donald trump's presidency has been marred by habit domestic resistance from all sides those republicans and democrats. ties with russia. as a trumpet of ministration been left isolated and powerless or does it still have cards . former reagan administration official author and political columnist. president russia and politicians doing the russian card to score points against. the white house is a. political force to work. problems

the global reality over will. bring about a long awaited for the world. by the new cold war. former reagan administration official political connelly's to forbes and other media welcome to the show it's actually great to have you with us. the new low in u.s. russia relations in both countries expelling each other's diplomats and u.s. congress forcing president trump into a new round of sanctions on moscow do you feel that donald trump's compay to idea of and then this spat with russia is now a dad for good. absolutely not it's in america's interest and accords with america's values to achieve it to find a rapprochement with russia so why is it that trump who didn't want to pass new sanctions was corner of into doing that by congress which is controlled by his own

party why are republicans working against their own president well it's trump is not a cradle republican if if you understand what i mean he ran on the republican ticket but his allegiance to the republican party is weak and the republican party is allegiance to donald trump is weak and this was intrigue intra party warfare but it would seem like as time goes on it's in each other's interest to kind of bond why isn't trump succeeding in getting them on his side well there is a lot of hostility from the republican regulars for donald trump they've they've tamp it down because he did run on the republican ticket is at least nominally republican and they do for for party unity but there are vast policy and

dispositional differences between the congressional leadership and donald trump and those those create ongoing tension how do you fix those differences over your advice well this is this may sound a little esoteric but it's really very important. you're one of your great statesmen georgie arba top of said about thirty years ago that russia. then the soviet union would use its secret weapon against the united states of depriving it of an enemy. this was a brilliant insight mr of the top of insight and when the soviet union dissolved and america lost its long term cold war enemy the narrative or the big story that. our politicians had lived inside for generations went away and we've entered a state of kind of. a kind of. wilderness

and our political leaders are still wandering around trying to figure out what the big story is now and they don't have one trump represents a representation of a different story a story of peace and prosperity and the the establishment republicans haven't really wrap their head around this yet i'm sorry to say and democrats they love using this let's collusion between russians and team trump to undermine the president's lead legitimacy meanwhile republicans use russia to look strong and counter opposition pressure as russia just being gives as a bargaining chip here you know russia is is being portrayed as an imaginary hobgoblin remember mr arbiter of i will deprive you of your enemy or secret weapon. the political establishment feels that they need an enemy and they

are painting russia as an enemy which is of course preposterous so ok while u.s. politicians claim russia is a threat to american interests washington's still enjoys russian how beyond some key issues like syria and north korea fighting isis as this strange still approach to only way for them to actually move forward oh no there must be there are much better ways and when they were in the republican primary there were seventeen candidates. three of them were tough what i call did my forbes dot com column tough dogs there were then some a quiver there were some. we caught and then there were some strong hawks there the republican electorate favored the tough as that would be donald trump rand paul and ted cruz who were not deliberate. by sixty percent of the vote

and the remaining fourteen candidates had to split and to split up the rest of the vote between them some of them were very hostile to russia and they got very small percentages of the vote. then in the general election trump was clearly the tuft of against the neo con hillary clinton belligerent stance toward russia and he won the election so trump whatever his. what it whatever his faults and we all have faults clearly understood the mood of the american people is one that craves peace this is a strong asset on his part. now as as as we move forward hopefully we will become clearer on the on the fact that russia and america are natural friends that the cold war is over and it's time for warm relations between our two countries rather than this belligerence sit with you sad that russia is being used as an

enemy by all sides but why do these traditional politician is need an enemy anyway well. there. there were two there was a there's a nobel prize winning economist named economists and he says really and with his colleagues very skeet they did something called behavioral economics and discovered that people are far more motivated by threats than they are by rewards. and so this is just politicians are exploiting this factor of human nature. the latest set of u.s. sanctions against russia targets energy projects and those involved in them as a result the european energy sector suffers more here than russia was important for washington in half or in relations with the e.u. a much closer ally than russia i see russia as a as

a very important. potential ally for the united states america's trying to reorient itself at the end of the cold war it ended up as the one hyper power in the world. but i hope your listeners will understand that america never saw a world had germany we kind of inherited it and the world is down moving toward sort of six regional dominant powers and donald trump instinctively gets this so the was what's going on here is america's just kind of feeling its way into a post cold war era twenty five years after the fact so with so much resistance from both the democrats and republicans can america's stance on russia ever change is that even realistic oh yes. oh it's not just realistic. but particular i understand as you read from my column at forbes dot com you know

russia's sense of vulnerability and i said in that column that you know the people all over the world prefer guns butter to guns people all over the world prefer butter to guns but if they feel threatened they'll choose guns and so the more america sees russia as the as a as a beautiful culture a beautiful people and natural friends of ours then the animosity between. the animosity between our between of our politicians to russia will just melt away sophia between one nine hundred ten in one thousand twelve. the world imperial empire collapsed empires had govern the world for thousands of years. and then in this incredibly short period of time the russian empire dissolved the chinese empire was overthrown the austria-hungary empire collapsed and the ottoman

empire went away and the british empire which was the least authoritarian of the empires began to go into. a strong middle decline to see a world order a period order collapse after thousands of years in little more than a decade just shows you how quickly progress can be made when proper consciousness of the of where our real interests and real we are a real values lie penetrates the consciousness of the people the politicians try to follow the popular mood whoa you just said the key words they're trying to follow the popular mood and the popular mood right now seems to be bashing gresham i mean why is it really bad to do business with russia which is according to congress run by a so-called strongman but it's perfectly ok to do business with i don't know saudi arabia an absolute monarchy was a radical religious band how do american politicians manage to go around this

contradiction i mean the dabble standard here is kind of mind boggling. well it's a hold over they still remember there's a lot of confusion between the soviet union and the russian federation a lot of americans don't really get the distinction and it was really a great tragedy that twenty five years ago when the u.s.s.r. dissolved itself peacefully that there was no joint celebration of the end of the cold war after world war one there were parades and after world war two there was a famous picture of a navy sailor kissing a nurse in times square and so the message got through to the american people that the war is over there was no celebration and it's not too late by the way to celebrate the end the peaceful end of the cold war and the fact is that. the lack of that celebration has caused the american people to be vague on this

fact that the world has entered the most peaceful era in world history and so the carry over of the old of the old memory and the old imagination is is the imaginary hobgoblin that haunts the reputation of russia and that should be dispelled. you know the diplomatic route between moscow and washington is ramping up with what amir putin's saying russia will go to an american court over property rights it's clear that a diplomatic break is unlikely but what way out do you see in the situation the this explosion of diplomats is trivial it's in the state department parlance it's called tit for tat it's entirely symbolic and it has no no serious long term policy ramifications america does not desire a conflict does not desire war with russia and russia does not desire war with

america it serves neither of our interests and neither of our values so this is all a what i would call straight voltage. right the key to me is getting the message through to the people and the people will instruct the politicians. i hope they hear your words we're going to take a short break right now rob we'll be back with bankole former reagan administration adviser author and we'll talk more about trump's an illustration collision was the washington establishment stay tuned. here's what people have been saying about rejected in the senate is full on. the

only show i go out of my way to launch you know a lot of the really packs a punch oh yeah it is the john oliver of r t america is doing the same we are apparently better than the blue things that i see people you've never heard of love redacted the night president of the world bank so very clearly me seriously send us an e-mail.

what holds us institutions are going to. put themselves on the line. to get accepted or rejected. so when you want to be president or interim or somehow want to be rich. that you'd like to be for us this is what the forty three in the morning can be good for. i'm interested always in the waters in the hollow. there should. think you're new to the game this is how it works not the economy is built around corporations corporations run washington washington controls the media the media control over the voters

elected a businessman to run this country business equals power you must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. and we're back with ralph banco former reagan inspiration eight author political columnist talking about president trump's standoff with the american political elite welcome back part of the resistance to normal as in relations with russia the sanctions and cetera comes from the hype around the story that president trump colluded with moscow about russian election interference the trunk russia story masses but it's not the most solid of stories really a c.n.n.

producer was caught on tape saying it's mostly rubbish but it's good for ratings so what is the u.s. foreign policy in the end decided by media and ratings yes it's not in secretary chiller since case secretary tillerson is a very level headed man but the animosity is not coming from a trusted ministration which is being victimized by this the the imaginary hobgoblin of a russian collusion with the trump campaign is being used by trump and the mes and adversaries to deal with his presidency it's coming from the congress it's not coming it's not it's coming from the congress it's not coming from the trumpet ministration we should so if you look at america's media landscape right now you see and type trump as you say biased new york times c.n.n. except but on the other side of the ride it's to same story i mean fox news is a right wing channel and breitbart isn't like the middle is this

a new trend big stuck with right wing media and left wing media with nothing else in between or has it always been like that. well there didn't used to be a right wing media but after the invention of of cable t.v. and the internet and so forth right wing voices came to the fore i do not think that the right wing media has nearly as much out of this in fact that i know since i read it and watch heavily as a contributor to forbes dot com that there is far less animus toward the russian federation coming from the right than the left the problem sophie is that you're in russia is not telling its story. in a compelling way i don't blame russia for that the channels that it has to do that like r.t. are limited but russia needs to define itself or its enemies and its adversaries will define it in the media sphere russia has

a great story to tell it's just not getting out sufficiently and of course r.t. is attempting to get it out good on you for that but right now not even talking about how russia is pre-training the media have bought more about trump trump selection has stared hate in the media but when obama was elected the same thing happened just from different sides will american politics grow even more pollo rise with every new election is as dangerous. you know our politics have always been a hot mess ever since the first election after george washington always the the insults between thomas jefferson and john adams who at the election after george washington who was elected by consensus were so vicious that they make our current hot mess look practically tame by comparison so this is always been the case and we shouldn't romanticize what the past has been we've managed to muddle

through the the the tabloid nature of politics because the people are wise collectively are very wise if you've been saying that trump is committed to peace but then with alll the baloch as remarks about north korea lately like the fire interview or his staff it afghan troops are it's again all that do you still think so yes he had to be dragged into the a modest afghan troops surge by his generals he clearly was very resistant to the idea and gave an ok to a very token increase in the forces there. and but yes he he likes to he likes to talk tough when it comes to people who insult him or people who you feel are threatening him or america's interests he likes to tweet tough he got in he gauged a very tough war of words with. with kim jong un and guess what kim jong un

stepped back he blinked he said no no we're not going you know we're not going to bomb so i wouldn't necessarily see this you know rhetorical. fire. coming from the president as a return fire from the rhetorical fire coming from kim jong un to be an indicator that we are gearing up for military action soon president trump's inauguration speech he promised that u.s. is going to guard american borders now and not the borders of other countries but then washington is planning on sending more troops to afghanistan and the u.s. seven admitted it had more troops in afghanistan than formerly this close so some areas soldiers will still and i'm guarding other countries borders after all right yes but let's put it in proportion. you know whether you love or hate just to take you back a moment whether you love or hate barack obama he promised he campaigned uniquely

in two thousand and eight where he hit beat the more bellicose hillary clinton and then the bellicose john mccain he campaigned against. he campaigned against the bellicose mitt romney to end the forever war in the middle east and bring america's troops home and he brought almost all of them home the afghan government begged us to leave a residual force there and begged. they just to add very slightly to that residual force but it's a very tiny residual force relatively it's more symbolic and so to see that as a breach of a commitment you know we're we're muddling toward the fulfillment of the commitment of america's decision to complete disengagement in the forever war sophia i beg your patience these things take time ok because from an observer's point of view it does seem naive for a leader of the world's only superpower to be committed to peace i mean you have

all this military my you you probably have no choice but to use it once you are in power. i know it's very expensive for america to police the world it's a role that we that was thrust upon us it was a role that we inherited it's not a role that we ever coveted and it's not in our nature americans are a peace loving people who are interested in doing business and prospering and so this is a an artifact that we are pulling back from and the question is yes there are still there are still people who want to merica to be to have world had germany they are in the minority they have positions of power and america evolving its way back to a a peaceful classical liberal republic which is what it's designed to be it by the declaration of independence by the constitution and by what thomas jefferson called the empire

of liberty is just you know we've were we emerge from one hundred years of war from world war one to world war two to the cold war to the invasion of iraq it takes a while for the culture to change i wish i'm not judging it in my little way that a change faster but it is the tides of history are very much on the sides of peace and politicians who put the who who swim with the tides of history rather than again the tides of history tend to win and they like to win so i just want to talk about trump's future his approval ratings is at a record low just thirty five percent according to gallup polling institute some polls suggest that more than forty percent support impeaching the president this opinion was the worst by several congressmen as well how do you estimate trump chances to serve out his first term in full. i wish president trump the best i

wish him success even a prominent republican senator recently went on record as expressing that wish i don't have a crystal ball and i have no idea what is to come next president trump has proved unpredictable consistently is out he has outperformed the expectations of the political elites consistently and so far be it for me to. to make any predictions about his future i hope he gets the policy mix right and moves the world further toward peace and prosperity in which case is popularity ratings will rise but he's number one task is to provide economic growth and jobs to the country but the house of american economy depends on a global policy as well can there be a monetary policy change that would provide a boost to the trump economy and can the idea come from outside of the united

states can washington use ideas from the countries it's currently at odds with to benefit. thank you for asking that monetary policy is often overlooked because it's the oxygen in the fire of industry and oxygen of course is invisible america the broken dollar is a reserve currency and it's the dominant reserve currency in the world but this is very bad for america as well as for the world it hurts our economy the gold standard would rectify this to the advance should both america russia and the world russia is a central player in the brics brazil russia india china and south africa the brics together could put the gold standard back on the table the gold standard does not constrain economic growth it simply takes the place of the dollar as the reserve currency and then you can print as much as much of your currency as you want as long as it's convertible into dollars this would supercharge world economic

growth including both russia united states and the rest of the world. with roth thank you very much for this insightful interview i've been talking to ralph ben cohen former reagan administration official author and political columnist discussing trump's administration russia collision and the way it's affecting his presidency in general that's it for this edition of sophie ankle i'll see you next time. thank you. seniors ago i traveled across the united states exploring america's deadly love affair with the gun if a bad guy tried to get to one of my family members he would have better luck with

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