. welcome to "amanpour" on pbs. he's promised to unify america but can president trump unify washington as he faces intense scrutiny over the russia investigation and his foreign policy agenda. and elliott abbrahm served under regan and george w. bush, plus kn now what for the me, too movement? ♪ ♪

"amanpour" on pbs was made possible by the generous support by rosalin p. walter. this is a typical week in the trump presidency. on the one hand, the president's state of the union address was well-received by most americans. on the other hand, there say bitter part fight over the so-called nunes memo. an indictment by devin nunes repr republican chairman of the house. mocrats say it's aimed at deflecting the fbi russia investigation away from the president. not since watergate has the intelligence committee been poll l -- politicized as they launched scathing attacks on law enforcement. in all the heat around the memo, it's been hard to shed light on

what the president actually said this week about where he stands on america's major challenges at home and around the world. for that, i've been speaking to elliott abbrahm, a deeply experienced politicianer that served republican presidents including ronald reagan and george w. bush. mr. abrahms, welcome to the program. thanks for joining us from washington. >> my pleasure. >> cast you mind back to the beginning of the week when it looked like president trump was on a role. firstly, do you agree that he is now a unifier at home, as he proposed himself and a partner abroad? >> well, it's hard to say that he is a unifier at home. he's making efforts. he tried in the speech. the state of the union speech but obviously, washington is extremely divided politically, it's probably as divided as it has been in quite a long time.

you can blame one side or the other but i think the fact is it's pretty well divided. >> can i just quickly go to the nunes controversy? we don't know where it's going to end up. the republicans have long been in favor of classified memos in favor of not realingamerica's secrets. in for of law and order and the fb a cia and the rest of it and the democrats seem to be saying this controversy, this is just, you know, a political thing and the republicans are putting party and president ahead of the country. how do you answer that criticism? >> well, i don't think it's true. i think that there is very good possibility that the fbi misbehaved during the 2016 election and if that's true, a lot of blame is going to be cast upon former director jim comey. we have seen internal e-mails

among fbi people that suggest fair degree of political bias. i don't think there is anybody in either, democratic or republican party that would like to cheer the waco me ha koy com intervening on several occasions and without the guidance of the justice department on one major occasion. so there is a lot to be investigated here and i don't think it's pure partisanship at all. >> obviously. the democrats have their issue over the last-minute clinton e-mail fiasco. i guess people are saying why now? it's the first time since watergate. why now? >> well, there was i think all most certainly an effort by the russians to intervene in the election. i think we know that. and democrats are saying and there was collusion by president trump or at least by people around him and democrats are saying we need to find out. we need to find out everything. we need to find out all the

facts. republicans are saying we need to find out all the facts including how exactly did the fbi thread its way through this to handle this and was the fbi acting on the assumption that hillary clinton would win the election. what did the fbi say to the court that handles these surveillance requests? i think basically we're going to find out or we should try to find out everything related to that election, and if the fbi mishandled it, if comey mishandled it, we need to know that. >> all right. let's move onto the foreign policy agenda. as you know, the national security review had this line, an america that is safe, prosperous and free at home has the will to lead abroad and i know that you know mr. abrarms that even republicans are diplomats and former officials are concerned about the trump

administration sort of relink wishing ing the relationship aboard. how do you see that? do you think the state of the union address clarifies that at all? >> well, it's hard to clarify in a speech because what foreign leaders are saying is well, it was a good speech but where does it lead? is the follow through? i think there is a good deal of doubt among foreign leaders. i talked to people from asia, from eastern europe for example in the middle east about where administration is going, and as you ow, this is exacerbated by the shortage of personnel at the state department. we have a state department problem and then the question of defining administration policy. i was just in saudi arabia where the main concern is iran. american policy toward iran, the language of the state of the union was tough, but the question they are asking is what

are you doing in syria? are you actually doing on the ground? not what is the stated policy but what is the actual policy? >> to that end, the follow is something i keep getting asked on my program or off the record by world leaders and officials, who should we listen to, the president and his at which timer feed or his speeches regarding policy or the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, et cetera? are you getting that level of uncertainty when you travel abroad? >> i am. i am. it's very unfortunate. it happens from time to time if you think of kissenger. there was a moment in 2002, 3 when people realized that they really had to go to condoleezza rice rather than colin poll.

i think we are to some extent in that situation now andt' really unfortunate if foreign embassies are thinking i'll get a slightly different answer if we talk to the white house than if i talk to the state department, the defense department. we're seeing that right now. again, i was in the middle east so you see that on the qatar dispute where it looks like the president was taking a pro saudi line but the department is taking pro qatar line. you don't have to say which policy would be correct as long as you choose a policy that people can rely on. the confusion is always going to hurt the prosecution of american interest. >> yeah, and hurt america itself. can i follow up on what you started to mention, the shortage of personnel at the state department to quote from president kennedy, those who make peaceful revolution

impossible will make violent revelation inevitable. as we just said, the president is significantly cutting back on personnel, on development aid, on those kinds of things and not only that, there is a huge number of countries that simply don't have american ambassadors and we got a map to show it. lots and lots of countries including very important ones, south korea, turkey, saudi arabia. 30% are va rent or waiting confirmati. sicay, what do you say to that? it matters, doesn't it? >> it matters a lot. there is a big mistake. egypt, jordan, germany, australia and in the state department itself, well, for example, secretary tillerson is making a big trip to south america very soon. but there is no assistant

secretary forl latin america. there is no secretary of state for asia. there is no secretary of state for africa. you can forgive it five months in, six months in but not a year in. it's a terrible mistake on the part of secretary tillerson and the president not to insist on filling the jobs and again, the question of who you want to blame for that but it's bad for the president. he seems to think that, you know, the so-called deep state, the civil service is against him and everybody voted for hillary clinton. okay. but then you want to put your own people in. you want to hire republicans and put them in. you don't want to leave all of these posts vacant because with all the crisis we're dealing with and we have one in the gulf, we obviously got the question of north korea, you cannot deal with this unless you have senior americans in place who foreign leaders are

confident can speak to the president and speak for the president. >> well to that end, you mentioned north korea as you know because it's public and been written about victor, the korea expert who was going to be nominated for the south korea ambassador has now been taken off the table and some are suggesting it's because he wrote something for the wall street journal in which he criticized the so-called bloody nose strategy, whether administration could consider some kind of limited strike on north korea. what do you make of the withdraw of victor char and the bloody nosed strategy if that is, in fact, something that takes place. >> first, victor was the director of east asian affairs when i was handling the affairs there. he was a colleague i think the world will have to say i am sorry he's not going to be in that position or some other important position in the trump

administration because i think he's first rate. as to the strategy, it's hard for me to tell, if this is a bargaining move, if what the president is doing is trying to persuade the north koreans that we do have military action on the table, that if they push the president too hard, he'll strike back. that's probably a good diplomatic move to take, to sober up kim jong-un and i think that may well be what he's doing. try to get the north koreans a bit scared. try to get the chinese more motivated to help pressure north korea. if that's what he's doing, it's a good strategy. >> okay. but do you think that if they do do a bloody nose attack that that's a good strategy. victor char who you highly respect would be putting at risk the medium sized u.s. city is what he said the president would be doing, pittsburgh or

cincinnati on the assumption a crazy and undetourble. >> you know, it would be a terrible, horrible thing if the united states and north korea started a war with each other, but the military option as h.r. mcelder mcelderry ma mcmaster says, you want the military option to look serious but you do not want to have to use it. so i think the president is ably, i think, is probably trying to put it on the table. he may do that in the case of iran, as well. to use it as a diplomatic stick and that's the right thing to do. >> now -- >> i just hope, of course, we don't end up having to turn to military options and i think that there is nobody more than

the many generals in this administration kelly, mcmaster, mattias, they would like to avoid such an event. >> finally, i want to ask you because you were slated for the second top position at the state department and the president vetoed your appointment. if you had one piece of advice, if you were actually there, what would be one over arching theme towards the foreign policy you would suggest. >> two things. number one, fill the jobs. fill all those jobs with people you have confidence in. number two, i would say remember the value of alliances. the great thing about the united states in its competition with russia, china, iran is we really do have lots of allies. so we need to value and rebuild those alliance structures. >> on that note, thank you so much for joining us tonight from washington. >> my pleasure, thank you.

>> thank you so much. now, you remember the democratic congress members to the state of the union in solidarity with the movement. this week on this program, we go to among the first to expose abuse in hollywood. we want to expand the conversation from high-profile voices to how me too is impacting women who may not be easily heard. low wage workers, immigrants, women of color and women around the world, as well. that angle is just one of the many explored by my next t,gues one of the early activists that founded women for women international in 1993 at the age of 23 and been called the most influential arab woman in the world and she's also been a favorite on oprah winfrey's show. welcome to the program from new yor york. >> thank you. with that buildup, tell us what

was the space you're trying to fill in that moment with your new series asking that next question. >> it's important to ask the next question. i feel the reckoning has happened. the world is hearing women's voices and it's time to look what is behind the anger and understand the pain and deconstruct the frame work that has led us into this moment. we talk a lot about this is not only about hollywood and the rich and famous but we don't talk about the invisible. this is not one case or two case. this is like a wide spread case impacting all our lives and they are moments in our lives that we have become play seen complacen. so we need to deconstruct, destructure to move forward in a healing and a dialogue and

transformation, a cultural transformation which we do need to have. >> so it is incredibly the world health organization sites 35% of all women around the world, that's 1 in 3 women have been sexually abused. many of those are the invisibles presumably. who do you focus on? who are you trying to expose or give light to? >> well, i traveled around america and i talk to women in military. i talk to the women in the advertising world and domestic workers, i talked to senior citizens. i talked to women in middle class jobs and this is so interesting. one of the woman talking, she said we have to remember celebrities have agents and legals defense and all of these things. she's talking about a mid level job and a firm as she said when i come out, the firm may sue me if i actually say something. so they talked about the different grievances that this

is vulnerability. if you're an undocumented immigrant in here and you complain about sexual harassment, you can be deported. if you're minimal wage, you can lose your job, your home, your family. you can be in the streets. the volume of the vulnerability is really deep. there is a couple good things happening. it's forcing men to ask the question. it's not only a lot of fathers are having conversations for the first time with their daughters, a lot of work, co-workers are asking conversation with female workers like wow, this happened it's about time. finally the world is hearing and wee gting man's attention. it's static tictatics. >> you focus an episode on a conversation or a confrontation, i'm not sure but you have an accuser or accused.

>> well, here is the thing. in all my work for women's rights and i honestly for the longest time in my life led with anger. it's anger against the violation that men have done against women of the sexual abuse and rape and molestation and assault and at one point in my professional life as a woman's rights activist, i realize if i want to live to change and chance tore mansion, i need to engage with the man. i need to have a discussion with them. i need to -- just being with woman and saying we're angry is not enough. so what i learned is from my previous life as an activist actually that we need to engage with men so this could be a lasting change in our relationship and one of my shows, i talked with a lot of the accused men who hav been harassers and some of the records and i have an exclusive to come on the record to talk about his process because they

lost everything. they lost a job. they lost their career. they became on their industry so how does a man look at this, how does he own what he has to own and what he needs to own to engage in dialogue. i talked with his own accuser and how does she actually transform from the anger to asking the question how can i heal? can i forgive? can i reconcile? that's a discussion that we are having because we need to engage in that. >> and a lot of people are saying it's time now among many other things to have guidelines so people are actually clear if they weren't clear before about what is a fireable offense, who is not and all the rest of it. i don't know whether the sound byte i'm going to play from your series is the person you mentioned but it's certainly a man who is sympathetic to the cause and says it's time to

re-examine masculiculinitmascul >> maybe now isn't the time for it. the scales have been tipped in men's favor for a very, very long time and women have felt very threatened for a very, very long time that there needs to be a fear there. they need to feel like there are consequences to their actions. >> i mean, i think a lot of women will agree with that and say yeah. >> you know, it's so interesting. this is one of my interviews in the field and because everyone is asking, are we having due process or not? is this a time for knit or not? is this a witch hunt or not? people are all over the spectrum of that. i was surprised that a lot of men i interviewed said no it's a time for fear. >> a lot of women agree with that. my -- there is also a lot of

pain behind this anger and fear and we need to be conconstructi. my learning of working with countries that have done their own truth is that this process starts not by the aggressor by the oppressed. the truth number one in other countries started by those oppressed as the only way forward for their own healing and power and so yes, i agree fear does work and it's good deterrent but how do we not deal with injustice and how do we deal with injustice in the correct way? how do women own their pow near a new way of demonstrating what power is and for the common good. >> to that end did you know certainly here in great britain and in many other places there is a very vital conversation going on now about equal pay for equal play. the women are now demanding that part of the way to deconstruct this abuse is to ensure that women have their rights on all

levels. and i wonder if you go into that at all because if women are considered less for doing the same as a man, then this is never going to end. >> we actually have a whole piece on culture and the culture is not only culture of pay, how do we treat and deal with women whether it is now getting equal pay, very limited representation and decision-making and the commercialization and the modification of sexuality in the advertising world and the hollywood world and, you know, you see it all over and gaming world, all over us. this did not come out of the blue. it is discrimination. we are numb to it thinking that's the way it is. we need to address all of it from the pay to how women are represented whether it's games that are impacting our teenage sons or whether what we see on bulletin board inessquare. we need to look at all ohese

discussions to look how have we co-created a culture that led to look not treating women equally and that's when you don't treat someone equally, you think you have the right to do everything. one of the men i talked with said i was always rewarded for actually my persistence. she says no, i persist, i persist. my culture, this american man, white american man grew up in a culture that's rewarded persistent and now i'm being punished for it so i need to know the lines and how do i deal with it? these are the conversations we're trying to have in the series and i have to say, if it wasn't for pbs because it allowed the space for the kn conversations, it helps people coming forward saying these are our grievances and we're afraid to talk about it in public. >> you spotlighted a lot of invisibles, immigrants, hispanics, black women not heard

or congressional staffers but i want to ask you this, do you think this is a critical moment where the me too movement could either sink or swim? do you think that this is a time to grab it so that it has the correct kind of momentum and can effected real change? >> very much so. if we do not pass beyond the moment of uproar or reckoning now and if we do not start engaging in dialogue and engaging in the reforms we need to have, we'll lose this moment and a lot of people are talking about that. some people saying nobody cares:it's acares. it's going to be forgotten by 2020. let's do legal reforms and call it a day. this is about really not only a culture transformation but inter personal transformation. we need to go beyond it and

deconstruct it and explain it. so yes, i'm worried. as a women's rights activist if we don't grab this moment, we'll lose the legitimacy and we have to grab this moment to engage and create rlly real change not only in one way or one sector but in all the sectors. >> thank you so much. that's it for our program. thanks for watching "amanpour" on pbs and join us next time. >> "amanpour" on pbs was made possible by the generous support of rosilyn p. walter.

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