cotton and pounced home on her 3rd right do you know all these more words just to get more money and has to remain everything connected to church culture today researchers are searching for the missing workforce. it's challenging for the experts. and painful for the descendants. to soma. to dart and the 3rd brush starts february 10th on g.w. . speaking in the very room where the hearings to impeach him began donald trump this week declared the state of the american union stronger than ever a speech traditionally used by american presidents to appeal for bipartisan unity on ambitious political aims became nothing short of an election rallying cry as the president took credit for what he called the great american comeback many of his

listeners will have found themselves pondering the democrats' chances of making a comeback after this week's chaotic primary election in iowa our topic today u.s. election year is trump unstoppable. the mother. welcome to to the point and it's a pleasure to introduce our guests rick no act from the washington post berlin bureau he says trump state of the union address was filled with a sense of vindication both on domestic and foreign issues but it might be too early for that. with us is also ralph mind he is speaker of republicans overseas germany and his opinion donald trump is a president who delivers on his promise. and it's a pleasure to welcome rachel townsend. mind she's editorial director of the german

marshall fund of the united states she says trump is not a very good start in 2020 but his successes are more show than substance. so in his state of the union president trump was speaking really just hours before he was acquitted in the 2nd stage of the impeachment proceedings which of course had been expected especially by him was the enormous confidence that he projected in his state of the union speech a sign that we are now going to be seeing trump unleashed and emboldened well to to some extent that's what he wanted to project but i think when you especially look at the 2nd half of the speech where he much attacked the democrats even though he didn't bring up impeachment itself you could tell that this is probably going to become

a very ugly election campaign and impeachment specifically is going to haunt him. but you agree trump unbound yeah well always been pretty bold if this was part of his signature but sure the republicans have now basically told him go for it we're all behind you do what you want and he's going to take that forward in the election year i think. well i think he's a funk president has a strong support of his party which is like absolutely necessary for the next 29 months let's take a listen to some of the claims that he did make in that state of the union speech. i am thrilled to report to you tonight that our economy is the best it has ever been our military is completely rebuilt with its power being unmatched anywhere in the world and it's not even close our borders are secure our families are flourishing our values are renewed our pride is restored and

for all of these reasons i say to the people of our great country and to the members of congress. this state of our union is stronger than ever before. so you said it might be too early for this sense of vindication that he displayed when you listen to that list of claims made just there where would you say time will in fact wind up proving the president wrong well there could be a number of issues to be coming up during this year one of them is certainly. his comments on these so-called islamic state we don't know to what extent that group could could regroup in syria iraq over the next months the u.n. certainly is saying that's a risk when you look good trade during a number of unknown's especially when it comes to trade deal with china and

potentially even the impact of the coronavirus on that whether china will be fit so hard that it can't fulfill what it what it signed in the 1st agreement and so there are a number of issues north korea as well or sort of the fears in europe that he might still trigger a trade or some dispute with the europeans as well so those are the foreign policy issues but there is of course a lot of domestic issues as well and in fact foreign policy didn't figure strongly in the speech it was very much about the domestic situation where till you say president trump successes are more show than substance but isn't it true that the economy is flourishing and that unemployment is as low as it's been in decades unemployment is pretty low it's not as low as it's ever been as he claimed or is the economy is better than it's ever been so it's true unemployment is a growth is not very impressive it's under 3 percent a soccer 8 and

a growth particularly in the manufacturing sector which is important in places like michigan where i'm from that's really slow it's in fact undergoing what they call a technical. session so. the success is pretty superficial if all you care about is the stock market and yes the economy looks great but if you care about sort of middle income actual whole house called house hold income it's a pretty superficial success and it's tenuous rough let's drill down on a couple of those economic factors president trump actually promised 4 percent growth when he came into office as you'll remember as rachel just reminded us it's now just above 2 percent and he also absolutely claimed credit for this great american comeback essentially saying things had been very dire before he came into office the fact is the growth trend started under president obama and the growth rate was actually higher under obama wasn't it well 1st of all those bettas effect it because we had

a lower level because it was easier like like you to increase the numbers but me as mcconnell mr have to tell you if i compared to back 4 years ago they claim when come gets elected the stock market is going to tumble the economy is going to crash create the trade war is going to happen nothing happened we have more trade we have a higher g.d.p. gross domestic product we have if you have to lower unemployment rates it's fabulous no i have to argue well he's still growth but no there is a quality of growth so i think we're talking about 2 different issues and also on. the aluminum and steel tariffs for a company in michigan are you know that you know it's gotten her out of her but it's her it's more our trade partners fair trade farmers in the midwest he also disagree he announced that before he got elected one of the few presidents who told listen it's going to hurt you in the long ones are going to benefit he told the his his voters the truth let me ask you rick to come in also on a trade policy because the president said in the state of the union quite

explicitly that his trade policy his trade war with china was responsible for jobs . would you say that is true will in fact it has caused a lot of damage and nightmares to to a lot of people it's currently not clear if it's going to lead to the sort of growth he has predicted i think so far the trade war has mainly been damaging could be an advantage to now he has reached some sort of 1st agreement but certainly it hasn't contributed to the growth to have a trade war happen if we look at sectors like steel rachel mentioned it steel prices went up quite dramatically after those tariffs were slapped there were some new jobs created in sector but economists are analyzing that the cost of each of those jobs was $900000.00 because of the macroeconomic costs the

perforated harris so how do you reconcile that how does that match mean well you get investor you how do you mean that is a benefit well you got invest before you earn i mean ever simplest is that to the damage to the overall economy because of unfair trade with china with the asian in general it's much larger than just small sector of steel and aluminum you've got invest you've got to hurt before you earn the money i think and as you mentioned i think in the mid and long one we're going to follow that up bird carefully i think everybody's going to benefit from their dramatically but if you want to improve yes or you know change change the trade relationship with china and this is the big problem and i would i would disagree i would agree with you there isn't it kind of unpleasant to start a war with your allies who could be on the side of helping you change really well me as i mean i'm right who's even involved and so is trade talks on the very low level of the am from germany i got to tell you the germans tend to you know go go

to washington whether it's george bush jr or obama or clinton and they all complain about this distrait birth of the terrorist and nothing has happened. point you have to start and i think he did correctly he started due to europe and he has to also do the same thing to china i think is just fair i think would certainly accurate to say is that the europeans have now seen that he isn't joking when he said it's trade wars and i think that's certainly a real outcome of the 2 indeed they're quite concerned that he may be setting his sights on them next but let me take us to another sector which is of enormous consequence for the upcoming election and that's health care rachel and in that sound bite that we heard the president talked about families flourishing would you say that that strew of middle class families in regard to health care and especially insurance no of course not i mean. even obama's health care reform which

was a huge step and did give access to many more people than before and it's still a 1000000 more yeah 20000000 but the plans were still pretty expensive and health care costs are just absorbed in the high in the united states and you know i live in germany i have social health care coverage is a better right and people people are realizing this prescription drug prices are absurdly high even if they've fallen by 2 percent you know fall by 2 percent when they're 200 percent too high is not enough so the. in the section of the speech where the president talked about his desire to bring prices for pharmaceuticals down or a number of congress people from the democratic party stood up and started calling h.r. 3 h.r. 3 that's the name of the bill that they have proposed to bring pharmaceutical prices down that was nixed by republicans this is absolutely true and the health issue i'm not in line with with but the president i have to be honest i think there

could be better solutions. than the current. health plan from from the president i have to admit that but still he talked to the industry of the pharmaceutical industry and you curse them to lower prices so he did achieve something it was it was not the that he used to to decide. let me ask about come back to the question of foreign policy as i said it didn't get a lot of attention in this speech but we did hear one claim in the clip that we played from the speech and that was that american prestige has been restored is that your perspective rick as an american who is based here in germany and europe certainly not in europe i mean when you look at the pew poll numbers they've showed very clearly that you research foundation things state very clearly most europeans do not agree with that in some countries a very small amount does have quite high. approval ratings but that's not at all

the cues and i mean the there are numerous reasons a trait being one of them his very inconsistent foreign policy. that has repeatedly shown on north korea. his approach to the kurds and the middle east in general we. have. let me ask you this in our last race with a comment after that. done to try to make a very clear promise in his inaugural address and during his election campaign in 2016 to take the u.s. out of what he called the endless wars especially in the middle east you say in your opening statement that he keeps his promises but that's when he definitely has not kept well i'm sure he has less soldiers overseas that's for sure and he's secure it and he and he secured a. defense that's intense budget he increased the defense budget did

a pretty good job he did not send out 400000 the phones in this last year like a lot like obama did he send in 3 years less than obama in one year he did actually increase the forces deployed in the middle east at least and over the last year by not side but not overall overall he has less soldiers overseas which is quite an achievement i believe trump is not somebody who started a war he's he he can't even blame that he stepped back from the kurds so you cannot claim him as somebody who is aggressive. rachel. yeah i mean it's true he didn't started the wife but he's he's aggressive in small symbolic ways without having a strategy right this was and you know he got lucky with general khomeini and that you know other people were scared that this is the strike on the iranian general. but he's you know he's not pulling out of war he doesn't have a strategy to do it his strategy is shoot a couple rockets to have a symbolic effect and i don't see anything beyond that do you think it matters to

voters. i think it matters less to voters than a lot of other things frankly and the problem is voters also they don't follow these issues that closely and so when he says he's doing this or that they're probably going to believe him so the only thing you would have to be a pretty dramatic shift you know a lot more soldiers or for example much higher casualty rates for it to have the same effect or a war with iran or a war with iran which you know not even going to go there because we don't have that kind of time but what i do want to talk about briefly before we start taking a look at some of the democrats and whether they can actually put up a good fight rick is. the claim that the union is stronger than ever again something we heard there in that clip doesn't the polarization that was on display on tuesday night in the capital very much put the lie to that claim that's true. that speech and the reaction going on to lucy was just essentially sort of it

showed just how much the country is divided and. him celebrating his his poll ratings i mean given the state of the economy and so on they probably should be even higher and the question is why are they not and if you ask african-americans asian americans who he tried to reach out in this address. to whom he tried to reach you know. they will tell you it's very much the other side of the court and the. immigration policy is considered by his critics inhumane and other things to just aren't. that aren't acceptable to them that was very much a speech to his base where he actually heard the republicans in the room get up and start chanting 4 more years 4 more years we saw him refused to take the house of the speaker the hand of the speaker we don't shake you out of my friends present tense also so well she reached her hand out he didn't take it at the end then she

tore up her copy of the speech those are shocking gestures for me i have to say this is the highest level of polarization i have seen in my lifetime can the president win by energizing his base alone. well he did 4 years ago but i think it's a little further we have this before that the polls were quite low and the outcome was quite high and now even the polls are pretty calm i'm pretty confident of that but the polls probably and i think the outcome is going to be even higher because no he has a track record he can prove what he achieved and you deliver a lot of things as we know you might not like it might not appreciate it but he delivered i think he's a very convincing president so polarization presents the democrats with a major dilemma to defeat triumph they need a candidate who can mobilize their most passionate voters on the left or should they choose someone with broader appeal possibly even to moderate voters with no party affiliation this week's chaotic primary election in iowa shows just how

difficult that choice will be. for the iowa caucuses rising star people to judge those records but it's not the only openly gay candidates the 38 year old mayor from south bend indiana is considered a centrist. really screechy city. joe biden former vice president under barack obama is also a centrist candidate. 77 year old said to soap unbalancing the camps. where true is your duty over to fish. and guess what. truth or who. gets the oldest candidate bernie sanders who's popular among young voters the 78 year old senator from vermont calls himself a democratic socialist. but

most dangerous president had bought the book at this particular. sanders wants to raise taxes on the wealthiest americans scrap tuitions fees and implement universal health insurance coverage. will one of these candidates be able to win an election against trump. so let me put that question straightaway to all of you who could beat trump if anybody. well. that's a difficult question joe biden certainly looks a lot weaker than he did when all of this began bernie sanders. is very forceful and some would say. at least has sort of the temperament that could be a trump i think a lot of people in the middle of would would seriously doubt. and then there is a list with warren and peter. who will seem a little currently below of the curve with people who might could lose this war and

didn't figure in that report rachel because she didn't come out so well in iowa although she yeah she didn't come out so badly either so let's bring her into the mix and who do you think could beat anybody i think they could all be tom frankly. it's i mean you have to remember who lost last night was hillary clinton and hillary clinton was not a candidate who would either excite the sort of young far left part of the democratic party nor was she a candidate and could win over you know sort of moderate republicans or independents because what did you get had been kind of that he did to figure i just get nominated them well let's. say you like are you know now i mean at least i mean i mean if it's a why did you succeed i mean if your question just maybe like a safe running she seemed like a safe choice at the time but you know it was her or her deficits were pretty clear ok but you have a favorite among the 4 that i think about here i mean look i think coming out of

iowa we have 2 strong centrist candace and neither one of them is biden and 2 strong left so sanders and elizabeth warren representing the left i think. i personally think warren has a better chance. getting independent voters and sanders while also exciting his left wing so i feel like she is the stronger one on the left ralph a well if you ask me i fear for anybody no i don't but i think a mixture of biden and bit but it just like the moderate ones they can get you know that they can cover both dreams i think they're they have the best chances and don't forget mr bloomberg yeah right the billionaire in the wings. rick bernie sanders looking at him i sometimes feel like he's the left wing version of trump is that a plus if that's if you think that's true maybe tone would you say that's a plus or minus for him well i think looking at it from europe he doesn't look like the trump of america because

a lot of his positions are frankly quite similar to mainstream police believe so but putting down the saw it. it could help them because trump is such a. candidates who defies the norms of politics the way we've seen it over the last decades in the united states so perhaps i think his supporters who put at least. senators can beat him by being different. wouldn't he be demolished by trump for his claim to be a socialist rachel if you look at polls 70 percent of americans say they're not so sure about socialism. as 70 percent of undecided voters sorry. john kerry was overheard in iowa in a hotel room saying that he might enter the race in order to stop sanders clearly at least the party establishment is very worried about sanders i think the party establishment is very worried i'm not sure that they're right to be so worried frankly the party establishment were the ones who thought it was

a much safer choice but in fact it is that one word socialist that is going to be a big weakness for sanders and because americans are socialist they think communist we just don't have the same history of social democracy. and that's going to take too much explaining for sanders it's it's going to be tough to support a little sanders i have to admit even trump didn't have the support of the party and he bypassed the party and did pretty well so even sanders could bypass the party and do pretty well so this is not something i would be worried about that actually brings me to the question of whether any of these candidates can unify the fractious democratic party the way that trump has brought his party into lockstep right but it only really happened after the election so. you know as you said it might not even be necessary to to to run this campaign. we're told it's often said that pete boot it doesn't have what it takes to attract minority voters and

that it will be absolutely crucial for a successful democratic candidate to mobilize them do you think that's true and could it shade inch so the you know the poll so far would indicate that that is his big weakness but it could change right a lot of a lot of money already voters especially african-american voters they want to go with what's sure so feet but a judge looks like he's a winner that i think in the end they'll support him but you know south carolina is going to be an important primary disease just because it was a pretty. is a pretty well white state you have to as well you know there's the next as well the white states so like them to check if you can like the track minorities. it's not improving it what difference if any and i'll ask you be very briefly if you would do you think the impeachment process will make to those undecided voters you know the undecided it's an old story that they want the outlook to look at the economy

look at the financials they look differently at health insurance that's going to be one of the big topics i don't think impeachment's going to be a topic in 3 to 6 months rick what could happen between now and november to change the equation and i'm taking us back to. title and stop this president who right now looks unstoppable himself probably because he has been so unpredictable and and that's why a lot of countries a lot of some dictators fear him other stones. it's really himself he can he can change the equation. i think either some kind of you know chaos and scandal which you know we've already seen a few of these cabinet post up so far. or economy i think you know something changes there let's also going to be a problem for. ralph is he going to be elected again. burckhardt far away to call. i can see his chances better than last time but if you winds for sure i can call it

right now ok thanks very much to all of you for being with us and thanks to all of you out there for tuning in see you so. letterman.

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our documentary series slavery routes starts march 9th on d w. play . this is dealt with the news live from the we've seen impeachment drama behind him u.s. president donald trump is on the attack trump lashes out at his opponents calling them evil that comes off to u.s. senators throughout the engagement charges against him trump says he has suffered a terrible ordeal and calls the trial and just scraps also coming out. the german

chancellor is to hold business talks in angola and oil rich countries struggling under corruption and extreme poverty will take a look.