2 book tv. next remarks from afghanistan's national security adviser on security and politics in that country. he spoke about the current security environment, relations with pakistan, and counter terrorism efforts, held by the u.s. institute of peace. this is an hour. >> good morning everyone. good morning. my name is nancy lynn boring. i'm the president of the u.s. institute of peace and pleased to be able to welcome everybody this morning for a very special program. i'm glad the weather cooperated to let us continue with this morning. welcome to everyone who braved the sort of pseudo weather event to join us this morning. we are especially pleased to see

the members of our international advisory council and welcome to those joining us by webcast. as many of you know, usip was founded in 1984 by congress dedicated to the proposition that peace is a very practical undertaking, that it is absolutely essential for our global security. and that it is eminently possible. and so usip works with partners in conflict affected countries around the world with governments, civil society leaders, women and youth to ee equipment them with the kind of tools and learnings and information that enables them to work to prevent conflict from becoming violent and to resolve it when it does. as i think everyone in this room is well aware, afghanistan remains one of the most critical foreign policy priorities for the united states. so i'm extremely pleased that usip is able to host this

morning national security adviser at mar. and we are honored that you accept our conversation to come here and have a conversation with washington policy makers on critical events that are occurring in afghanistan. usip has been deeply involved in afghanistan since 2002. one of our longest and largest programs. and we've had an office there since 2008. and our afghan team there works with government, religious leaders, civil society organizations, to address the underlying causes of instability and to create the conditions for peace. . so this is a really important moment for a conversation on the afghan peace process. last month, the afghan government hosted the cabal peace conference and made an offer to the taliban to find a

political solution to the conflict. also last month the taliban indicated their willing inist willingness to talk to the united states about peace. and next week they will talk with uzbekistan about a peace process. earlier this month, usip hosted ambassador alex wells from the u.s. department of state who joined us to shed light on the u.s. response to all of these recent developments. so this is an important opportunity to now hear directly the afghan perspective with the afghan national security adviser mohammed atmar. we really much appreciate you coming today to share your thoughts and to give us an update on how the afghan government is approaching this process for peace, especially as it deals with multiple security

threats from within the country. of course, i also want to extend a special welcome to ambassador moad afghanistan ambassador here in the united states. national security adviser atmar has been a critical leader in afghanistan. he's been the minister of education, and rehabilitation and development, and his efforts through the years have led to remarkable gains, most particularly in the education of girls, but also in rural infra structure, in governance and much more. he was a driving force in the creation of the first afghan national development strategy. and he has been an important partner in peace efforts. so today he will discuss the security challenges that afghanistan faces and a potential path for peace. he will make some opening

remarks, and then he will be joined on stage by steve hadley, our board chair here at usip, and of course the national, former national security adviser for president george w. bush. so we will have the great opportunity of listening in to a conversation between former and current national security advisers followed by questions from the audience. so please join me now in welcoming afghan national security adviser atmar. [ applause ] >> thank you. miss nancy lindbergh, excellency

hadley, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. it's such a privilege to come and talk to such a distinguished audience. it's an honor to be invited by the famous institute with its remarkable achievements worldwide, but particularly in afghanistan. so let me first take this opportunity to thank the usip for not just invited me and my delegation, but for the excellent work it has undertaken in afghanistan and elsewhere. le -- colleagues today i'm here to represent the president of afghanistan and our people in thanking you all to pay our respect and appreciation to the

sacrifices of your brave men and women in uniform, your dedicated diplomates, aide workers, researchers, and politicians and policy makers. afghanistan will continue to appreciate your service. afghanistan will remain indebted forever for what you have achieved through our joint partnership. some of you have personally served in afghanistan or together with us on afghanistan. i am personally grateful to each one of you for your dedicated service. i often argue that if you compare my country, our country to what we were ten years ago, despite all of the security

challenges that we have now, we are certainly a totally different place for our citizens than we were 17 years ago, from every perspective. from the way we govern our country, the way we give voice to our people, men, women alike, to the education of our girls and boys, to health care that we provide to our citizens, and to economic uplift for millions of our people. i used to be a humanitarian work worker in late 1990s, so i understand where we were 17 years ago, and where we are today. in this remarkable achievement of the people of afghanistan, you've had a great contribution.

and i'm particularly grateful to the generosity of your taxpayers whose generosity actually meant more school, more education, more health care, and better living conditions for afghans. thank you for all of that. in today's opportunity, i was thinking of offering a few opening remarks on where we are with the security and the peace strategy, and then we'll have the honor of working together with mr. hadley on responding to some of your questions that you may have. to understand the peace offer that president generously made last month, let me first provide

the context. three things are important in that context. number one is the threat that we are commonly faced with. this threat imnates comes from criminal networks and state sponsored of terrorists. it's not just a threat against afghanistan. it's a threat against the region, and by extension against the entire global community. so the starting point for our discussion, when we analyze the situation in the region, we must understand that this is a common

threat from a common enemy which calls f calls for a shared mission and responsibility. it's not just the taliban and the other network we are fighting. increasingly we see foreign fighters associated with at least three categories of terrorist networks. the global terrorist networks, such as al qaeda, isis, the regional terrorists such as imu, atim from central asia and china, and pakistanial terrorists such as taliban and pakistan and mohammed. all of these four categories, the afghans, the global, the

regional, and the pakistanis, have symbolic relationship among themselves. and they are all drawing on the criminalistic econo criminalistic economy, primarily drugs. the drug system needs them and they need the drug income. and unfortunately there has been a growth in the number of the foreign fighters in the country. primarily because four years ago there were 352,000 afghan troops plus 140,000 more or less international troops in afghanistan, with all the sophisticated weaponry and equipment humanity has ever produced. now, four years ago, a decision

was made to transition the combat responsibility and security responsibility to the afghans. now, four years ago there was a young army and still not yet developed with its strategic capabilities, including its air force. but the transition has taken place successfully. yes, there has been setbacks, especially in rural areas. but no major population center has ever -- well, with the exception of some -- has been under the control of taliban. no one. when that was temporary fall in the city. so what we have achieved, colleagues, that, number one, that i often hear this, that

when is the timeline to bring this to an end? well, our enemies unfortunately do not have any timeline in pursuit of their hostility towards all of us. but one thing you have achieved that 17 years ago you had to intervene yourself, the international community, to dismantle the terrorist networks that were posing the threat to all of us. now, that responsibility is shored by the afghans. so we do the fight. we do the combat, with the support, that we really much appreciate, from our u.s. and nato partners. so one of the most significant achievements in addition to the fact that afghanistan is no longer safe haven for these

terrorists is the creation of the afghan national security forces, which does the job now, it will continue to require support from our international partners. so if you look at how much of the sacrifice in blood the afghans do and how much our international partners, it is clear now that afghanistan has begun to stand on its own feet also for different purposes. and in this process the south asia strategy of president trump's administration has played a key role. we welcome the strategy. it has already had a significant impact on the reduction of violence and capabilities of the

terrorists. and to create an enabling environment for our peace and reconciliation strategy. the response from the region has been mixed. first, and fortunately we haven't had any positive response from pakistan as yet. not any change in the policy that they are pursuing. and response from the region, the wider region is slightly mixed. while there is a regional consensus on peace and reconciliation in afghanistan, but the consensus on how to fight the terrorists has broken slightly. unfortunately there are actors in the region that draw a distinction between good and bad

terrorists. and unfortunately another sign of that breakdown of consensus is that we have all agreed to have state to state relations for counterterrorism. but there are those now who look at state to nonstate actors relations, for counterterrorism for serious implications for all of us. like there are those who say they work with the taliban against isis. and we say that not only this is unethical, but in terms of policy this is self defeating. without going into details of this, we are in an environment where while we have a significant progress, but we also have challenges primarily

associated to the growth of the foreign fighters and the weakening of regional cooperation. so in this context, last month based on the environment that was shaped pretty much by the south asia strategy, afghanistan launched two mutually reinforcing strategies. the peace and reconciliation and the counterterrorism strategy. now, the peace and reconciliation strategy aims to separate the afghan taliban from the foreign fighters. and we can make peace with them because they are afghans if they are interested in peace. if we succeed in making peace with the afghan taliban, and

separate them from the foreign fighters, this will be the most effective regional and global counterterrorism strategy, because then the foreign fighters will not have the safe haven there. so at the same time, our counterterrorism strategy is reinforcing our peace strategy because it aims to increase the number of reconciliation among the taliban. the taliban must know they cannot win militarily, and, therefore, the two strategies are seen shally reinforcing each other. those that believe there is inherent contradiction must look at the way these two strategies function as two sides of the same coin.

there isn't any couldn't trntra. they will have to be pursued simultaneously to et go the results. peace with the afghan insurgents and defeat for the international terrorists trying to use afghan against the rest of the world. in this context, the president offered the most comprehensive and conditional and far reaching peace offer to the taliban. you are familiar with the key features of the offer, ranging from a legal package to a political, security, and economic package, addressing all the key issues that the taliban have been concerned with. but at the same time, we did mention to them that there are some key enablers, these are not

preconditions, but key enablers. renunsization of violence, cutting ties to international terrorist, and full respect for the afghan constitution. and especially the rights of our women and minorities. there hasn't been any official response from the taliban as yet to the offer. they are still pondering, consulting each other. but the unfortunate fact is there has been increase in violence since the launch of the peace strategy, the peace offer. so, clearly, it is suggested that there are those elements who do not want peace. now, this will not deter us.

he wouldill continue to pursue peace strategy, but at the same time strengthen our counterterrorism capabilities. and the way forward on the peace strategy and then to make sure that it succeeds, colleagues, as always, it's complicated, and, therefore, i would offer at least eight lines of effort as to how to move forward with the strategy. the first is that we have to strengthen the national, afghan national security forces. this strategy provides a good basis for the international support. and without the afghan national security forces, no peace and reconciliation would work in the

country. second, there have to be national consensus for peace and reconciliation. not just among political actors, but also among all sections of our society. women must see themselves and in the process our minorities will have to be comfortable with the peace process. it will have to be a peace process for all afghans. third point, there will have to be an infra afghan process of dialogue. we have had good success with the hezbollah process. it was one of the three major insurgent groups taliban had, and there are two others. so it worked with them, infra

afghan process, and we believe it will, but we need to have the right support for that process. and, fourth, u.s. and afghan alignment is key to the process. we have to make sure that the two countries are fully aligned in pursuit of the peace process. fifth is regional cooperation. as i said, for the success of both strategies, peace and reconciliation and counterterrorism, we have to have regional consensus and regional support. as i said, terrorism is a common threat to the entire region, and they need to know how we fight them. peace and reconciliation is also of interest to all of them, and they need to know whether their

interests are taken into account. in addition to pakistan, iran, india, turkey, central asian states, china, and russia, we are also looking at the critical role that saudi arabia and other gcc countries can play in this respect, particularly to support the intra-africghan dialogue. saudi arabia, for instance, would have enormous influence in the process. and one of the things we'll be doing together with our colleagues here is exactly to explore how that influence can be honest for a peace process. we often hear about the qatar office of taliban. it can play a role, but it must

start doing that, and soon rather than later. they have been there years, and we are talking to them, that if you're not there for peace, then you cannot be there for war either. so they have to start engaging in the process. finally is the role of pakistan which is central to both the peace process and the counterterrorism. we are engaging them at different levels. there has been a strong welcome from pakistan, a side for the peace initiative, but we are engaging them now to offer some concrete measures as to what can they do together with us to support the peace process.

on counterterrorism, there's a huge difference of view between them and us, but that's the sad reality. we are simply putting this to them that there will be no foreign fighters without taliban in afghanistan, and there will be no taliban insurgency without sanctuaries in pakistan. so we need to see some action. a good process of dialogue has been initiated on a pakistan-afghanistan action plat. i hope we will reach an agreement there, but that will definitely be necessary for the south asia strategy and regional cooperation to support. with this, colleagues, i just wanted to explain the context in which we are in and how these

mutually reinforcing strategies can actually work together. i will be looking forward to your comments and questions. thank you again. [ applause ] well, thank you very much. we are delighted that you are here with us today. there is no one who has been more involved in afghan's efforts on peace, afghan's efforts on security and afghan's efforts with its neighbors and with u.s.-afghan relations than

hamit atmar, and we're delighted to have you here. also, thank you for your comments. i think it provided a context that has not really penetrated the washington media or policy community. we're grateful for that. what we're going to do is it's now about 11:05, and we have a hard stop at about 11:30, so i'm going to ask two or three questions of the national security adviser, and then at about 11:15, maybe a little bit before that, we're going to take questions from the audience. there will be roving microphones that will come to you. please introduce yourself, ask your question and please keep it short. the shorter the questions, the more questions we'll be able to get and take advantage of this opportunity. i want to start, if i can, with something you said about the peace offer, and i don't think americans really appreciate how

remarkable this peace offer was. it was unconditional. it talks about the possibility of taliban participation in a political process, and it also talked about while the constitution needed to be respected, it also could potentially be amended, so there could be a dialogue on that issue. these are major moves by president ghani, and they deserve recognition and support. you said one thing that was very important which was that there needs to be intra-afghan reconciliation, and one of the things we've had concerns here, ander wilder and his team, if you have a reconciliation in pakistan which took up arms against the afghan people but don't have a reconciliation among the afghan people, what

lessons do people draw from that? could you say a little bit more about that intra-afghan process you've talked about, what's the objective? what's the process and where are you on that? because that is a crucial element of the peace process. >> absolutely. well, the way we look at it is challenge number one. peace between the state of afghanistan and the state of pakistan, our people are good friends and have always had the a mutually beneficial relationship. the problem has been the relationship between the two states. so that's element number one. element number two is intra-afghan peace with taliban and hakani network.

as i said with hezbollah it did happen, but with these two we need to work on, and the then element is the foreign fighters in this, that we cannot make peace with. they are not afghans, and they do not necessarily pursue an afghan objective. their objectives are beyond afghanistan, so we will have to have some kind of counterterrorism against them. now, with the afghans, the taliban and the hakanis are no longer monolithic organizations. they do not have the same level and strength of leadership as they used to, so they are brought together by the foreign

influence, and there are leaders now. among the taliban and the hakani network that question the continuation of the conflict. and they are certainly in counsel with our peace process and government, and they are asking for a process whereby they and their families are protected to engage in peace. something, mr. hadley, that needs to be understood, that most of the, if not all of the taliban and hassani have their family as a collateral, and that's the way that they are to be trusted with what they are doing at the moment, so they are concerned about their families.

they are concerned about their own safety, so with this group our strategy is they are reconcilable and that we need to talk to them, but, of course, there is a -- an irreconcilable element there as well. as i said, for them this conflict is as much about economics as about politics. they are drawing on proceeds from the drug and criminalized economy, and they are not alone in that. there are state and non-state elements that also benefit. of course, not to mention corrupt officials in afghanistan. but when it comes to the regional states and their

offers, the peace offer alone will not be enough. we have to have the right balance between incentives and disincentives for them. but when it comes to the reconcilable elements, again, the challenge is that the government of afghanistan must have a solid national consensus to be able to engage them. it cannot be seen as peace for one section of the afghan society and lack of peace for another section. it will have to be a solid consensus on the basis of which the intra-afghan process will work. now, are we capable of having that? the consensus built for the process gives us hope, that we

are capable of having it. of course, every afghan has suffered a lot, but they are still kind enough, generous enough, to embrace a principled peace opportunity, but that process of national consensus will have to be supported by regional and international consensus. so it's some of kated because of the different aspects of it. how to do that, we will be exploring that further with our american colleagues as well asch countries like saudi arabia and uae. >> and if i could just ask you one more question about that before moving. what is the mechanism for that intra-of a ga reconciliation? what is the mechanism for building that consensus and support of an outreach to the taliban? is it the high peace council?

is it an electoral process? is it a jirga process? what is the mechanism within afghanistan to achieve that objective? >> we've all said that this is the high peace process, the meccas. we we're presenting almost all of the political actors, the political community as well as civil society in women, so they are the mechanism, but they will have to be supported by the state institutions to establish the process. the electoral process is obviously the future. now we often hear about sharing of power with taliban. our position, the position of the people of afghanistan is, there is an electoral process. come and par tis pat in the process, and if you are interested in power, that's the

only way forward to have the political authority to govern. so all of these processes will be open to erase taliban participation. >> i want to ask you two more questions, and then i will throw it open to the group. you talked about pakistan and what you are doing there, and the need for regional actors to support this process. there's been a lot of focus in the media these days about russia. we talked a little bit before about the role russia is playing. i'd like to talk a little bit about that, and then also, i think if you could address the internal security situation in afghanistan. we've read press reports of the terrible attacks, many of them

by daesh, that have killed innocent afghans, and we express our condolences for those, but we read about them and it gives us the impression to americans that the security situation is deteriorating rather that be getting better so could you address, one, the role rush is playing and, two, a little bit about the internal security situation and the strategy for combating the challenges you now face, and then we'll go to the audience. >> until quite recently we've had this regional consensus, and russia was part of it. over the past couple of years, unfortunately, there's been weakening of the regional consensus. where we agree with the russians is that the terrorism and especially the foreign fighters are a threat to all of us.

second agreement is that the best way forward is peace and reconciliation in afghanistan. so we agree on these two issues. where we disagree is when we hear about the distinction that is made between good and bad terrorists and then finding a way to work with taliban. now, of course, we've received assurance that taliban will not be provided with weapons and resources. we would rum that assurance, and we would like to see that in practice. but we also get concerned that when they claim that there are u.s., nato, afghan unmarked

helicopters, so-called bringing daesh from the south or even the tribal areas of pakistan to the north of the country, and just quite recently during the cover conference, we respectfully engaged them and said if you have any evidence of this happening, please produce it, and we welcome a joint regional investigation not evidence that you' -- into the evidence that you've provided. but if you don't have evidence, we do have evidence that we would like you to have a look at, and the evidence that we have is that already we have over 80 daesh-related associated foreign fighters in our custody, so we asked to come and question them as to where they were

recruited. who trained them, who provided them with resources and who brought them into afghanistan and into the northern region. i am sure we need to do a little bit more of that with them, that we constructivelily engage each other and look at the evidence that we have. but frankly speaking, sometimes when we engage these regional actors, it's not so much about afghanistan. it's about other interests that they have outside afghanistan, and like always bringing those interests or those conflicts into afghanistan. so, therefore, we suggested to our american and western partners that probably afghanistan is the place where we all have a common interest to cooperate. like as china said, that they want to see afghanistan as a

cooperation place with with the united states and nato, not as a confrontational place. i hope that that is also the case with the russians, iran and other regional actors. europe's right about these heinous acts of terror in the country, including the one on the killing of 26 of our innocent people. these attacks have increased over the past couple of weeks in a way in response to the significant setbacks and crushing that the taliban suffered and others suffered. they resort to this level of violence as an act of

desperation. it's desperation because they no longer think about the hearts and minds of the people, so they just commit a level of violence to demonstrate to the world that they exist, that they have not been crushed entirely, and that is the wrong way to -- to actually send a message. while we do realize that we need to do a lot more to prevent these attacks from happening, a certain degree of this will be happening all the time, unfortunately, but if you look at the -- the growing strength of the afghan national security forces with the right support from our international partners, we strongly believe of that the same way they have kept the country together without any direct combat role of the international forces, they will be able to improve security in

urban areas as well. >> thank you. we'll now go to your questions from the audience. the microphones will come down. if you raise your hand, we will bring you a microphone. let's -- let's start the gentleman back there. >> thank you, sir. mr. atmar, as you mentioned that china sees afghanistan as a place of cooperation with u.s. what is china's interest in the future of afghanistan, and how it could be helpful in the peace process to help change pakistan's conduct towards peace? thank you. >> why don't we take two questions at a time. that way we'll get more people. another question for the national security adviser.

please, here. second row. >> a member of the international advisory council here at usip and a senior adviser at the center for strategic and international studies. following on steve's question on intra-afghanistan peace process, it would seem that the involvement to have it driven by kabul alone and not including the promises and the province governors and the power centers outside of kabul, it would seem that that would be the right way to approach this. not too many years ago i was in mazar having tea with governor atta, and i'm aware of the differences between the president and governor atta, so in general the provincial involvement in the pass process and in particular, can you give us some insights into the governor atta and president ghani differences, shall we say.

>> on china, their number one interest is security. they are extremely worried about atim, the so-called eastern turistan eastern movement. the number we used to make between 300 to 500 fighters in afghanistan, mostly coming from pakistan and the region. the last group of them that we arrested was basically a family with six children, two women and a couple of male fighters. these are from xinjian province.

china knows about it. frankly speaking and until quite esentally they had the wrong information that perhaps the united states or india is behind these atif fighters, or we engaged them and provided them with the evidence, so now they have a better understanding as as tim moves out of china, goes all the way to vietnam and indonesia and ends up in turkey and comes back to pakistan and then to afghanistan to fight. so they have a better understanding of the threat now. and, therefore, there's a confidence in our cooperation now with them. but, of course, they also have

an economic interest, the one belt, one road vision that they present for the region cannot happen without stability in the region and security in afghanistan. security in afghanistan is central to the stability in the region, and afghanistan in addition offered its vision. probably the most comprehensive vision for economic reintegration and regional connectivity that president ghani has so eloquently presented to the leadership of china and the leadership of the entire central asia is now having more traction so we are cooperating with them on both, on regional economic cooperation as well as regional security and counterterrorists. they are fully supportive of the peace and reconciliation, and we

have obviously slight difference of view as to how that needs to happen. their primary focus is to encourage the taliban through soft means. we agree on that, that add that there must be some disincentives when it comes to the irreconcilable elements and distances will have to be provided by pakistan. as long as the taliban leaders have safe haven in pakistan and they are able to draw on the proceeds from drugs. there will always be an element of irreconcilable, so that needs to be addressed. we're working on the chinese on that aspect as well. on the differences between the

national unity government rather president ghani with governor atta, the good news is that probably we have brought that to an end so as of yesterday kabul time or maybe still today a new governor was introduced to the job. governor atta reached an agreement with the national unity government. our commitment was always for a peaceful and principled way to resolve the differences. no matter what difference we afghans may have, we have a common thread, a common enemy, and we have to strengthen our national unit. hence our emphasis on the involvement of all political

actors at national and provincial level to be involved in the peace process, so that they don't see it as a threat to themselves. now, this was exactly our challenge. there was a difficult past with other mujahadin factions. well, hopefully now they are learning to work together, and this is exactly the hope that we have that with the taliban, even they show commitment to dropping violence and terrorist acts based on our constitution and join the political process, the rest of the actors in the country will be supportive. but where we need to have the

ground rules, and that is important. number one is the role of its lam in our country with the interpretation that the majority of afghans have not, the interpretation that the taliban have. that's ground rule number one. ground rule number two is democracy and a representative democratic policy. and ground rule number three is human rights and the rights of our citizens, men and women alike. those three things if in place i believe national consensus of all actors, provincial or national, will be conceivably achieved. >> we've regrettably come to the end of our time. the national security adviser

has a hard stop at 11:30, and the clock here says it is 11:30. i want to thank you all for coming. sorry if we didn't have time for your questions. please join me in thank hamit atmar for his time this morning. [ applause ] ladies and gentlemen, please remain in your seats until the official party departs.

tonight, former maryland lieutenant governor kathleen kennedy townsend and author michael cohen discuss liberal politics in 1968. it was part of "washington journal's" series on 1968, america in turmoil. see that tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. and on c-span2, the 9th circuit court of appeals hears oral argument in the case of san francisco versus donald trump, a case looking at the president's executive order to deny federal funding to so-called sanctuary cities. hear that organize organize the tonight at california p.m. eastern on c-span2. tonight a c-span profile interview with principal deputy white house press secretary raj shah. he spoke about his family, growing up in connecticut as well as his early beginnings in politics. in shah also looked at the relationship between the media and the white house as well as what it's like working for

president trump. see that interview at 9:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. and saturday c-span's 2020 road to the white house coverage continues with remarks from missouri's former secretary of state jason kander. he'll speak at the new hampshire democratic party dinner after recently hinting at a potential presidential run in two years. see that event live saturday at 5:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. you can also listen live on the free c-span radio app. sunday on 1968, america in turmoil, conservative politics whenner is received liberal excesses and disenchantment to gave rise to the right and richard nixon and an eventual republican victory.

our guest is the author of "where they stand," and matthew dallek, george washington university professor and author of "the right moment, ronald reagan's first victory and the decisive turning point in american politics." watch "1968, america in turmoil," conservative politics live sunday at 8:30 a.m. eastern on c-span even "washington journal" and on american history tv on c-span3. >> sunday night on "after words," journalist david corn and michael ikzoff with their book "russian roulette, the inside story of putin's war on america and the election of drew. "they are interviewed by democrat inrepresentative joaquin castro of texas. >> the start of the book is the 2013 miss universe pageant in moscow. how did you pick that as a starting point? >> because, if you were looking for a moment that the

trump/russia story comes together, it's really there. you have donald trump in moscow, and he's there to preside over the miss universe pageant, but what is his real agenda? it's for a business deal to build a trump tower in moscow, and secondarily, although a part of that, is to meet vladimir putin. >> we talked a moment ago about how to build a tower. you needed to have putin's permission, but to do anything in moscow really, you know, trump had to hook up with an oligarch, in this case a oligarch friendly to putin, so he's already kind of in bed with this corrupt regime. he starts tweeted out immediately in mid-2013 will putin be my new bff when i bring the contest to moscow? >> watch "after words," sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2's "book tv."