andrew peek in washington, dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you so much. it's great to be here.'m going to begin with some words of yours, written right after donald trump's extraordinary election win back in november 2016. you said, "america's role in the world will be fundamentally altered by this election and in the middle east, most of all." well, now that you are inside the state department, do you stand by that and in what way do you think this fundamental alteration has happened? oh, i think there is a lot of common threads that run through american foreign policy from one administration to another. i think one of the alterations we saw was that in 2016 there was a fundamental choice between a more hawkish foreign policy, that for the first time, really in a long time, was offered by the democrats. and a more restrained foreign policy that was offered by donald trump, who sought to conserve american resources while still accomplishing a vital aims, kind of in the wake of the excesses of the iraq war in 2003 and perhaps, the libyan and syrian interventions and nonintervent

andrews. you know what happens, the helicopter lifts off from the white house, nicole, seven minutes by air? >> beautiful ride, you get to peek very closely at the washington monument, you go over the pentagon and you land about 7 to 10 minutes. >> 7 to 10 minutes, it will land and the president will walk from the chopper to the plane and will be air lifted to florida where the weather is more beautiful. >> something to keep in mind as we talk to bigger and bigger brain brains. >> he has tweeted that russian collusion was a hoax dozens of time, i'm sure someone can get us a better count than that. what i'm on the lookout for is for trump to look for arrest firmati fi affirmation from his circle of pals, sean hannity and others, i'm right, right? >> a good day in america. >> and we have to always keep in mind that what's happening in washington is relatively unprecedented, in that you used to use the white house briefing room, the podium to speak to the world, you used to use the doj podium to speak to the world, about blowing up a big drug ring, about blowing up a big crime ring, terrorism. all these podiums are being used by