tv The Day Deutsche Welle September 28, 2019 12:02am-12:31am CEST
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2 years of the russia investigation convictions prison sentences and a final bestselling report by robert muller none of it was able to shake the foundation of the truck white house what one person did this week with a 9 page whistleblower complaint tonight the week that suddenly put everything into question about the presidency have done what's wrong what we are about to discover could end up meaning relatively little or it could mean the end of a president i'm burnt off in berlin this is the day. i don't see the action of an inquiry is the time to prove it's not about politics it's not in that part since you know it's a damn patriotism. person getting into. the
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saloon business groups respond. to me go home soon small is just too easy. to the reason for this occupant of the oval office poses a clear and present danger to our future to our democracy it's a deeply disturbing situation and circumstance and i think the proper role and responsibility for starters at this point is still investigating get to the bottom of this phone call to say nothing burger in terms of a quid pro quo donald trump is going to choke on this supposed nothing he will go down with this suppose nothing perfect in his throat. also coming up tonight despite massive arrests and a police crackdown on protests against egyptian president el-sisi are expected again this weekend but the president at least in public well he isn't worried at
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all when really strong. the country is really strong because of color and because of you so don't worry about anything don't worry about anything. but to our viewers on p.b.s. in the united states and over around the world welcome we begin the day ending the week that may have changed everything for u.s. president donald trump the list of scandals president trump has endured is long from the white supremacist rally in charlottesville to a porn star named stormy daniels to migrant children separated from their parents at the border none of these not even the russian investigation became an existential threat to the trump presidency never enough to trigger impeachment proceedings a whistleblower changed all of that this week the u.s. congress launched impeachment investigations after a whistleblower complaint alleged the president abused his power by trying to
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acquire political ammunition via the president of ukraine to help him win reelection next year allegations that the white house withheld aid to ukraine to coerce kiev to cooperate and allegations that the white house tried to hide evidence of that abuse ukraine's president is not the only foreign leader mentioned in that whistleblower report germany's chancellor on to america who also has a cameo appearance if you will the target yet again of trump's criticisms peoples of the world she is the toast to friendship at a u.n. summit dinner for world leaders u.s. president on the trump and german chancellor angela merkel. but trump has not always treated merkel like a friend the rough transcript of a phone call to ukrainian president slow to me is a lansky cited trump saying when i was speaking to angle america she talks ukraine but she doesn't do anything. selenski was quick to agree.
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saying you are absolutely right not only 100 percent but actually 1000 percent. dropped then told his counterpart that the u.s. had been quote very very good to ukraine. that's all according to the official rough transcript of their conversation as released by the white house this week with the caviar that it is not a word for word transcript but the german government has pushed back against trump's accusations on ukraine citing hard facts. isn't. according to e.c. de statistics we are the 3rd biggest financial partner for development to the usa and the e.u. . and of coolest e.u. contributions support investments and 8 for ukraine.
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germany has also been deeply engaged in diplomacy to help ukraine as it struggles with the separatist uprising in the east germany was part of the so-called normandy format that sought to bring an end to the conflict but trump appeared to ignore this at a yet more strained to the german american relationship. over more on the fallout from the whistleblower report i'm joined tonight by jonathan katz of the german marshall fund jonathan spent many years developing u.s. policy in europe including ukraine with the u.s. state department as well as on capitol hill so others good to have you on the show trump like other u.s. president says that his conversations with other foreign leaders should remain confidential if not embarrassing things are said in revealed what alarms you more about what we've heard tonight that this conversation was al did or that both of the presidents were caught trashing. i think there's 2
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things here one obviously this was a whistleblower that witnessed and was part of witnessing the president trying to use his office. and to go after a political opponent and so there's nothing disturbing about a wistful whistle whistle blower exposing mr trump in this manner and it's quite clear that congress and particular the house of representatives think so and that's why there's an impeachment inquiry looking at this issue but the other half is to is quite revealing of course is the conduct towards america's most important allies like germany the president has repeatedly both in both publicly in the past and now we know in these private conversations has use these opportunities to trash allies to weaken relationships but he also i think underlying all this uses these moments
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in order to achieve his own objectives rather than that of allies or even of the united states in this case and i think this was what makes it particularly dangerous in this case is that the president was trying to use his office to cheap political ambitions empower those that want to significance of this is was german relations i mean do you. do you think that she was surprised to read this. well i'm certain that she is not shocked given the past behavior of the president including a direct conversations previously so this this is really not shocking some of the things that were more shocking in it was the response back from president selenski agreeing in effect that germany france in effect i look at all european partners not pulling their weight in support of ukraine and that's just not true and of course one of the best parts of that ukraine is experience of the last several
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years as it moves forward in terms of democracy security economic growth has been this this transatlantic support that included the united states on one hand. germany the european union and so when you look at the bill of who's provided assistance you see that on both sides of the atlantic support for ukraine has been strong and what i think has happened in this conversation particularly for mrs alecky it's actually weakened his relationship with european partners including mr mccrone and chancellor merkel both we mentioned in this conversation and it's quite unfortunate because i think if you look at the scale of support and including recent engagement on the normandy for format to resolve the conflict in eastern ukraine it has been chancellor merkel and mr mccrone have been right there with mr selenski trying to resolve this issue and so i think right today they have to be doubting whether or not mrs lets he is somebody they can trust this was
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a blow report jonathan reveals to the entire world much about how the u.s. president regards the rest of the world in how he regards the rule of law and due process this is what the president said last night about the people who gave the whistleblower that information it was recorded on a smartphone at a private dinner was troubling about 50 just take a listen. to. this it was one of these for many reasons was it was. water. intrusion we. used to handle them a little differently back then what did you hear in that address. well 1st of all it's reprehensible that the president would make such a statement it's incredibly important that the u.s. government in particular have people making certain that officials who are not
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above the law are held accountable for using power in a way that they should not so it's reprehensible 2nd i would say the president has used this tactic just lets recall this whole incident really is connected directly to the reelection or the reelection efforts of president trump he is using this and i think he wants to use this incident to rile up his base in the past he has used or at least thrown out the idea that his own supporters should use force and in this particular instance it's quite disconcerting that i think what he's trying to do is to send a signal to anybody within his administration that might be thinking of doing something similar not to do it so that you know you could read this is intimidation if appears to advocate the the death penalty or extra judicial punishment for for traders i mean what does that say to germany in europe were shared values with the
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united states. well i think this president has long ago abandoned the idea of shared values with his partners and bill led paris spross holes and across europe the president has not been a exporter of u.s. values as being about democracy and what we're seeing today is more about corruption and something that i think is unusual coming from the white house he's really the 1st president that has really not advanced the issue of democracy and human rights in any way and so there is this disconnect and you're seeing a disconnect that has led some european leaders to think heavily about strengthening european security without the united states and so this is having it's not just about values issue itself it's about the overall relationship and the core of that relationship revolves around democracy human rights which i believe
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americans still believe strongly in and a bipartisan way in the u.s. congress and many people in this administration believe in this type of engagement and also how important it is to transatlantic unity. jonathan katz of the german marshall fund joining us tonight from washington johnson we appreciate your time and your insights tonight thank you thank you. in egypt if you mention the arab spring you often get the reaction that was so long ago like a different world well yes and no it has been 6 years since egypt's 1st democratically elected president mohamed morsi was overthrown by an egyptian army chief sisi in that time l.c.c. has ruled egypt with an iron fist but in the past week a new protest wave has emerged the 1st real challenge to all cc's crackdown more
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than 2000 people have reportedly been arrested since last weekend now the genesis of this protest or videos like the one that you're going to see that was released by and egyptian businessman living in exile muhammad ali has accused president el-sisi and the military of misusing public funds to build presidential palaces in a tomb for the president's mother it comes as economic reforms and. are hitting egypt middle class i return to egypt on friday after his address to the united nations general assembly earlier in the week and here's what he had to say about at those allegations against. this is an image being painted as was done before comprised of lies and defamation and some media working to present an image that isn't true when really strong the country is really strong because of color and because of you so don't worry about anything don't worry about anything. well
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for more on this i want to bring in stephen mechanism the he's the executive director of the project on the middle east democracy and the joins us tonight from our washington bureau stephen welcome to the day we got the united nations human rights chief saying that she is concerned about the lack of process following this latest wave of arrests in egypt i mean what really do we know about these arrests and these detentions. what we don't know a lot of details there's very little transparency and we hear lots of anecdotal reports as you reported that at least 2000 different have been arrested and many believe that the numbers are actually quite higher and i would also prior to today and today was supposed to be the sort of 2nd and the 2nd kind of day of large protests after all and last friday so we have a lot to report i talked to people in egypt myself on the written lots of random checks on the street police stopping random egyptians especially young egyptians
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and the protesters been largely young egyptians aged lady 15 to 25 lots of young you're from there being stopped in the streets having their cell phones searched for anything incriminating and then many being taken away and the process as to where they're being taken where they're being held for most of them is quite unknown and so there's a lot of confusion ambiguity about all of the rest that are going on going on right now in egypt human rights watch says that this crackdown suggests that sisi is terrified of criticism from egyptians or perhaps maybe even that he's paranoid but is he really under threat at the moment. well it's hard to say i think it is clear that he's very. very worried despite his public comments i mean he aggressiveness and the sort of very widespread nature of this crackdown suggests that he and his regime are in fact very afraid of the sun and of course they can remember the protests that erupted in 2011 those that are out in 2013
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so they know that things can get out of control quite quickly they've also seen protests erupt again this year in a couple of other arab countries and sudan and algeria so i think it's regime is very worried as to how serious a threat this is to be frank it's very difficult to gauge ahead of time but i think there are several troubling signs one is that. these protests include a lot of egyptians who had previously supported sisi so this is this is not just the usual suspects of democracy or human rights activists this is sort of a new generation of frustrated egyptians including many who had supported him previously including many many from the middle class which you rightly noted is being sort of squeezed by some of the economic measures and they've been particularly outraged by some of the allegations and evidence of corruption there are presented in recent recent days so i think there are reasons to see this current eruption as something
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a little bit different from once he's faced since these are power. with u.s. president donald trump earlier this week which is take a listen to what the u.s. president said when he was asked if he is concerned about the egyptian response to last weekend's protests. no i'm not concerned with. egypt is a great leader is highly respected he's brought order before he was here there was very little order there was chaos so i'm going to we're going to do that is. stephen what did you hear there is trump giving a green light to cc's crackdown. unfortunately i think that's how it is these comments were widely perceived including in egypt i can't speak to whether that was president trump deliberate intention president trump has been very fond of sisi. since since even before trump came president here in the u.s.
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to be honest i doubt very much that president trump is following events in the in egypt very closely at all as you know present job as currently sort of embroiled in his own difficulties here in washington so i think is instinctive reaction is to speak positively of those leaders that he they he likes in the has a good relationship with regardless of what the facts might be on the ground but it is very troubling this remarks have been interpreted by many as as a green light for a potential potentially violent crackdown you. statement from the working group on egypt rights here in the studio with me. the. religion our place here at the at the carnegie endowment earlier this week you point out that the trip administration has called for governments in russia hong kong iran and sudan to respect the rights of protesters why do you think they're taking a different line with egypt. well unfortunately this this
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is ministration and to be honest it's not entirely new to this administration this is new administration is a bit more blatant and it's kind of cool as flynn approaches to foreign policy the criticism that it offers a government that it uses less friendly. very unlikely to offer the same criticism speak the same way about governments that it that it's found in the thinks it has a good relationship with including a good personal relationship so unfortunately we've seen this kind of. hypocrisy and inconsistency from the u.s. government in the past and especially by by the troubling ministration i would do that is very unwise and i the statement that we put out and emphasizes you know it's a very troubling signal to be sent and these protests should be taken very seriously and the violent repression of them is something that not only is terrible for egyptian citizens but could have negative consequences for us standing in the region and for us relationships and even the u.s. national security and one of the different there was this means that the history of
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u.s. relations with egypt is fraught with this contradiction just as it is with solti arabia some regimes apparently are just too strategically important to allow them to fill what you know whether the person in the white house is named or obama or whether the president is named sisi or mubarak. yeah that's fair i mean the u.s. has a long history of this kind of ocracy particularly in the middle east and north africa but i would say that this administration is a little bit more blatant and less ashamed of that hypocrisy where the obama administration continued to provide military aid military support to president sisi and to the government but somewhat reluctantly so and they consistently made their displeasure known to president sisi both publicly and privately and refused to embrace them in the same kind of kind of over the top way that you see from
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president trump but but it is true that they they more or less carried on the sort of concrete aspects of the relationship and support a mostly interrupted although there were a couple suspensions following the coup in which he took power the president seems . you know that he doesn't sort of acknowledge this sort of discomfort in this kind of hypocrisy in his is happy to embrace sisi not only privately not only through military aide but through sort of over the top praise which it can come across as unseemly. it's what we've seen since trent became president a strong arm leader automatically gets the stamp of approval from the u.s. president do you foresee that any time or is it just older pilots from your own now . well i think it would it would take probably changes in events on the ground to bring about changes i can't see change in president trump's approach being
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driven by him rethinking things if events on on the ground were to change if these protests were some out of c.c. were to find himself in a significantly embattled as as we've seen here and you know his 2 predecessors encounter pretty quickly due to large scale public protests that it's possible that the u.s. administration and president trump himself might recalculate but i don't think you're likely to see that kind of change by the white house you see change on the ground there what about if this weekend if the become. bloody if we're talking about something worse than just mansour us. i think that's possible i mean i think it's it's there's not a lot of precedent for during this administration of seeing kind of close partners that president strongly supports kind of need to ask in a bloody crackdown and that way certainly if that happens there will be pressure on
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this administration to respond to change their response i think you would probably expect to see kind of some criticism at least from other parts of this administration as far as president trump himself honestly it's a little bit difficult to knowledge and difficult to predict the larger the the level and the scale of violence the more pressure there would be on him to change course and to some degree. this if there were to be bloodshed i mean. we see what happens for example in saudi arabia with the murder of the journalist who showed and there were has been a lot of blowback against the united states because the united states didn't put the pressure that a lot of its allies think it should have put on the prince there following the murder of shogi so do you see a similar a similar dynamic with. sisi in egypt even if things do become lethal that trump is not going to change course and even if the rest of let's
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say europe for example wants to force him to do so. well i think he's not going to be inclined to change course that he's his hand would have to be forced and perhaps by as you say but by europe by and by other countries by the international community also here in washington potentially by congress. and i would say that congress has a bit more leverage in the case of egypt and they do in the case of saudi arabia because egypt is a large is actually the 2nd largest recipient in the world of u.s. foreign aid congress has authority over over that foreign aid and that military aid package to a stronger degree than it does the weapons that are sold to saudi arabia because the weapons are sold to saudi arabia or paid for by the saudi government the weapons given to different are paid for by u.s. taxpayers and so the congress has some leverage there and certainly congress is not as in close climb to be. as strongly supportive of president sisi as president
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trump is so you could see his fan hand forced by capitol hill all right steve mcnerney the executive director of the project on middle east democracy joining us tonight from washington stephen we appreciate your insights tonight thank you. death well the day is almost done but the conversation continues online you'll find us on twitter either in the news or you can follow me a brit golf t.v. don't forget to use the hash tag for the day when you get in touch every member whatever happens between now and then tomorrow is another day and it's the weekend so we will see you back here on monday have a good weekend everybody. the
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next on. and gemini with demi at any time any place using names. have the benefit of crowd. to sing along to see this to come from super funds. for. interactive exercises. everything is online meant file and interactive benjamin to frame 50 w. . the fall of the berlin wall because before november 989. the recently heroes of eastern europe we talked to those who began the struggle for
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freedom and those who showed personal courage all of them noted but. no telephone call for almost all if you have been in the courtroom we have played golf didn't surprise me i saw it coming 10 years before i was before through a number one. what does it take to change the course of history. raising the iron curtain starts september 30th on d w. playing with fire in saudi oil fields the u.s. and its allies say iran was behind the attack on saudi oil infrastructure an act of war is how washington described the missile and drone strike on the kingdom's biggest oil refinery but a military response by president trump could spark a wider conflict and cripple the global economy and with it the president's chances for reelection.
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