting us jobs. it seems, again, looking at the argument, donald trump convinces a lot of americans that he's better at protecting usjobs. he talks tough about imposing much higher tariffs on chinese imports. he goes at the europeans as well. he basically implies he'll put tariffs on virtually everybody�*s imports into the united states. he says he's all about making america great by protecting american workers. why are the democrats not engaging in that debate? and here's why we are so lucky now

to have kamala harris instead ofjoe biden out there making the case. there's two very easy points to make in response to that. joe biden created millions morejobs during his presidency than donald trump did his. and we had donald trump running around, saying, "i'm thejobs guy, i'm thejobs guy." he lostjobs as president, joe biden created them. and then his proposed solution going forward is to cut taxes even more for the super wealthy and big corporations in america, while doing precisely what you just described — raising tariffs. and who gets hit by raising tariffs and by the costs that are passed on? the working class. people like my dad, may he rest in peace. working—class people, who had to absorb that. those are two great arguments to make. "we created more jobs. you created less jobs. "you want to raise taxes on working people, "so you can cut taxes on the rich." 0k, well, as you agree with me, the polls suggest you've got some way to go

in winning those arguments. but let's go to one other — you invited me to talk specifics, let's quickly talk one other specific, and that is immigration and border security. the record shows that millions — maybe seven million migrants, maybe more — have been arrested illegally crossing the us—mexico border under the biden administration. now, kamala harris was assigned a job which involved trying to stem the flow from central america into the united states. most americans believe thatjob has failed spectacularly. that's a big problem for her. well, first of all, the job that she was given was to look at root causes of migration, what's going on in venezuela and latin america, and other places. that's a different thing than securing the border. but two other things are also factual at this point. we had a bipartisan compromise that would have addressed that border that donald trump told republicans not to vote for, because he wanted

the political advantage in the coming campaign. i mean, how cynical is that, to not want to address the issue going forward because you see it as more of a political issue? again, that's an argument that we can make. second argument is thatjoe biden did implement policies just a few months ago that have dramatically reduced that border flow. but it all comes back to my central point here. you are quite right that the landscape of the american election, whenjoe biden made his decision to step aside, was not advantageous to democrats. republicans had been getting away with ridiculous arguments, and we had not been effectively countering it. now we have a candidate that can. well... we'll see how that plays out. final point on immigration, do you wish — i mean, you've acknowledged with me that she had a job which was very pertinent to the border and immigration issue. you can describe it any which way you want. but ultimately, she chose... i'll describe it accurately. ..she chose to make precisely one visit to the border, and she only spent six hours there,

and she wouldn't even go... according to the republicans, she refused to even tour the border wall on foot. that's going to be something that plays out over the next few weeks and months in the argument. do you wish she had a stronger record? we have to make the argument. i think we have a good record, we just have to make the argument. again, the record of the republicans abandoning a bipartisan compromise that their own conservative republicans negotiated for political purposes to make the problem worse is pretty obvious. second of all, again, kamala harris did go to latin america because herjob was to figure out, why are people fleeing venezuela and ecuador, and peru, and all those...? that was herjob, that was where she needed to go. what can we do to shore up security and the economy of these countries, so that people don't want to flee? so, she went to where herjob was most pertinent. she did do the work. all right. very basic question — who should be kamala harris�*s vice presidential pick?

i think we've got several good choices. personally, i am in favour of mark kelly, senator from arizona. i think mark's background — astronaut, fighter pilot, he's now been in the senate for four years — i think he is a very strong, articulate person. he comes from a working—class family, just like i do. and also, his wife, gabby, who's a really good friend of mine, has been working on gun safety measures in the country. i think she's got a great public record. i think he'd be the strongest candidate. but, look, we've got a lot of very good picks. governor shapiro, from pennsylvania, governor walsh, from minnesota. there's a lot of folks out there i think would do a good job. there's a couple of international issues i want to talk to you — you have a very significant role in the house of representatives, looking at security and foreign affairs issues. but also, your democratic party, i would say — you might agree with me — has some significant division over how the us should handle israel and the war with hamas in gaza. do you believe that

what your core vote wants inside the democratic party is a united states president who is going to stand up tougher to prime minister netanyahu and the current israeli government? i think what my party wants is peace in the middle east. we want a ceasefire — and that's what president biden has been pushing for aggressively. and you're quite right. within the democratic party, there are divisions on how to go about achieving that. i wouldn't say necessarily that it wants us to be tougher, whatever that may mean. i think what the party wants is they want us to get to the ceasefire agreement, and they want to stop a wider war from erupting in the middle east. no, but let's be blunt about this, there are significant numbers of traditionally democratic voters, that is, let's say a lot of arab americans, a lot of young democrats, who basically see issues like america's continued arming of israel with huge new arms supplies being sent since october

7th last year, and they see what is done with those arms, and they see the rising death toll in gaza — which is now very close to 40,000 people — and they say, "the united states has to make a stand here. "we have to limit, if not stop our arms supplies to israel." do you want the next president of the united states to do that? i do not. israel is threatened from a variety of different places. we saw it with hezbollah and the attack that they did in the golan heights just a couple of days ago. we saw it with iran when they launched over 300 drones and missiles at israel. if we cut off arms to israel, those enemies — hezbollah, hamas, iran — will see weakness, and the war will spread. israel needs to have an adequate deterrence against hezbollah, hamas — the houthis have also attacked them from down in yemen. making israel appear weaker to those adversaries will make the war worse, not better. it kind of... at the same time, i do not... sorry to interrupt, congressman,

we are pretty short of time, just quickly on israel — it clearly annoyed binyamin netanyahu — who did see kamala harris on his trip to the us — it annoyed him when she said, "we cannot allow ourselves to be numbed to the suffering "of the palestinians in gaza. "i will not be silent," she said, "let's bring the hostages home. "let's bring much—needed relief to the palestinian people. "it is time for this war to end." do you think it's difficult for a democrat candidate for the presidency to irritate an israeli prime minister, or not? do you welcome it? kamala harris is absolutely right in everything that she said. and prime minister netanyahu has been a disaster for the people of israel. his policies, for better than ten years, of undermining any alternative to hamas within the palestinian community in the west bank, in gaza, empowered hamas and led directly to october 7th. so, good on kamala harris for putting pressure

on benjamin netanyahu to get to the right result. a final question — we're very short of time, and it's about ukraine, which you spend a lot of time thinking and talking about — it seems to me your message on ukraine has become quite trumpy, in that you say it is time to tell the ukrainians they must negotiate... ok, that's one of the most idiotic things i think i've ever heard asked... well, let me explain to you why. trump's position is to cut off... donald trump says we have to negotiate with putin, right? trump's position is to cut off ukraine. ijust voted for a $60 billion aid package of arms and support for ukraine. there is nothing trumpian about my position of saying that, at some point, the war should end. no, but you say... what trump wants to do is to cut off ukraine and leave them defenceless in the face of russia. yeah, but you say, "we are spending so much money over there, "we have to have a say in how this war comes to an end. "we shouldn't act like we don't." absolutely. "and to say ukraine has the final say is a problem." this is you — "we need to be more

aggressive finding ways to negotiate "with russia to get this war to an end." yes. in other words, you're telling ukraine they've got to make territorial concessions, right? yes, yes, i am. but that is an entirely different thing than donald trump saying, "we're not going to give you any weapons "so that you are defenceless "so that you are defenceless and at the mercy of putin." having given ukraine weapons and arming them so they can help defend themselves puts ukraine in a strong enough position to preserve their country and get to peace. my position is, if the war goes on forever, that is more of a win for putin than it is for ukraine. we've got to find a path to ending it. but to compare that to trump, who wants to give ukraine to russia, i mean, thatjust is ridiculous. and a final word — will a president kamala harris share your view that, in the end, ukraine will have to make those territorial compromises?

i don't know yet, i have not spoken to her about that. i am lobbying her national security people to have that conversation. and, look, i want ukraine to survive as a sovereign, democratic nation. but if this war goes on, they are under enormous amounts of pressure. we need to figure out how to get to an end. congressman adam smith, i appreciate your time. thanks for talking to me on hardtalk from seattle. thank you. thanks for giving me the chance. hello there. much of central, southern, and eastern england yet again saw these huge storms but 35 mm of rain in the space ofjust one hour, and the result of downpours was that intense and some of the

heaviest i've seen all year with some severe flooding. we've also had reports elsewhere in surrey, hampshire and 0xfordshire as well. we've got a weak weather front that's pushing its way eastwards across england and wales. with that, there will be a bit of rain. fresher air meanwhile gets into scotland and northern ireland as the rain moves out of the way. more comfortable conditions for the northwest the uk, still quite humid in the east. that's where we start off the story on saturday. still with cloud and patchy outbreaks of rain, although that should clear through the morning. what follows is sunny spells for most of the country with just a few showers working into the afternoon across parts of scotland and northern ireland. temperatures near average for this time of year but feeling a lot less humid across eastern england in particular. second half the weekend, another area of low pressure is on the way. that will bring range northern

ireland and western scotland, where it will also be increasingly windy. 50 or a0 miles away our gusts here. —— an hour. temperatures high teens to low 20s. that with the front is a particularly slow—moving front that's going to take essentially a couple of days to cross the uk. because it's slow—moving, we really see the rainfall totals build up, especially across parts of western scotland, where he might see localised surface water flooding. here is monday's chart. 0utbreaks localised surface water flooding. here is monday's chart. outbreaks of rain, northern ireland and scotland often heavy. england and wales, a lot of dry weather, and across the south and east, turning increasingly sunny and humid and warm if not hot. temperatures could hit 27 celsius in norwich. we're looking at a number of showers through the west of the week, especially across northwestern

areas. bye for now.

live from washington, this is bbc news. live from washington, this is bbc new-— live from washington, this is bbc newe— live from washington, this is bbc news. ~ ., , ., bbc news. were not giving up on that! us president _ bbc news. were not giving up on that! us president joe _ bbc news. were not giving up on that! us president joe biden - that! us president joe biden sa s he that! us president joe biden says he will _ that! us president joe biden says he will press _ that! us president joe biden says he will press moscow i that! us president joe biden| says he will press moscow to release and american jailed in russia after a historic prisoner swap. venezuela claims the us is behind a coup attempt after the biden administration says the opposition won a disputed presidential election. plus — the middle east bracing for a possible iranian response to the hamas chief. hello, i'm carl nazanin, welcome to the programme. after the largest prisoner exchange between the west and russia since the cold war, presentjoe biden said the white house will continue to pressure russia to

release another american left out of that deal. it comes in