donald tump has released a video on social media condemning the chaotic scenes that took place at the us congress on wednesday. he said the people who carried out the acts of violence did not represent america. he also conceded that a new administration would now take office. president—electjoe biden has launched a stinging attack on donald trump, blaming him for the insurrection on capitol hill on wednesday. mr biden called it one of the "darkest days in american history". he said president trump had spent the past four years showing contempt for democracy. the indonesian authorities have released from prison an islamic cleric — abu bakar bashir — the suspected mastermind of the bali bombings in 2002. more than 200 people were killed. reports say bashir — now aged 82 — was collected from the prison south of jakarta by family members. now on bbc news, it's hardtalk.

welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. the trump—inspired insurrection on capitol hill failed but the wounds to america's body politic are now raw and deep. the president remains commander—in—chief with his finger on the nuclear button but is that tenable for the next two weeks? and what are the dramatic death throes of the trump presidency doing to america's standing in the wider world? my guest is retired american admiral and former supreme commander of nato‘s armed forces in europe, james stavridis. how deep is the hole america is now in?

admiraljames stavridis in florida, welcome to hardtalk. good to be with you, stephen. you served for 37 years in the us military. i wonder what was your overriding emotion when you saw that mob, a violent mob, storm the us congress and apparently, to all intents and purposes, egged on and incited by your president, donald trump? i was angry, and it felt to me a bit like 9/11. i was in the pentagon on 9/11. i literally watched the aeroplane hit the pentagon. and the day after the next morning, president bush came to the pentagon, he assembled all the admirals and generals, our very senior military leadership, and he was angry. and he said, "i want you to remember this day, to remember what it feels like, what it strikes

you as as you smell the cordite in the pentagon." today, i suspect in the capitol as the work of congress returns, there must be anger by many as they smell that tear gas lingering. this was an absolute desecration of the highest temple of democracy in our nation. and it was hard to watch for someone who has spent 37 years in the military, and at every rank i swore an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states. that attack yesterday by rioters incited by an american president was a violation of our constitution in my view. and thus was a dark day for the united states of america.

how could it happen, admiral? that building, the us capitol, is protected by a couple of thousand capitol policemen. men in uniform, just as you were a man in uniform, and we have seen the pictures which suggest that at least some of those uniformed personnel were really not interested in trying to stop that mob entering the building. there was even one controversial picture on social media of a policeman taking a selfie, smiling with some of those rioters. what was going on? we are going to need a full investigation of the capitol police. you're correct, there's about 2,000 of them, and theirjob is to secure about eight buildings. that's plenty of people to secure eight buildings. and by the way, they're backed up by the dc metropolitan police who are backed up by the dc

national guard. so, this is not a lack of resources. it is either a lack of planning, a failure of intelligence, or rot from within that capitol police force. we will need a full investigation to get to the bottom of it. i think that's job one, and if the commander of the capitol police is still in his job by the end of the week, i would be surprised. could it be, in your opinion — and you know uniformed personnel very well in united states. could it be that there is some tacit approval amongst some people in uniform for the objectives, the agenda of some of those pro—trump agitators? i hate to think that it would have risen to the level of a kind of conspiracy,

a cabal inside the dc police force and i don't think we're going to discover that. but we do need to investigate, understand thoroughly, look at e—mails, look at social media accounts. find out using video who were these officers that were taking selfies. i saw pictures of officers literally opening doors for protesters. 0n the other hand, stephen, i've seen many pictures — and you have as well — of the capitol police pushing back, fighting back, stopping in many places, securing the capitol after it was breached. i think we'll find as in any scenario like this, there will be heroes and villains. i suspect we'll find more heroes. we need to find who the villains were who failed in their duties. i want you, if you would, help me to understand exactly who these people are who stormed that building. you know, so far we've used this word "mob" and we refer to them as rioters.

but need we go further than that? i'm just going to tell you some very specific things i've noticed in the pictures and coverage of what happened. there were people inside that building wearing t—shirts which suggested sympathy with the nazis. one man in particular was wearing a t—shirt which celebrated the auschwitz death camp. there were others whose slogan suggested that they had affiliation with the extreme right. are there, in your view, grounds for calling these people terrorists and a threat, a long—term and real significant threat to america's national security? yes. i think that there are elements of domestic terror involved in the events yesterday. so, a couple of groups to mention. one is called qanon which is a conspiracy oriented online group that pledges allegiance to undo a mythical cabal, supposedly a deep state in the united states. another one is called the proud boys which is perhaps the most misnamed group in history. they're anything but proud — they're shameful. but they are a white supremacy—type group. there are other

splinter groups. what has caused them to come together is a sense of grievance and anger which was fuelled by the president of the united states with his baseless claims that the election was fraudulent. that became a rallying cry for these disparate groups who then descended on washington at the request of the president on his twitter account for a rally to quote "stop the steal", meaning "take back the election results", which were entirely legitimate.

president—elect biden won by 7 million votes here. but these fires were fanned by donald trump, by his lawyer rudy giuliani. they were encouraged on the day to march on the capitol and that's what they did, and events spiralled out of control. it's easy to bandy around sensationalist phrases and we must be careful about doing that, but there are people in the united states talking about their real fear — not today necessarily or even tomorrow — but in the medium to longer term of something that looks like a civil war in your country. how do you react to that language? i think that's a bit early to waive the civil war flag and i know i'm talking to a brit. we are not heading into the war of the roses here nor are we headed into our own american civil war from the 1860s... but you saw for sure that picture, admiral,

of the confederate flag — a very large one — being brandished on the floor of the capitol building. that never happened in the 1860s but it happened onjanuary 6th, 2021. indeed, and it is certainly accurate to say that some of these groups have talked about secession from the union, they have talked about civil wars. i don't think the vast majority of americans are remotely in that place — yet. but this ought to be a storm warning to us, and we ought to be smart enough, and i think our next president is smart enough, to recognise job one is going to be bringing together a very polarised nation. but stephen, i'll close with this. think back if you're old enough to 1968 in the united states, not that long ago. we saw major riots in american cities. we had a badly divided and polarised nation over the war in vietnam. we have been here

before —1968, 1861. you can go back immediate post—revolution in the united states, shays‘ rebellion, the whiskey rebellion... we will overcome this. we are not headed to a civil war. let's then talk specifically about the position of president trump on the day after. you have expressed the opinion that what he said over recent days amounted to incitement. if you were a serving senior military officer today — and you were up until 2013 — but if you were today, would you feel obliged to follow and obey the orders of president donald trump? this may surprise you but i would as long as the orders were legal. in other words, if president trump decided to use the military to take

over the united states, to stage an actual coup, my own assessment from where i sit today is that would be an illegal order and i would not follow it. if president trump ordered me as a two—star admiral to take my aircraft carrier into the arabian gulf and prepare to launch strikes against iran, that would be a legal order and i would follow it. so, it would depend on the orders given... crosstalk. i'm going to stop you there because i'm just scratching my head wondering if that is a viable situation for the us national security system to be in. for a senior officer to believe that the president has just engaged in insurrection, effectively try to amount a completely pathetic and failed coup d'etat, but still say that he feels obliged to follow that man's orders. that seems. . . pretty hard to follow. let me try and explain it again. the uniformed military

of the united states obeys civilian leadership unless there is an unlawful order or if you are faced with a moment of personal conscience and you feel as though you cannot obey the orders of that leader... crosstalk. if i may interrupt... let me just finish quickly. we, the uniformed military, depend on our courts, depend on the election system, depend on the institutions. we follow the orders, legally, of the civilian leadership of the united states. i'm sorry to interruptjust then butjust to finish this thought about trump and how he now relates to the national to the national security establishment, one of his senior national security advisers resigned in the wake of what happened on the capitol hill. other members of staff including senior figures in the first lady's

staff have gone. one of the press secretaries is gone. would you, do you think — and maybe today — do you think some other senior members for example of the pentagon staff or the military top brass are thinking about resigning in a show of their disgust at what has happened? i hope not. i hope simply because we only have 13 days left in this administration, iwould rather have the senior military officers that i know, and i know all of them, remain in place, and i think act as a bulwark against illegal orders, against trying to actually stage a serious coup d'etat. so, i don't think this is the time for resignations of senior military officers. now, if i were a political appointee, iwould have resigned long, long ago — going back to demonstrations somewhat like these in charlottesville, virginia

several years ago. of course, you say he's got 13 days left. he may not have. there are two ways he could be removed. there are some democrats talking about impeaching him, and there are other former officials talking about mike pence's ability to invoke the 25th amendment, declare the president unfit and get him out that way. do you think that would be healthy for america's body politic to get him out as a symbol if nothing else before those 13 days are up? i think that it would be difficult tactically to do that. it would be very difficult to go through the impeachment process which, if you followed our impeachment process, is a series of events that actually take months to put together. the 25th amendment is an interesting idea but even there, if the president objected to it and he assuredly would, even if you got

a majority of the cabinet to go along with it, it would then be quite difficult to get it across the congress. my own view is from here to the actual inauguration day is a such a short period of time that we should simply sail on, get to inauguration day and move forward. you're a military man but in recent years, you have been an adviser on political and national security matters in the united states. where do you believe deep culpability for the mess that america is in today lies? obviously, we can talk about donald trump — and we just have — but is there a much deeper problem in american politics? perhaps, a profound complacency leading to a profound dysfunction in the democratic system? i for one am reluctant to simply decide that democracy is failing us. i don't think that's the case.

as your own winston churchill said, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others." and i think that democracy is messy and what has made it a lot messier, particularly in the united states, is the polarisation of the media and the social networks. this flow of information has created echo chambers on either side of our political divide in which people can hear self reinforcing thoughts again and again and again. that's been very difficult. but that is the reality of the 21st century. let me just give you one read out from a snap poll conducted by yougov which found 45% of republicans saying that they strongly or somewhat support the storming of the us congress and only a third of them are strongly opposing what they saw on their tv screens. you still think that democracy is healthy in the united states?

i think democracy is healthy worldwide, but it has many challenges. and among them is freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, restrictions on policing. what just happened wouldn't happen in china, wouldn't happen in russia, but it will happen in our democracies. i come again, would tell you with firm belief that we're still the best form of government because human nature demands a voice, a say in all of this. what is needed, stephen, is leadership to bring this together and i think that we have moderate leaders in the united states and i thinkjoe biden is one of them... but i come back to, if we are honest, much about this is about the state of the republican party right now, because donald trump took that party, he transformed it,

he told them he could lead them to a new world of victories and clearly he has failed. at the point, surely, is that 121 house republicans still at the beginning of that vote on certifying the democratic election result, 121 of them voted not to accept the arizona result before the chaos even began. that's where the republican party is today. i think the most sure outcome we're seeing is that, exactly as you said, donald trump came into office, it made a lot of promises, what happened ? he lost the house, he lost the senate, he lost his own office. he's completely failed in that sense. you're correct that a subset of the american population remains firmly behind him, somewhere around 35%. the other 65% in varying degrees are part of the way in which our institutions have

in fact held through this period, and i will say is the duke of wellington said about waterloo, it was a narrow run thing. so, to close on the republican party, yes, i think it's in serious trouble. and that's because it's going to split between a trump core and a non—trump, i think, more viable party longer term. but let me finish with this. nowhere in our constitution, stephen, does it say there will always be two political parties, republicans and democrats. we've had whigs, federalists, nationalists, progressives — that was the actual name of president teddy roosevelt's bull moose party. and then we evolved into a very strong two—party system. we may see that two—party system brea k a pa rt on the republican side and, perhaps, on the democratic side where you see a hard left — aoc, bernie sanders, elizabeth warren — and a more moderate. it's not inconceivable to me that all of this over

the 10—year future could lead to a moderate, centrist party emerging. well, if i may say so, that's the more optimistic perspective, but i'm now thinking about the way the outside world is looking in on the united states and i'm mindful you served as america's top general serving with nato in europe. you thought long and hard about america's position with regard to russia and further afield to china as well. you said on twitter, "it'll take decades before american officials talk with foreign officials about the importance of free and fair elections, transfer of power peacefully without the horror of what we've just seen on january 6th thrown back in our faces." has america been fundamentally weakened on the international stage? yes, and i am...

i am sorry for it. and it is a function of the consequences of what president trump has woven into the fabric of our society, and we will take i'd say a decade to come back from this. but again i'm an optimist, and i believe we will, and as i look around the world, i think democracy is not going to collapse in the face of authoritarianism because it would be easy to simply say, "ugh, all this democracy stuff, look where it's gotten us?" yet the long thorough of history, i think, remains on the side of the democratic process. but surely in beijing and moscow right now, and we see it from the statements they've made mocking the so—called democracy in the united states, what we see is possible enemies, potential enemies, certainly rival powers to the united states who see new vulnerability in the united states. would you agree?

i would agree. and, therefore, the new administration will begin i think internationally by saying, "the new team is here." and, by the way, it's kind of like the old team which was quite in europe and in asia and everywhere else. so, we will have difficulty coming back from this moment but nations are like people. they make mistakes, and then they have a chance to correct them. i'd rather be where we are in the united states today than where china was after tiananmen square, for example. but a final thought which is in about america's rivals are possible hostile powers, etc about america's firmest allies in europe. you served a long time in nato. what's your message to the europeans? why should they believe that they can build a more

coherent, stronger nato under joe biden when surely the lesson of the last four years is that american politics is so febrile, america's so vulnerable to polarisation that biden may be gone in four years, another trump—like figure might return and europe can no longer invest in the united states? i would say that for our european allies — and by the way, your own nation for example just pulled out of the european union, in a febrile moment, in my view. i would say that nations go through political cycles, and that the united states is still a pretty good bet over the long haul. we are going to end there. so much more to talk about but no more time. admiraljames stavridis, i thank you very much forjoining me on hardtalk. thanks, stephen.

hello there. thursday was a really cold day in the midlands, where the fog persisted. and it's cold widely at the moment, of course. we've got a widespread frost. and again, for many parts of the country it could be quite icy out there as well, and in some areas we're seeing some more sleet and snow falling. so it's a real mixture, some quite tricky conditions early in the morning, a wintry mixture. we've got most of the patchy fog now across the south—east of england by this stage. but with sleet and snow falling mainly across wales and northern england, there's going to be a covering of snow for many. there could be even more than that over the pennines. a dry but icy start for northern ireland, and indeed for much of scotland, but a covering of snow for northern

and eastern areas. the more persistent snow should have moved southwards by this stage and the wintry showers that we're left with will soon fade away, so it's going to turn dry and sunny for scotland and indeed for northern ireland. more cloud, though, for england and wales. again a mixture of rain, sleet and mainly hill snow for northern england and wales. a few wintry showers around elsewhere and the fog will be lifting through the morning. but a cold day wherever you are, temperatures again only 1—4 celsius. and as we head into the weekend, it's going to be really cold start on saturday morning. a widespread, quite sharp frost as well. some fog around in the morning across southern england to slowly lift, but otherwise england and wales looks dry and sunny. for scotland and northern ireland, the cloud will tend to increase as the winds pick up and we'll see some wetter weather arriving in the north—west of scotland. but another cold day — those temperatures in the afternoon 2—4 degrees for many areas. the wetter weather that's coming into the north—west

on that second weather front there, and that will slip its way southwards on saturday night, but weaken. but we're left with more cloud across the northern half of the uk. still some patches of fog in southern england. southern areas, though, seeing a bright but cold day. more cloud for northern england, northern ireland and scotland in particular. some further damp weather coming back into western areas of scotland. here it should be a bit milder, and generally those temperatures a degree or so higher on sunday. things are going to get milder for many of us as we head into next week as the winds come in from the atlantic. notice that colder air still across parts of scotland, so there is the threat of some snow here. but generally next week looks much milder, but there will be some rain and some stronger winds as well.

this is bbc news, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm victoria fritz. donald trump finally issues a statement saying he condemns the storming of the us capitol by his supporters. to those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. and to those who broke the law, you will pay. the president's education secretary, betsy devos, joins a growing list of officials quitting the administration in protest. in other news, the islamic cleric believed to be the mastermind behind the bali bombings is released from prison in indonesia. france begins to roll out its coronavirus vaccination