i could see everything with my own eyes into stories of its residents one group in particular russian wives of syrian matter. look up to. the low end welcome to crossfire where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle on this edition of crossfire we have a look at trump's legacy as president of the united states as our politics are so divided we shouldn't be surprised there are multiple legacies depending on how you

view trump there also can be no doubt he changed america and the presidency. to discuss legacies i'm joined by my guest scott ritter and elmore he is a former intelligence officer in the united nations weapons inspector in new orleans we have brian trasher he is a trait for president 2020 sarah get and in san diego we have laura fink she is founder and c.e.o. of group bell communications and a democratic strategist all right crossed up rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate it ok let's go to scott 1st here scott you wrote an article for r t a couple days ago. basically discussing trump's legacy and you wrote this biden will be sworn in as the $46.00 president the united states ending 4 years of an experiment. populist politics headed by trump that was for better or worse unique

in american history can you elaborate a little bit on that well certainly i mean the moment down truck came down the escalator in trump tower and announced his candidacy was a can a sea unlike anything we've seen in modern history i mean we can reflect back on history books in the early 1973 about as ever this is a can see modern technology reality television personality. new york state real estate mogul who under any normal. measurement would never qualify to be the president of the united states and yet he confronted 17 of the republican party's most prominent figures and didn't just defeat them crushed them and you have to ask yourself why did that happen and how did this happen and there's 2 i believe there's 2 reasons one is that the republican party

was ineffectual in coming up with a counter to. clinton who the democratic party was. in the process of anointing the next president of the united states and there was a lot of anger and resentment in a good segment of the american population that just found that to be and an exceptional outcome and they were looking for you know are an alternative that could defeat hillary clinton at the polls and then the most important one is that american politics has been playing a game of. divide and conquer using the various demographics. i'm not saying that's wrong i mean everybody needs to be represented everybody needs a voice i'm not against you know people saying hey we're under represented but in the process basically wrote off 45 plus percent of the american population had been languishing in a slow economic rot. i had news that the democrats were in trouble and don't trump

was probably going to win the election just talking to firefighters in that in that summer people who are normally so you know moderate democrats people who serve their communities are inclined to believe in service public service all of whom said we've been and we have no voice and i'll tell you when the firefighters say they have no voice in their community do you got a problem that. we saw something unique in american history where they're meant in populist. oculus politics and that's just a point in trying here because i agree with everything you just said scott but he didn't run he did govern as a populace that's a that's a problem i have being i conservative all right brian you're the transfer part of the program here when you what do you think his his legacy is in your mind we'll talk about what he thinks is what he may think is like a say yes go ahead mark. well i mean his number one legacy is going to be the man

who stopped hillary clinton through ever becoming president of the united states which i think most americans would agree would have been a disastrous proposition you know one of the. presents from a early on was relying on people who are kind of insiders in the orange seat to the way. he has his initial instinct his whole career has just been destroyed i'm so with people that i will too and that's why you know most of the boat were former related to him or it been with him for many many years when he got into the presidency you know scottish. government come and he would have been qualified and he made politically well i didn't ever help for but you brought obama has never had a job before he become president only being a state senator u.s. senators only job. ascended to the presidency so i think obama's going to change it again as far as like to in the mystique of the presidency meeting where anybody can

be president now in trying to kind of to be isolation point on that but again one actually your question by the legacy which in my opinion is going to be who took on a small one in the message so hard they had to come up with this cordoba lesson which is to try to get rid of them but he's not going away. i think we've got a swamp on the floor of the go glug coming back and the democratic. progress what do you what do you think it like at the end so i think the word that has been missing in the conversation in both the talking about and that that a commentator is inviting us donald trump is not known for populism he's known for white populists he's not known for the politics of division he's known for the politics of racial i mean ultimately this man will be known for burning down the house. using racial division which by the way is as old as time post reconstruction

in the civil war the concept of whiteness was invented where they told poor white people they would be better off if they leverage their power against black people and now we see that continue t.j. and i agree with you when he came down the escalator he began and that was the through line connected to a number of disparate groups in the republican party which enables him to go ahead and build that consensus and that critical mass and slay the other candidates on the debate stage he will be remembered for burning the house down our institutions our international relationships and fundamentally as we saw last week the very colors of our democracy you know we don't have to agree on everything we have to agree that we want to uphold democracy and as he's impeached today he will be you don't impeach for insurrection inciting insurrection something that even within the republican party there are deep deep divisions so that is his legacy

a legacy of division a legacy of burning down the house the republican house and the american house let me not remember jim crow came from the democratic party but you know you have been i said let's talk about america we don't need a point fingers my ex-wife more hispanics and other minorities though carmen point when they expanded the ok for the party for the time being when he got his got i think one thing one of the huge legacy maybe in my mind maybe the defining legacy you know it's not really a policy or a say it is that we realize that the country doesn't know much about the other and if they do they don't like what they see. whether there's no doubt that our country is fundamentally broken i mean look i i was only took an oath to uphold and defend the constitution of the united states of america against all enemies foreign and domestic and i agree with laura you take on the constitution you're need to go and i think what donald trump did on the on the 6. january was a frontal assault against the constitution united states trying to stop

a process mandated by the 12th amendment from occurring whether you agree with what they were doing or not doesn't matter the constitution mandated you can't. know but the fact is you know what what what keeps the greens live in the donald trump is dysfunction is the dysfunction of america look innocent dysfunction that goes beyond donald trump. this this is this is a nation that has floundered in terms of representing its population and i think there is no dinner is in a demographic in america does never legitimate beef against our because government doesn't represent them government represents corporate interests big money and interests center of the political parties are bought and paid for citizens united was a state's the real heart of american democracy the fact that we let money run elections means that the people are disenfranchised i'm surprised more people are angered by

how we run away actions in america because it is a disgrace we you know the way we run elections will not pass muster through state department scrutiny in other nations have brought so it's a joke and you know so that's that's where we're at donald trump basically took over a house it was saturated with gasoline from the actions of his predecessors and unfortunately he lit a match to cut old you know he's responsible for his actions and he should pay a price for his actions but to pretend this is all because of donald trump is to be ignorant of the reality of american just function it has been going on going for decades and some people would say. birth of our nation because we've been struggling to form a more perfect union the implication being that it's never been a perfect you ranieri i mean why. well you know edge funny because scott. there's been it will be points he makes that i disagreed with and he told me

it's too late it's $50.00 and you. of everything kind of economy goes so over when there's a group of points to agree with with his overall assessment one thing i want to say is i can't leave in 2021 professional political consultants are still playing the race card as if it's some kind of shit like avenue to accomplish anything the numbers absolutely literally any notion that donald trump is a racist or used racism to succeed in politics as we all know the economy and jim crow laws it is as was said it all came from the democratic party. received more votes from nonwhite voters than any republican in modern history in 2020. also in 2016 so again just moving past that tire you know clinton as argument of playing the race in our out where those white people that

stormed the capitol where there are more coalition ok well 1st of all there were it wasn't worth coalition and nobody storming out who we now know from surveillance video the capitol police moved a barricade to open the doors and let people in and yes what we now know that was real but you also have people were inside the capitol who are trophy even finished his speech and anybody this is it inciting a riot is being disingenuous on purpose because his exact words were are i know that you'll go down to the capitol peacefully in patriotically and make your voice heard that is not really that is a call for peaceful protest which to be on one hand you flip it all and you're burning the american anger i live on planet earth and iran and iraq you know i watched stand timestamps you released video people are going to be out. before you talking for 20 minutes. talking to my norah but you know the you know parlor was you. of wind because that was an alleged they were involved in or allowing people to plan this but when you know that facebook and twitter have terms of it on there

and there but what or don't get it right. away what had were missed conspiracy theory when i talk about let me know peter things were going up you heard it right not to go back ok go ahead so what i'm hearing i mean i don't even know where to begin so i'm going to agree with scott that we live in a flawed union and which to boil it down to lighting a match obviously one of the great american experiments is how do we take the most diverse nation in the world and comes together in governance and to maintain peace and order within our own country and then obviously the city on the hill metaphor how do we inspire other countries for democracy you know i will not i will not sign on to america not being deeply flawed but i will say that one of the things we've been able to accomplish from someone 100 years is the ability to continue to exist

. and to go to the heart rate and about our break and continue our discussion on drums like say. thanks guys or by aczel survival go. with customers go buy your do. good health well reducible our. that's undercutting but what's good for her market is back into the global economy. i got this 8 millimeter film purely by accident. time period 963 to 65 place damascus. i was old don't know why young. i've watched it many times

a man posing the monuments and all poster of the hollywood premiere of town without pity and a fight in a market so with bruises. i had my doubts if i should waste my time on this but i came back to that film over and over again tracing a sequence of events happening in syria at that time and those who worked there the would i'm revealing. the crown in which i'm sitting you know neal curiosity is like a petrol motion machine it lives on without a lunch break and then suddenly i saw him stop let's take another look now at low speed this is key like owing a super spy to some consider a national hero and others and evil villain an israeli double 07. because it's buds them and they at the. at the on shore still.

if to. welcome back to cross up here all things are considered on purely military mind you are discussing trump's legacy. ok more i want to go back to you i mean you know that these these divisions that we have here i mean i think them. fundamental thing that was said in 2016 that is still resonates this day is trump supporters being called deplorable and i think that's how a lot of trumpet supporters see the system ok i mean if we're going to have some kind of of a coming back together healing the wounds i mean trump was very very you know a obstructive i agree with you i mean you know we probably would agree a lot more than you probably think ok but at the same time he's

a symptom of these problems and people feel like they're not being there their problems are not being addressed and it's not race it's class it's the middle class clique here and there and there are black people there are there are white people there there are hispanic not there to be an entire the entire spectrum of american society is in the middle class i wish we could talk about their needs ok go ahead more. you see it to ignore his his calling cards of white supremacy the way that he infuses race into every conversation it's not a dog whistle it's a bull horn and so to ignore that i think just ignores basic facts and again history doesn't ignore we're here to talk about history and legacy history doesn't ignore facts in the way that in a snapshot of time you know electorates do or the media my or whoever you might point to the reality is that he has in a way no other president has stoked racial division and beyond that not only stoke

racial division but really it's focused on his own power and the preservation of that power and the use of race to preserve his own power at all costs that will be his legacy fundamentally he has stress tested our democracy and it remains to be seen how well we hold but his legacy fundamentally will be lighting the torch within the republican party and exacerbating those divisions now were we were we did we have a tinderbox prior to his coming absolutely do we have. problems with corporate consolidation of power are absolutely are there deep challenges that america faces yet we've never had a leader that fundamentally sought to exploit and was willing to burn down the democracy in the process and so i can hear it since well theory about how the riots started and who was responsible for that insurrection but one of the interesting things. one of the one of the interesting things is that people and the

american people are are near unanimous in their disapproval of what happened last week and within the republican party there are deep divisions as to how to move forward because they see that this pursuit of burn down the house is not something that's going to be tenable for that which could potentially moving forward i see a relevance and his ability to continue will really sort of fade as he exits the stage and the reason he won't go away but the reason it will stage is because the incentive of the american people to basically preserve our democracy on some level is going to went out and i don't see how you can look at the the vast majority of the american people and their disapproval of essentially a terrorist attack on our capital and saying that that that is that trump should be able to continue with that to defend that is

a that's 5 and to say that that's not going to be his legacy i think yours the fact that you know you don't get 10 things in your legacy you know when you think about past presidents you think about one to 2 items you said george w. bush he had 911 you think iraq war obama you think obamacare and you think financial recovery and you go down the list president trump will be the incitement of insurrection the erosion of democratic norms the erosion of institutions and the demonization of our democratic institutions back when he was in. let's look at some of the institutions that have been changed and i think should be ashamed of themselves and that is the media ok the media wrapped itself in glory for 4 years and talk about conspiracy theories well they did rush a gate for years and and divided people then they had. fake impeachment process against him i'm not defending donald trump i'm defending him

yes you are and what they're doing is now we won't have a snap impeachment my goodness how far has happened and there are not any election i mean there is no us in interfering with american democracy i think rochelle glad that you can moderate or any motive for that there was or not the roof right everyone equal time and i'm speaking to scott right now thank you scott what about that because this is this is one of the reasons why you have these approaches of our institutions and people having very skeptical if not very negative views of our institutions in the media played it deplorable role during this entire presidency. look when i was in college you know in the mid eighty's given we made here early eighty's actually we were told to subscribe to the washington post in new york times and use them as primary sources for our government so that's that's the esteem that these 2 institutions were held in where we could watch dan rather we

could watch it walter cronkite and feel comfortable that we were being told you know fact based truth void of substantial spin. that illusion went away when i started working then i would read about it this meeting in the same meeting in the new york times the next day realizing that in america representatives snuck out and told a completely different story to new york times ran with it at that point i realized that these institutions are about headline grabbing about gaining readership and they do that. by exploiting their connection with the establishment i saw this working for n.b.c. news and their close relationship with the white house the media has never been about telling the truth the media has always been about sustaining its own relevance using sources for their own benefit and this is becoming worse in the 24 hour news cycle where it's no longer about news it's about entertainment it's about

spinning events in a manner which entertains an audience of missions so that they tune in on a daily basis donald trump was a boon for the media you know that the trunk show was something the media exploited to the mutual benefit of the media and donald trump if you don't think and if it if the russian you're not paying attention to what's going on because he was able to play off of this narrative to create parts owner of a resistor and her taking on the machine etc he fed off of this media is this testing in the united states the media today now is doing the same thing. i don't know the truth of precise narrative of the prince on january i don't know what i watched on t.v. i only know what i saw aileen only congress was convened to carry out a task mandated by the 12th amendment of the constitution that i took an oath to uphold and defend with my life and i know that a crowd rushed the capitol where there was before down trying to speak in or after

it doesn't matter their purpose was to serve out a constitutionally mandated task of government that is an insurrection and it was promoted by the president body else that is sedition and is the legacy of donald trump maybe history will show through some investigation and he's going with us and i this is why i'm sort of against this rush to impeach is this isn't a trial this isn't about learning the truth this is about establishing the fact this is about just growing a man. so that once his tenure as president ends. he will have no clue. a little cold leadership that's what this is about maybe he deserves that outcome but you know as somebody who believes in the constitution i believe in due process and before we condemn this man before we. send him to a life. we might want to let due process play out he seems guilty in my mind. well you were there who are more the law ok right one of the things that you know

when me we look and we insert rection and all this kind of language here i mean what did we see all summer long across american cities ok i mean mostly peaceful protesting ok i mean that was disgusting to watch and and the media gave it a free pass they actually could justify including well that's a form of preparations ok i mean this is just ridiculous you have the rule of law or you don't have the rule of law the people that rioted in the in the count but will she be held accountable the she put on trial and they should go to prison ok and i hope they do i hope they're named in shame but i wish the people that get all the the looting and the arson you know wherever have that for wendy's franchise i bet they would like to know who burned down their franchise and how those people held accountable so not countability ok and agency go ahead from. morning t.v. and last night are. dozens of american cities in 20 twentieth's exactly 29 he managed

the nomination of justice. when before you send it in to not only did it immigrants start lying to. men it's a real woman with morals or some readers which she is trying to share oir man has become a perfectly good to great group justice and not only that not only did democrats call for any call for people to storm congress democrats presumably democrats but left. we generous to be over in the hart senate office building senators were locked in their offices they could come out because judy at last until the crowd and they were trying to destroy a constitutional process of confirming a supreme court justice the media said nothing about insurrection is and nothing about and it's happening not received by the way living republican mark i'm cringing to hear the word modesty but all that preceded the whole year.

and then all of a just as everybody was would have been to what you were just loyalists with no chorus you know is shorting the whole body trying to blunder a lot of it in turned it into us company was it and ended up burning american cities burning businesses and ground killing cops and the democrats cheered them on as col arison wanted to be the next vice president the united states started a fund to bail out people who wear the jackie gleason burning down buildings as a product property. people said all property can be replaced lives can't will that might be true intelligent people that own the property and get insurance maybe and have enough time for a larger massage as a rat with want to learn how to get over crumbs legacy 30 seconds you. i think we have to see the republican party renew itself you know i'm a democrat but i would like to see a strong adversary on the other side and what we have seen is someone who has

directed the republican party to destroy democracy small d democracy living and democracy it's a republic but it's also a deadlock and so i think the health of the republican party is going to be critical so what happens in these next couple of weeks what we see with mcconnell as he looks at his legacy and we see these other republicans look inward and say just like scott you know is this is this a country is this the leadership that i want to leave behind so that the health of the republican party is going to be important and i think accountability is critical to this is run out of time i hope that both parties will reform themselves or else we're going to continue down this endless cul de sac i want to take my guess i want to thank our viewers for watching us here darkie see in x. time remember.

choice nor pretend for a 2nd joe traits or that you're being silenced steve just so your take is are popular with me as you call the fight and that's a fight go fight your own audience don't complain when they're all stupid racists. the war in syria has lasted longer than world war 2. who has been suffering the most almost a decade long conflict regular syrian people. to them when you were going if you. could see everything with my own eyes and hear the stories of its residents one group in particular russian wives of syrian. the hospitals. look up to these national just like it's.

millions of uses even world leaders it seems flocking to prove a sicko messaging apps like telegram something online joins like twitter and facebook after the recent censorship scandals you go to a poll. that. people write. this is coming up in human overcrowded facilities and a high risk of exposure the covert 100 of asylum seekers in the u.k. go on hunger strike even attempting suicide one in conditions worse than prison. greece schools in the e.u. to speed.