somewhat of a maverick. he was also brutally honest, willing to take on his own party. i i wrote a book critical about barack obama called buyer's remorse which i got a lot of crap for from my fellow democrats but i thought there some things i believe barack obama led the progressive side down. so john mccain felt his party was not living up to what he believed the republican party should be he was willing to say so. >> watch "after words" sunday night at nine eastern on c-span2's booktv. >> today democratic and republican members of congress ace off in the 57th annual congressional baseball game for charity. live coverage begins at 7 p.m. eastern on c-span2. >> french ambassador to u.s. spoke this week about u.s. europe relations.

the ambassador discussed nato, trade, the european union, the iran nuclear deal and geopolitical issues stemming from russia and china. this discussion is about one hour. >> former colleague, ambassador, ambassador to the united states. one of the great myths about diplomacy at least in my experience is there's no such thing as permanent friends only permanent interests. i fed the good fortune over the course of my career to make a number of enduring friendships with diplomatic counterparts whom i respected and admired and whose company i've enjoyed. one of them is gerard. his biography is impressive as all of you know. ambassador to israel before his service to the united states and before his service as ambassador to the united nations. political director of the french foreign ministry amongst many

other significant positions. even more impressive though i think is the rare combination of wisdom, with an honesty which he always brings to bear. in my experience is always been a straight shooter, spatial data with american diplomatic colleagues even if his weapon of choice sometimes is a bazooka. i been on the receiving end of his target practice whether in defending questionable american policy choices or the equally questionable culinary choices at the state department. but most impressive of all has been his deep commitment to the transatlantic alliance. as a partnership which has played such an essential role in our shared success over many years, a partnership which has been at the core i think of the success of international order over the course of the last 70 years and a partnership which is

under president challenge today in the wake of the american decision to pull out of the paris climate treaty, the iran nuclear agreement and in the wake of this past weekend g7 summit. so even as so many eyes are focused quite understand the on the promise of the singapore summit between president trump and kim jong-un it's critical to focus on the even more fundamental structural challenges before us and in particular the future of the transatlantic alliance which existed before his been so essential to the 70 years of international order that we tried to build together and so such a to the task before us of trying to adapt international order to fit changing international circumstances. so look for the very much to his opening reflections and then i will join in for discussion and open up to all of your questions. so thanks again for coming. please join me in a board well

-- warm welcome for ambassador gerard araud. [applause] >> good morning and thank you, bill, for this introduction. first it's a great pleasure to be here. actually it's a very relevant meeting and i was telling now that this may be too relevant so it could be dangerous for me. i wanted to say a few words before having a discussion with you. because i know that in this city right now everything which is happening is more or less underlies the domestic politics, the american domestic politics in the sense when you analyze what is happening and transatlantic association, what is happening in singapore, what is less important for most of

the commentators is the substance rather than really basically criticizing or supporting the president. and we see it right now after the meeting in singapore. what i want to say in the beginning is that for a lot of people the impression is that if we have a crisis in the transatlantic relationship, it's because of one person, the president, and that the end of his mandate for his mandate actually, everything will come back to this sort of happy normalcy in the transatlantic correlations. it's something that actually i don't believe to be true. i do believe that we have an underlying, i don't know if it's a crisis but at least a question mode about the transatlantic correlations.

why? first, a lot of people forget that strong transatlantic relationship is recent. in 1945 the american diplomacy was very keen on avoiding any involvement into the european affairs. it was a sort of basic tenet of the american foreign-policy stemming from the very famous speech last address by president george washington in 1797. you know that the americans have been involved in two world wars not because of their own decisions but late first, 1917, 1941 and it was against their will.

the americans in 1914 and 1939 had taken the decision to remain neutral. they couldn't because of, the first world war, you know, the famous submarine war. and in 1941 because of pearl harbor and a declaration of war on germany on december 1941. in 1945 you could expect the americans to withdraw from europe the way they did in 1919 or 1920 but they didn't do it. first because the british and the french were totally enabled and is hence to ensure the security of the continent, especially facing the global soviet threat. so the transatlantic relationship is rooted in a very particular context which was the cold war, and the shape of our relationship was basically a military alliance under american

leadership. i was telling people that i was that nato in the late '90s added to remember that question that we were raising with my boss. at the time, was what is the future of nato considering actually we don't have any common enemy anymore? usually the human being really avoids to raise difficult questions, and i think we are very good at that. there was also the afghan crisis in the late '90s. there was afghanistan afterwards, and now there is mrl these elements have allowed us not to raise really, not to raise the difficult issue. why an alliance without an enemy, which is to be frank, a very, very new concept in

foreign relationship. so my conclusion, i don't want to be too long because it would be a long conversation and, of course, i will have to bring a lot of clarifications and nuances to what i've said, but my basic point is that today that our transatlantic relationship has been for some time now fragile. that its foundation really was not, is not here anymore and that we need to define a common agenda. we don't have a common threat anymore to face. russia is not ussr. it's a geopolitical problem i believe but it is not ussr. so we have real question, which is why a strong really transatlantic relationship, and to do what?

and very basic questions and a don't believe that we are really able to answer to these questions. but i'm ready of course answer to all your questions, please. [applause] >> thanks, gerard, very much for provocative way of opening up this conversation. as you mentioned you and i were speaking before and about the reality that there were huge changes on the international landscape as we enter into this new era of the rise of the global powers like china, the information revolution, technology revolution, changes in the global economic system as well. all of this would have to come to grips with it transatlantic allies had to come to grips with but it seems to me there is an

equally significant set of changes going on in terms of the domestic moves of the united states and france picky travel a lot in this country as well, so wanted to ask you to draw you out a bit more on your sense of the domestic mood in this country, outside of washington. it's pretty obvious there's a disconnect between those of us in the washington establishment and lots of people around the country who don't take it as a given in the way it was true for decades before, the significance of disciplined american leadership. in part because they haven't always seem disciplined leadership. what is your sense of that mood in both our country's, and how do you come to grips with the question you ended on, which is how do you sell the significance of the transatlantic partnership to the public in both of our country's? not just the question of the nato alliance but the wider question of shared values and interests that binds the

transatlantic partnership together? >> i'm a a big believer in the common sense of our citizens. and based on this belief in the common sense of our citizens, i am really simply raising the question is, and alliance, and a talking about nato, the credibility and alliance of course is based on public opinion to fight if necessary. and i do believe that washington, d.c. is not asking itself the question, are our citizens ready to fight for europe? and if you ask this question i think you know the answer is not so obvious. it was the case during the cold war because fighting for europe was really fighting ussr,

fighting a threat which was not only a threat to us but to all of our international community. today, what would happen the question is really raising in real, real terms. and if you think that president obama and president trump, i i remember, i remind you that the two presidents really in a very different manner of course because they are very different, but the two questions are raising more or less were raising and are raising more or less this question because i think they were sensitive to the mood of this country terms of involvement, terms of fatigue, really after what happened especially under george w. bush. i think it's one of the worries that expressing about relationship is about that i have about the commitment of

common one side the commitment of the americans really for the security of europe. and the other side, europe, we don't have anymore identifying threat. i do understand that for the western states effort poland, for instance, russia may be analyzed as a real security threat, but to be frank, in western europe we are not living with the foldout, really basically -- certainly you can consider that russia is a geopolitical problem but you don't see it anymore as unifying threat. we have all these elements which i think are undermining our alliance in the long run.

>> gerard, what do you think of the wider argument? given all the changes on the international landscape including china's rise and look at the broader basis for the transatlantic partnership, of which nato is an essential part but not the only feature, what do you think of the argument in that kind of the world, transatlantic partnership matters in a way as much as ever, whether it's in dealing with the challenges posed by china's trade and investment regime or challenges that emanate across the of the side of the mediterranean, whether it's in secured in middle east, refugee flow that has been produced by that? is there an argument for different kind of transatlantic partnership? >> of course. actually, i do believe in transatlantic relationship. i'm simply expressing my worry about the present status of them, but it do believe we have

a lot of common policies, common interests to defend. really, but in a sense beyond the usual spectrum of transatlantic policies, for instance, trade. a real issue with president trump is raising real issue with trade. what does it mean their trade compared to free trade? we simply for last decades we have simply plead that free trade was good, was globally good. globally means you have pluses but you have also minuses here so our citizens are sending the message that enough is enough, really with this global crisis. there are also minuses. so what does it mean, free trade? what does it mean in terms of transportation of intellectual

property and market success and someone? we really have a discussion about their trade because the same question is raised in all of our societies throughout the western world. you have high-tech. these high-tech companies are raising, i really raising a lot of questions in all of our country's. for instance, taxation. a sickly you know that it's very difficult to tax high-tech company because all the taxation systems we have are based on brick-and-mortar installations. so the result is we all have to discuss what does it mean to tax is very strange monsters. it's also access to data, to personal data. we had a real problem in terms of law enforcement. right now there's a case in the supreme court or the department

of justice is asking access to data to microsoft, microsoft is entering the data are in ireland. no, no. we have the same problem when fighting terrorism. we ask to access and data to twitter and they say sorry, it's in california. that's an issue. we have also privacy. what does it mean? the european union really very stringent rules about defending the privacy. that's an issue we also have to end together. the cyberspace, for instance, what are the standouts, the security? if we don't do it together it will come from other countries. and china will be able to impose its own rules. environment, you know the oceans, for instance. here we are beyond the theological debate about climate

change. the defense of the oceans really. the french diplomats are always mining what to say that because of and repeating that for the last six months, so they are bored to do that. the question with the plastics in the oceans could be mobilizing endeavor for the west. the protection of strategic sectors. you know, you have on the hill negotiation of a very stringent rule, but why don't we do it together, the europeans and the americans? really to defend our industrial and also technology basis. i really do believe that we have in front of us a positive agenda is possible, but it is necessary. necessary. we need a positive agenda. we need to look at what is the

future of our societies, what does it mean, and, of course, we have common interests, common vision, , common values and sin, and we are democracies facing the same challenges. >> it's a a powerful argument r adapting the transatlantic alliance to fit changing international circumstances and do in way that connects with the public on both sides of the atlantic. but there linger a number of more traditional threats. rush is not the soviet union as you said but especially as the ukraine crisis has reminded us there is still a significant threat, a significant challenge that is posed by vladimir putin's form of oppressiveness. you've got differences sometimes not just between the united states and some of the principal european allies which we were reminded of when president trump called for the readmission of russia to the g7 formally known as the g8.

that you also got differences as you were hinting at before amongst european countries. what do you think is the right approach to russia in that context, , and how did you bride some of those differences? >> nice, easy question. you can fall very quickly on one or the other side. as the diplomat i prefer to stay on the wall. the problem is in a sense, and here, i have been represented to united nations for four years, and it's a great place because it's a place to see the world from another angle than from the west, the western side. i do love with in the city people talk about liberal order,

really the liberal order. actually we are the only ones who called it liberal order. the of the coaches are calling it the western order. the reality is that this western dominated world is not anymore. that's a fact. the balance of power has dramatically changed, shifted, and the u.s. will remain by far the most powerful country, but in a sort of more balanced way. the u.s. is not anymore hyperpower that the french minister of foreign affairs was referring to. we have the world based on the power of politics, on the balance of power. so like it or not like it we have to take into account their vision of their interest, and to try to accommodate them to see if we can accommodate them. if we find a compromise.

so the russians have vision of the national interest. it's not to us to say we like it or we don't like it. it's their vision. so we have on each topic we have defined whether, to see whether there is a compromise that we can find a compromise between our interests and their interests. which means that we have to be firm and we have not to accept what they are doing. for instance, in crimea and in done bass. but we have also really to draw the conclusion come for instance, about membership of nato really to say obviously it's not acceptable by russia. so what does it mean? what should we do? in these terms here looking at the situation in a very frank

way, really it's easy and once i do say we can try to choose its alliance but what do you do if you really come if russia is reacting brutally to this prospect? so it's not again, it's a question of come , just find tht balance between firmness but also realism. he has also understand that for a lot of countries the western dominated world was not the perfect world, and that on our side there are moments where we have forgotten the order and we have ourselves created this order. none of these is forgetting what happened in iraq and 2003, which was a brutal violation of international law with very

difficult, very bloody consequences in the middle east. i'm referring to not know becae i'm french but also because when i was at the u.n. it was something which was coming all the time. i remember also one day we had a very difficult debate about human rights. with my cuban counterpart. we were really shouting at each other. as good diplomats were leaving the room we went to have coffee together after having insulted each other, and he told me, gerard, you balance a situation of human rights in cuba is not perfect. but i didn't hear you talking about another country, and he gave me the name. i'm not going to give you the name, whether situation human rights is worse than in cuba. he was right. i think we have to leave the ground that is comfortable and

to look at the world as it is. it's not a perfect world that we are not perfect either. >> let me turn, one other question for me and then of what to open it up to all of your questions as well. i have to ask you about sort of the topic of the day which is the transatlantic alliance but the singapore summit meeting. an opening at least to a a sers negotiation over an extremely thorny problem, one that you work with you at the u.n. quite a bit on north korea's nuclear missile program. so first i just want to ask what are your impressions about the diplomatic possibilities that of an open up estimate is look at a variety of diplomatic challenges come especially nuclear challenges over the years, and in second, do you see any logic between the enthusiastic opening on the part of u.s. administration on the north korean nuclear problem and equally enthusiastic closing of

the door on another significant nuclear challenge, the iranian nuclear agreement? >> on the second question, which is really, i always am not very french because i'm always against any idea of logic in foreign-policy. >> overrated. >> exactly. it is overrated. on the opposites, you have to treat each topic on its own merit, really. and we are living in a real world so means there's also domestic politics and so on. i think when people say, if you do that on iran you can't do that on north korea. the real answer, you say, why not? why not? really, , again it's a way of avoiding to answer your tricky question, but i think i don't

like -- the french are too much prisoners of that. on north korea, first, we've always supported our american allies and our japanese and south korean friends. we are not on the front line for obvious reasons but we're behind our friends and allies, and we have support the policy of maximum pressure against north korea, and we do believe that, you know, president trump has launched this initiative, so let's wait and see. really there is, to be frank, previous policies have not been a very effective to handle this issue so why not trying to find a new approach? and again going back to what i was saying, you know, in the

beginning, for the people now, the way they are commenting what happened in singapore is much more comment about division of dollars trump, then about what really happened. it's really domestic politics is a bit toxic in washington, d.c. right now. we don't know what really happened. we have to wait to have more information to see what will be the follow-up, what are the plans. i think on this basis we will be able to draw a conclusion. but in principle, really i think france we are supporting the american. >> setting aside the lack of connection between the two issues, just on the iran nuclear agreement, i know france is working with the sort of remaining parties to the grievant to try to hold it

together. what do you think the prospects are for sustaining the agreement in the face of the american administrations declared intent? >> we are doing our best. we do believe the jcpoa is a good agreement. it's not perfect of course. we on purpose, i think you remember, on purpose we have treated the nuclear issue in isolation from other because it was such a complicated issue. such a political issue. we didn't want to exchange. it didn't make any sense. so was in isolation and we did it without any naïve assumption about the behavior of iran. we are expecting it to worsen

because we do believe the iranian regime would be obliged to show that it was caving to the americans. so we were absolutely not surprised and we have been advocating with the previous administration, with this administration policy of balancing, balancing against iran in the middle east. so that was our policy so that's reason why we discussed it with this administration, the question of ballistic missiles, the question what would happen at the end of the agreement, also in terms of the activities of iran. so we do regret that this administration has decided get out of the grievant. we are trying our best to preserve the agreement, but it's difficult. because as you said, the american sanctions are more or less leaving most of european

companies to leave the iranian market which means for iranians, every machine, it becomes very collocated and difficult to assess that they get advancers by saying integrated. the quid pro quo is more or less monitoring and limitation, limiting and monitoring the program and exchange to have really the reopening of trade come from normal trade relationship with iran. if the iranians are not getting anything on the trade front, why do they stay in the nuclear agreement? also they have domestic politics. so there is a risk. again, we have a lot of relations with their rings, the europeans, the chinese but there's a a strong list that at the end in tehran will say let's

get out of this agreement. they can do it in a very different manner. they can do it in an incremental way or in a very dramatic way. we will see. as for our relationship with the united states we are still waiting, because we have secretary pompeo but it was a speech basically saying the objectives. so we're still expecting from our american friends sort of roadmap was intended to in the coming weeks, really what does it mean in diplomatic terms. so i do hope that we have in the future in the coming weeks meeting between the secretary of state and the europeans which will allow us to have an answer about the next steps. >> thanks, gerard. i don't want not place the conversation any further. please raise your hand can wait for the microphone, identify

yourself and please member to end with a question mark. >> i'm a student. my question that wasn't discussed was the g7 summit and the ending of that. what repercussions do think that will have for the future of the trans atlantic relationship and the criticism from trump towards the european allies? thank you. >> the president, the american president has a bit of it unusual way of conducting foreign policy. we had the g7 communiqué and it

was an agreement in principle. what matters now is whether the americans are going to stay and follow the line of the communiqué. it would be a mistake and i'm not sure we have avoided the mistake, , to enter into a tweet against tweet. what matters at the end of the day is the substance of foreign relations. >> i was fascinated by the use of a phrase during your talk. what is it that the united states would use its military force for? what would be the purpose? and i'm curious about whether

you believe that the united states government today is prepared to use its force, military might, to protect the interests of all of the governments that are part of nato? could you answer that? >> yes. i think i have no reason to believe to doubt the commitment of the u.s. government to the security of europe. what i was really, i was raising the question, we are democracies. at the end of the day there is no policy which holds if there is not behind it a strong commitment of our public opinion. i was racing the question that the question really, we can understand during the cold war that for the americans really defending europe was a part of defending america. because it was a global. now it is not the case anymore.

so i was raising the question, saying whether the little guy in wisconsin is ready to fight for europe right now here how can you explain to him that he has to do it? it was more a question about, i was referring to the common sense of our voters, and i was, again, my thinking that it was instilling into the native system of fragility. >> i get the impression that you were suggesting that what was after world war ii is not now, and if it is not now, what is the fundamental difference? >> the fundamental difference is that we had after 1945, we were united in a threat. people really love to say we are

united by values, but i'm really sorry, we had common values in 1939 and you were not here. i'm sorry, countries that are very close to you with which you don't have common values at all. so what is important is common interest. of course the common values, common friendship is getting a stronger foundation. really it makes the relationship easier, deeper and more solid. but at the basis it's the common interest. in 1945 the americans could consider, the american citizen could consider that the security of the u.s. was to be on the security of western europe. today i'm not sure it's the case. i really, as i said i don't doubt about the commitment of the u.s. administration, but i i said we have this problem. it's also a problem in europe.

there is no gap anymore servility our vision of russia is sadly not the same between really western europe and eastern europe. >> thanks. >> my name is roger and they work with private equity in the technology sector, and what you first thank you for your insights and the american attitudes because for a lot of reasons i wind up talking with the number of people who are part of the 60 million americans who voted for donald trump, and i think would be helpful not only for the video viewers but for those of us who are talking with other americans, for you to speak not to the group in dupont circle but speak to an audience in allentown or cleveland. what would you say to them, or what could we say to them?

i'll give three data points which often come up in these conversations. first, american students graduate with $37,000 a year in student debt. european students graduate with no student debt or a couple thousand at most. the number one cause of bankruptcy in the united states is medical bankruptcy. europeans don't understand what that means. and americans take one week to your vacation. europeans take two or three months that your vacation or whatever. whatever it is. all of that gives rise to what i think the president has really focus on, which is not that the soviet threat is gone but rather we been ripped off, but rather these europeans have outsmarted us and we are paying for their defense and they get too much vacation and we get a week. so speak to that recently because it will help us and the video viewers deal with what's really why at least my guess is at least 40 million of the 60 million people who voted for

trump felt exactly that way, it wasn't that the soviet union is going to something but it was resentment, not independent. >> i really do share your point of view 100%. i'm convinced that when people say president trump has imposed tariffs, really i'm convinced that for large part of the americans, they don't care or even they approve it, or the idea of saying why do we keep our troops in rich countries which could defend themselves? i'm totally anything that's also a very important point. really to try to understand really of course, but also the beltway, the paris beltway. nobody is talking about president trump. just the universities you can

guess. everybody is talking about basically the economic euphoria. really that the economic situation really great. so suddenly you realize the front page of the "washington post" that you are reading every morning saying that so and so, basically most of the americans don't care. i'm totally aware of the system, and that's also the reason of what i'm trying to say as a message, that after the end of the mandate or mandates president trump, i don't believe a moment that the transatlantic relationship will come back to a sort of normalcy. it's very easy to impose tariffs. it's very difficult to leave tariffs. really because you have to explain it really when you're lifting tariffs. and so on. so no, it's a real crisis which

is also stemming from the discontent of our citizens, and especially the americans. >> we would get to as many questions as we can. >> thank thank you, ambassador,r your comments. i am with northrop grumman. you termed the relationship that is fragile between the u.s. and europe. would you apply the same term to the eu first? secondly, second question if i may, if i could take you back to nato, you discussed cyber, discuss and the things which are modern threats. would you put china in that category? china which is been so active economically in the world with one belt, one road has been very active in africa and other parts of the world. do you see as a potential future military threat for nato?

>> you know, on the second question to be frank i was a bit, i remember one day i think it was coming from the department of defense. i don't know whether it was under this administration or the previous administration what basically a was description of the situation in terms of threats. i'm very reluctant to enter into this vocabulary. really, it's international relationship is based on competition. every country is defending its interest, and that are some moments with the interests are really bumping into each other. that's a normal. maybe also because of the geography of europe, but i wouldn't qualify certainly china as a threat. like russia, for me, russia,

they are really raising a lot of questions, problems. but that's what form follows is for. really every country is defending its interest, and you have to balance, you had to find friends, allies. you have to pass the buck to somebody else if you can. that's the normal game. so obviously china is the new big boy on the block. there are some issues, for instance, intellectual-property, and that's a very good issue where we could work with the americans, how to defend our intellectual property which is topic of which china is suddenly raising substantial problems. but talking in terms of threats, no. as for the european union, they are facing a lot of challenges.

it's very clear, we had brexit which is really a lose lose situation which is really a very sad waste of energy and loss for europe. we have of course the question raised by our eastern partners. now we have italy and we have about your exactly the same political situation that you had here. the targets are wall street and washington, d.c., and in europe the target is brussels, seen as the horse of troy of globalism. so really if you are revolting against free trade you are attacking brussels because our trade policy is managed by

brussels here there are a lot of challenges. president macron as you know has been elected on a very poor european platform, and once really to respond to these challenges and is working with germany especially trying to convince our german friends to move forward, to improve the sustainability of the eurozone because the problem is suddenly the sustainability of the eurozone. he has made a lot of proposals on the table, started to answer some of these proposals come for instance, in terms of our external borders. it's a process. the question of course on the table is whether, what president macron and the other european countries will do in the coming months, will be enough to convince our voters? that is of course i don't have

the answer. the european union is not fragile but it's facing really tough challenges. i get in the of the same challenges that in this country you are facing. really the rebellion of part of our voters, the rebellion against the elites because they consider that the elites are not there for them. as i said here's washington, wall street. >> i'd like to go back to your russian issue again and ask you a philosophical question which i realize doesn't really have an answer but but i think deserves thinking about more, at least in the context of the 20th

century history. how do we determine whether or not we are really accommodating legitimate strategic interests of a potential adversary, or are we appeasing aggressive ambitions when we come to make policy in organizations like nato? >> that's a political decision. it's the red line, , the famous red line, really a decision that our political leaders have to take. there is no place where to take it. i had this discussion with senator mccain who really treated me as -- [inaudible] remember maybe that a deal was the prime minister in munich on the french so i didn't take it as entirely a compliment. but again really there is no

answer. it's really a political decision to say, for instance, if you say ukraine shouldn't be member of nato. there are some people who say it's appeasement. i do believe it is -- that is to our political leaders to tell us how far they are willing to go. but that has to be based on a realistic assessment of what we can or what we are ready to do if we are ready to put our actions behind our words. really, the problem really, i read a book which was defending munich by the way. saying really in 1938, the british were not ready to send more than two divisions to france. really and so on. nobody was ready and so was a way of gaining time. answers are really not easy

there, of course. >> time for just two more quick questions. >> i feel the need to come to the defense of my fellow countrymen. you talked about your travels around the country and basically said the only thing that matters is the economy. that's all you hearing about and that what's in the "washington post" is not particularly important for most americans. i think you use the word most americans. i think all of us in this room to certain extent trauma around the country as well. i come from pittsburgh which is that a congressional election that had a very different result than it might have had a couple years ago. i have just been western kentucky where i was talking to a woman who is i was a fundamentalist religious person who was destroyed by some of behavior she sees on the part of the president. you look at the opinion polls more broadly and you see this president is deeply unpopular. i wonder what you want to reconsider your comment most

americans don't care? and whether you think this is something to be evident in the next election that is coming up in a short time? thank you. >> that's domestic politics some not going to answer, to enter into it. you are certainly right saying, most don't care. i sent you to convey the message that this city, it's the opposite. it's the obsession. really to be frank outside it because i'm an outsider, really you can't have a discussion about nuclear physics without the two minutes later people stop and talk with president trump. it's unbearable. it simply that when you close the gate when it's not 15 minutes, it's one hour. seriously, there's a big difference.

it's true that have a lot of discussions and the political issues and washington, d.c. are very, very regularly raised, mainly because i before ambassador but the economic issues are the real issues that most of the people are referring to. >> last question. >> hello, ambassador. i am a junior at center grove high school indianapolis water interning this summer with benjamin head-on at the hudson institute. at his maidan speech of the european parliament president macron talked about a greater assertion being necessary of the european sovereignty, as he describes it. so my question to you is, does european sovereignty equate to

greater european protectionism, especially against countries like china who are really pioneering foreign direct investment in europe? >> among the questions which are raised in a direct or indirect way by this administration, there is one which is about after all the europeans have to take care of themselves. it's true, and especially when you look at the problems we're facing in terms of migrations and terrorism, it's difficult to handle it. so that's what the message of the president has been also to say, we the europeans have to act like ourselves. it's not possible anymore to rush to washington, d.c. assumes there is a problem in our

environment which was a bit too much the case in the previous decades. what does it mean european sovereignty? really, does it mean protectionism? the european union is the most open market in the world. really it's the largest market in the world. it's one of the most open market in the world. we really do look at protection is leading to nowhere. we had experience that led to a disaster. two things. the first thing is i do a fair trade. as i sit in the beginning, our citizens are really more and more and anywhere styled to free trade agreements. really, we negotiate a free trade agreement with canada. canada is the closest society

that european, the closest country that the european union can have in terms of social environment or laws. so the agreement for the negotiators was sort of example of social friendly, citizen friendly, gender friendly agreement. and actually it's raising a lot of stakeholder, a lot of opposition in the open parliaments. free-trade agreements are not really speedy really this ongoing live to the fbi director christopher wray. >> good morning, everybody. thanks for being on such short notice. as you all know the justice department for the office of inspector general issued its report today about the urgent and fbi activity in the run-up to the 2016 election. let me say up front that i appreciate the inspector generals work on this