the chairman of the us senate judiciary committee says his panel will investigate allegations that the deputy attorney—general, rod rosenstein, considered constitutional measures to re m ove president trump from office. mr rosenstein has dismissed and denied reports that he discussed getting rid of mr trump. reports from syria sayjihadists have been blocking roads out of the last area the islamic state group holds, preventing hundreds of civilians from fleeing. president donald trump has urged europe to take back hundreds of is members captured in syria and iraq and put them on trial. rescue workers in zimbabwe have pulled nine people from a gold mine which has been flooded since tuesday. more people remain underground and are feared to have died. it's thought they entered the mine shafts illegally to look for gold, before heavy rain destroyed a dam upstream. now on bbc news, dateline london. hello and welcome

to dateline london. i'm carrie gracie. this week: what is the emergency? the us president says it's an invasion of drugs and crime on the southern border. his critics say it's a constitutional crisis of his own making. some say he is the emergency. and six weeks to go till march 29th. we take a close look atjeremy corbyn‘s moves on the brexit board. my guests today, bronwen maddox, director of the institute for government, owenjones, columnist for the guardian newspaper, henry chu, international editor of variety, and thomas kielinger, author and long—time correspondent of die welt. welcome to you all. thanks forjoining us.

do you want the good news or the bad news? on the one hand, the united states avoided another government shutdown this weekend as the president signed a spending bill. on the other, he declared a national emergency which democrats condemn as an unconstitutional abuse of power and vow to overturn. henry, let's start with you. did you fall off your chair when you heard there was going to be an emergency? i think the barforfalling off one's chair during this presidency is pretty high. this did not clear it for me. from the beginning of his presidency, donald trump has shown scant regard for the constitution he was sworn to uphold, whether it is the ban on muslims entering the country or his own financial benefit from the presidency. the fact he is moving us into territory that none of us thought we could go into, i do not find that surprising. if this was a national emergency, he could have declared it a couple

of months ago, before he subjected the us to the longest government shut down in history and received nothing out of that. it is a matter of seeing what the next step is and how congress being dominated by democrats in the house will try to stop this. bronwen, you are an american citizen as well as a british one. you have studied these issues. taking up henry's point, do you think the democrats and some of the republicans will stop this? they will try to and will probably take it to the supreme court. we can see court cases beginning. the president is tried to get around the powers of congress. the president has always found this annoying but particularly on foreign policy. trumpism i to get round a piece of legislation putting in 1966

-- 1976 to piece of legislation putting in 1966 —— 1976 to stop residents tried to get around the side. really spelling out the circumstances in which they can declare an emergency and democrats are saying they have ——he has asked it right open and is redefining emergency and commanding greater sums of money. it probably will be clear that the justice department, acting on the orders of donald trump, they will say, it is not for you, it is for the court to decide whether it is an emergency or not, whether we have the constitutional right to do this declaration. he torpedoed the legal basis by himself when questioned by a reporter, he said, i did not need to do this, but i wanted to do it faster.

there is unease among republicans because of the president. one said if a left—wing american president came to power and tried to nationalise financial institutions, we can alldream. also it is important to talk about the normalisation issue. it is so important, the evidential basis for the national emergency, it is a contrived national emergency. it is important for people to say that. the claims he made of massively increased crossings across the mexican border are not true, they are lower than ten years ago. prison is full of undocumented migrants, not true, it is a small proportion. whether it be criminal acts committed by undocumented migrants, the evidence shows that american citizens are twice as likely to commit crimes than undocumented migrants. it is fair to say that there are lots of illegal aliens in american prisons. undocumented migrants is one subset of that. it is a small proportion.

overwhelmingly, inmates are american citizens. one example he used is el paso, where a border construction was put in place. he said there were very low levels of migrants crossing. it has always has —— had one of the lowest levels of crime in the us. it is important to talk about this, because what he is trying to do, and we will speak about this, and it may well be successful, he is trying to fire up his own base. polling shows that over 80% of republican supporters want a wall. it has gone down to 6% among democrats supporters. he is firing up the base. the response of the democrats will determine whether he is successful. before we come to the base. thomas, you were formerly a correspondent in washington, dc. what do you make of the political fight in congress between the separation of powers and the legal fight? the way that donald trump has chosen is likely to deepen the divide of the country, his party and other parties, so i wonder what gain he will reap from this procedure. you said at the beginning

he will avoid another shutdown of the government, but i'm thinking of the long term, whether this is not the beginning of the shutdown of the donald trump presidency. it has become so contentious. the opinion poll that owen mentioned, about the majority of people being in favour of him, republicans, rather, it has to do with the further away that you are from the area where these proposals exist, along the border, the more ideological you become about his position, and you support him on this. i am not sure i can i can trust this result. i think we are a long way from the shutdown of the trump presidency. i think the chances of donald trump winning a second term are pretty high. the facts that owen has mentioned are correct but we know this is not about facts from the campaign and the presidency. it is about a totemic response, the wall and the response that generates amongst the base and the commentators. powerful symbols.

correct. these are the ones to whom he physically turns, as we saw a news conference, waiting for their adulation to fire up the supporters who have elected him. that is why i would argue there has been a weak response by the democratic leadership. you are stuck in 90s trangulation on the issue. what do you mean by that? they are arguing that there needs to be massively increased border security, talking about technological solutions like drones. there are massive problems with what they're proposing, civil liberties for example. they are trying to talk to his base at the same time. they are conceding there is an issue but they are coming up with a fudged response rather than saying this is a manufactured crisis. the likes of the newly elected new york congresswoman, she is leading an insurgency against the democratic establishment, on this kind of weak approach, is to say, this whole crisis is contrived, it is all based on lies, and it should be argued against on that position, rather than say, we do not agree with the wall but we need to concede that issue.

the reason this is important is, he is firing up the pace, —— base. we know donald trump does not need to win a majority of elections to win a presidential election, and if the democrats fill in the next presidential election to fire up their support, certified up enough people to come out and support them, —— if the democrats fail. what happened in 2016, the story was democratic turnout was down, they did not mobilise enough voters to come out and vote, then donald trump will be president all over again. henry, we have said already, this is becoming the big symbol, the wall in the emergency, but is thatt going to work for him, or will it be enough to fire up the democratic base that owen is talking about? we see that he feels it works for him because he has tweeted the fact that border security is a great issue for him to run on in 2020. he found it worked for him in 2016

so he found it worked for him in 2016 so why not do a rerun? i do not know that the wall itself would be as totemic an issue for democrats to come out in this way, even though the majority of americans in total against the wall. he knows that if he can pick of the right voters in the right places, it will work. —— pick off. is this constitutional issue when the confide of the democratic base? —— can fire up the democratic base. it can but it is pretty hard to get people really passionate about constitutional issues. it has a resonance in the us, but it does not over here. it is part of the talent of donald trump, to deflect interest from things that people might otherwise be talking about, like the huge stock market wobble and the slowing down of the american economy. many americans are directly aware of the retirement accounts invested in the stock market, in a way that we do not get in the uk. that could have hurt him, but you have the sudden, no, i am going to deliver, literally, what i promised.

i think that the democratic leadership, nancy pelosi for example, was smart in pointing out that if you play this game for you to declare a national emergency, what happens when there is president who says it is about climate change? i hate to point this out but on the same day he declared this emergency, there was another big shooting in there was another big shooting in the us. by people died in illinois. —— five the us. by people died in illinois. — — five people the us. by people died in illinois. —— five people died. in the last 25 years, the number of people who have been apprehended sneaking across the border has gone down by 75%. in the last 20 years, we have had the most people who have died in gun violence ever so what is to stop a democratic president declaring that a national emergency? if i was a trump supporter and gun owner, i would be worried about letting him have this kind of power. lots of republicans in congress are precisely worried about that. that still leaves a gap where somebody on the democratic side, if they are going to defeat him in 2020, it raises the question whether he is commanding the agenda? it does not look like there is a contender who might destroy his base and stop him winning a second election butr down the line, we have another 1.5 years to go.

we do not know how he is faring economically, and whether there is a resurgence in america about wanting a different kind of president rather than one who appears more and more authoritarian. is that in the national interest? i am banking on this development that there is going to be the emergence of an opinion in america which has had enough of the allegation of powers that the president is practising, and wants a more amenable person. some people look back and think that ronald reagan was an idealogue but he was a compromiser. i am banking on the hope, that someone will return to the america that we used to know, which was more compromise oriented, and would not go into this terribly authoritarian way. i would not bank on that. i think trump speaks for something. he did not come out of nowhere. he represents the unease

by a lot of people. there are uneducated sections of public opinion who follow slogans. that is too patronising. people follow slogans too easily. the worry is, lots of americans think this is what the democrats think about them, they think they are well educated, stupid, bigoted, and that plays into the hands of donald trump. we have to learn from the lessons of 2016, which is that you need a candidate that can infuse the electorate. appeal. the strategy of barack obama in 2008 was to expand the electorate. it was not simply to split the difference with the republicans and try and win over some republican voters like that. it was to say we will get more young people and more african americans to vote. if they go back to 2016 where they fielded an establishment candidate who came up with split the difference policies,

straight down the middle centrist politics, the risk is the donald trump will fire up his base and dominate the news cycle like he did in the last election, when the democrats were forced to respond each time to the latest outrageous things he had said, which allowed him to frame the election, they will depress their own turnout and they will lose. evenif even if they win the pot can vote like they did in 2016 —— popular. it will condemn america to an ending years of division and an inability to come together. we have the same in britain with brexit. we are now going to come to that, because having delivered some lessons on party politics on the other side of the atlantic, we will come to our own country. time is running short for the alternative arrangements that might convince doubting conservative mps to back their leader's brexit deal. this week the labour leader heads to brussels for eu talks. canjeremy corbyn help break the deadlock or will his own side fracture while he's away? owen, you start. the big dilemma for labour, i call it the hackney and hull problem.

they are both labour heartlands. hackney voted 80% remaind, hull voted 70% for leave. the reality facing labour is most of its voters are members who voted remain but it cannot win another election unless it wins over leave voters. there are lots of ironies. for ages, the labour left was accused of wanting protest and principle over power. now they are deadset on winning a general election. i was going to say to you, some of them are coming out over the last few days and saying, this is not about party unity, electoral politics, it's about national interest. their view is that the root of the crisis that has enveloped britain is conservative rule and the only way of addressing the injustices and division in the country that led to brexit is to have a set of policies that will address it and you can only do that with the labour government. the truth is, there are so many myths in the media about

the reality, for example, even of parliamentary arithmetic. if labour backed a second referendum, what would happen is various members of the shadow cabinet would resign, lots of front bench ministers would resign because they represent leave seats and they made a promise at the last general election to their constituents that they would not block a reverse brexit. these are not lefties, these people did not vote forjeremy corbyn in either leadership election. if there was a free vote of labour mps, most would not vote for a second referendum. if they were ordered to do so, a quarter would refuse, which would mean they would have mass resignations, they would have a big public row over it, they would alienate the leave voters they need to win and there still would not be a second referendum. labour put an amendment a couple of weeks ago with the option of a second referendum and what happened ? parliament voted it down. you're saying thejeremy corbyn looks ahead pragmatically and says, i need to hide under my duvet for as long as possible because that will keep enough people behind me? their strategy is to find a way of how can the deeply divided country be united.

that is not a strategy, they are trying to get elected. it is completely different. it seems that your answer to the question is, can labour break the deadlock? the answer is no. there may well be a parliamentary majority for something like a softer brexit, including some elements that labour are suggesting but labour cannot get there, or back that kind of thing or do a deal with the conservatives because it is caught on this dilemma. it has a leader who does not want to come out for remain. meanwhile it is suffering. labourmps want remain, a lot of labour younger voters are dismayed byjeremy corbyn's support for leave. so you are saying... jeremy corbyn would be happy to see brexit happen on march the 29th as long as the tories own it?

yes. there is not a but about it. in a parliamentary democracy the point is to try to get elected. yes, but it would be great if you had a coherent slate of policies behind that election. labour have things i would criticise them on, for example they are not making the case for immigration. we are not getting into wider policy. the arguments they are making... they need to make the case for immigration. that is at the heart of the debate. i don't think it's too late for that. they don't need to explain it to me but to the country, why their policies are coherent. remain at last the referendum but it was a narrow result, so you have to find a compromised brexit that can try to really unite the country. for example, a permanent customs union and regulatory alignment as much as possible

with the single market. they may well end up in a situation that is basically norway plus, a de facto customs union... you may not like the position... they might not like the position because they would have to accept all kinds of constraints, and state aid and probably on workers. they have deliberately drawn their own red lines. really, then, it is no longer about the national interest and coming up with a plan that can command some kind of bipartisan support, it is reallyjust about having some kind of clear distinction that keeps them from having any fingerprints on what happens after march 29. take a permanent customs union, there is actually a majority of mps who would back it. theresa may can't do that because she would split her own party. so what other people are saying to you is thatjeremy corbyn can talk about that beautiful future,

as he sees it, knowing full well that it is not going to happen? and also there is the question of whether jeremy corbyn would actually sign on to a deal led by a tory government to get it over the line. if you get to a position where you accept no second referendum because there is not the parliamentary numbers for it and it would be divisive, if you accept there is not a parliamentary majority for theresa may's brexit and it does not unify the country, then the only position you end up in is to soften that deal by getting concessions when you get a majority vote. i would like to hear from thomas. give us a sense of where people in brussels and elsewhere in europe might sit on this. jeremy corbyn is going to brussels. they are listening to this debate. with unending bewilderment. as am i, looking in from the outside.

this country needs some kind of unification. it is not going to get one about brexit. to me, that proves brexit is surplus to requirements. you have no consensus on what you want in brussels as a future partner so you should have left things as they were in the first place. whatever anybody thinks about that, there is no middle of the water now. anything is possible, nothing is likely. that means that people who will eventually be asked to have a second vote, because parliamentarians and government have proved themselves unable to get to a unified position. you through the issue to the people three years ago in the first place. it is not my preferred option but there will be a demand for a second referendum to settle brexit because politicians cannot do that. that shows the capitulation of representative government. unless there is a dramatic shift

within parliament to get what the labour leadership want. but quickly, on the issue of changing britain's negotiating, donald tusk, the president of the european council, when labour sent a letter to theresa may offering their own red lines, shift to a permanent customs union, lining up the single market, donald tusk‘s response was positive and he urged theresa may to sit down and come up with an agreement with labour. the problem britain has at the moment is that according to the red lines that the government has set out, that is the only deal that we can get with the eu. if we shift those red lines we can get a deal with the eu. do you think there is any likelihood that theresa may this weekend, at seeing another defeat last week in the house, that she might be sitting down this weekend and thinking, do you know what, maybe this is the way to go? i think at the moment, no. her tactics may be still to try to court the right of her party

rather than reaching across the aisle to those supporting a customs union, but we have a few weeks to go. this is clearly going to the brink. i think that britain will end up asking for a delay, whether or not we get one. and i agree that a second referendum doesn't feel likely at this point because of a lack of support in parliament. i think a general election is more likely, because this is how britain has traditionally put it back to the people, even if it solves nothing. just before we get to the general election, second referendum question, henry, we are getting very close to march the 29th. what is going to happen at this point? you are in the delay camp? in terms of what i think will happen. partly it is having covered the eu myself over the many years of the debt crisis and seeing how it has always come to some kind

of last—minute reprieve, compromise, something to keep something terrible from happening, in this case, a no deal crash—out brexit. this is how they deal with states within the eu, at this point, britain is stilla member of the eu and it would be extremely detrimental to the eu for there to be a no deal on the british side and for itjust to have a clear divorce that way. so i actually do think that a delay is likely but i am not sure it will solve anything. and your crystal ball on what goes on inside european heads, this problem of european elections coming up and whether that puts a whole another bunch of brexiteers into the heart of european politics in the uk... which of course they don't want, but they also find that preferable to the idea that britainjust crashes out entirely, which leaves the eu holding a bag they don't want to be holding.

there is this belief that if you extend the deadline you are likely to see an outcome. yes, and if you are theresa may, that is why she's saying she has to hold feet to the fire and before march the 29th they will bend. as brussels often does in the last moment, they can stop the clock. if they have to reach a certain deadline by a certain day, something will give. i cannot see that this will happen on the irish issue. so while i believe that something will give, i cannot predict where it will be. on the irish border, there will be some language, whether it is enough to give an agreement in parliament. there is language about whether it will not be for ever... the parallel with the eurozone crisis is interesting because there you had angela merkel and the central bank doing whatever it would take to stop the collapse.

there is this sense of needing to keep solidarity. so i don't know whether they will really try to avoid it at the last minute. the eu can't throw ireland under a bus. even if there is... they completely concede on the backstop, which will never happen, the erg, the tory hard brexiteers, they have a shopping list, and they will say, now we are not having... everybody else has told me their view on probable delay. thomas, delay? likely but very unsatisfactory. delay and possibly a general election. theresa may may desperately

throw the dice. if her deal is clearly unacceptable to parliament and she cannot soften it because it will split her own party... she does not want to go down in history as the person who split the conservative party. we will have to leave it there. thank you. we are back next week, same place, same time. and another very mild day across the

uk today. beautiful weather with some sunshine around. in the evening it is going to stay dry for most of us, but not in the north—west of the country, some showers getting into scotla nd country, some showers getting into scotland and northern ireland. not cold, temperatures are typically between five degrees and nine degrees early on monday morning. we should getting this during the daytime, this is the overnight temperature. tomorrow, showers frequent in western scotland, central scotland, some in northern ireland, one or two showers scattered around, the south—east of example. london, southampton, they could catch some spots of rain. a bit more cloud tomorrow and as a result the temperatures will be lower, about 11 or 12 at rest. tuesday, rain sweeping into north—western parts of the country. still a south—westerly wind which means it is going to be mild, relatively for this time of year, then on wednesday into friday, it looks focused temperatures will be climbing back into the midteens. welcome to bbc news, broadcasting to viewers in north america and around the globe.

i'm reged ahmad. our top stories: were there high—level discussions to remove president trump? a top republican vows to investigate allegations made by a former acting fbi director. rosenstein was actually openly talking about whether there was a majority in the cabinet who would vote to remove the president. that is correct. as the battle against islamic state draws to a close, what will happen to captured is fighters? inside venezuela — we meet some of the people struggling to survive as the standoff over humanitarian aid continues. loud explosion. and, going out with a bang — the world war two bomb that took 75 years to explode.