thank you heated i was down in scant professor of international history at the london school of economics thank you. sure i will it's total sassy style and she's in the studio to saskia. looking quickly over the last 4 and a half years many people perhaps thought we would never reach this point given the fact what we have a week left before we were going to. talk about a last minute deal i mean the transition period for the u.k. to leave the e.u. runs out on the thoughts faster december here we are christmas eve the 24th and a deal has just been announced now it has been a long road of course let's not forget britain's voted to leave the european bloc 4 years ago back in 2016 and all this time they've been waiting patiently to see what kind of deal they'd get would it be a hard one without it your all would be one with the deal in place and despite prime minister boris johnson warning only recently that actually a hard break that was a very real possibility thankfully i'm sure many will say that was avoided but really getting to this moment was a rollercoaster to say the least i mean thos

bring in our next guest, professor of international politics and a visiting professor at london school of economics. thank for being with us. i want to start with the hacking attack. president trump says to big deal. probably wasn't russia. might have been china. so it seems his administration won't be punishing russia and he's happy to sort of hand this mess off to joe biden. >> well, i think president trump has long admired vladimir putin, and i think has admired the powers he exercised at home and he's been reluctant to criticize anything that russia might do, although it's clear that we're not fully sure what the intelligence is on this hack. but we always know that president trump has his own personal interests, and i think there are some business interests and nuclear power program building in the gulf which gulf states which the elijah cummings house oversite and reform committee was looking at. there's a broader division among the form policy establishment about whether russia is a greater threat or china, and i think president trump has always erred on the side of china. and i think that is going

professor of international politics at city university and visiting professor at london school of economics. indijit, thank you very much for being with us. so president trump heading back to d.c. to try to disrupt president-elect biden's certification, which is i believe mostly ceremonial. so what's the strategy from the president here? >> well, i think president trump has succeeded, if you like, in creating a very toxic political environment, one in which there are divisions, particularly within the republican party now, which he has really roiled up. and i think he's created a lot of confusion in many people's finds, particularly his voter base, about the election result itself. and i think this kind of construction of chaos and confusion is probably part of a broader strategy to try to overturn by any means which are available to him the election result of november 2020. and it shows really that president trump will stop pretty much at nothing to try to overturn that election result and people around him have been talking about a declaration of martial law. the rerunning of key battleground state elect

center for africa at the london school of economics and political science thank you for your time how do you foresee this playing out the president is accusing the former president of working with rebels to stir up a coup obviously people are afraid about violence ahead of the vote is there a real risk in your opinion that things could escalate. well i mean we're not sure about in the scout that there are enough troop levels to keep the potential rebel movements up bay i mean he you come in you start there you've got french troops there you've got troops from russia and basically you know where any potential rebel movements have about actually being kept back and being with with with defense mechanisms so even if any kind of haqqani come on citizens when it expectant it in major disruptions and people can actually go to events in security as has been totally if we look at the wider context you sort of touched on that but how much control does the government actually have in the country versus that of the various armed groups operating there i mean that quite a few in a recent pic fore

london school of economics. we are joined from london. thank you for being with us. i want to start with the hacking attack. president trump says no big deal. probably wasn't russia. might have been china. it seems his administration won't be punishing russia and he's happy to hand this mess off to joe biden. >> well, i think president trump has long admired vladimir putin, and i think has admired the kind of powers he exercises at home, and he's been reluctant if at all ever to criticize anything that russia might do. although, it's clear we're not fully sure what the intelligence is at the moment on this particular hack, but we always know president trump has his own personal interests. i think there are some business interests and nuclear program building in the gulf. the reform committee was looking at that. and there's also a kind of broader division among the kind of foreign policy establishment about where are russia is a greater threat to the u.s. and west or china. and i think president trump has always erred on the side of china. and i think that is going to -- that balance, if you like, has alway