maziar: i think he handled it correctly. i know a lot of people don't like trump in this city and in this country, but to the protesters in iran, to the protesters in iran in 2009 or in 2017 and 2018, to sexual harassment, the russian investigation, the health care reform, none of those really matter. they want to hear from the president of the united states, and it was really disappointing for people not to hear from president obama in 2009. for -- i know that he had his reasons. he didn't want to taint the reputation of those leaders, such as -- demonstrators. i think that is wrong, because whether obama is quiet or president of the united states is quiet or vocal, they will blame america for everything in iran. i mean that's the easiest, most expedient thing to do for the government, but i think in this case trump was correct in tweeting, and i like what roger klein of "the new york times" said, he retweeted trump's tweet for first time and he never thought that he would do that. i think that was a correct decision for pr

your point is well-taken, maziar, the swamp here in washington broadly speaking is not a huge fan of president trump's tweets when it comes to foreign policy interventions. do you think it really accomplished anything constructive, suzanne? you made sort of an allusion to this but clearly the trump administration, but the president himself has de-emphasized and democracy and promotion of democracy around the world as well as human rights. it is not been a feature of this administration's foreign policy we've seen the president himself lavish praise on autocrats in the region. it seems he is very openly taken the side of saudi arabia around the regional enemy and adversaries. so you know, is this undermining the potentially american promotion of democracy by simply appearing to opportunistically use this kind of rhetoric only when it is involving one of your adversaries? >> we've always been opportunistic in the way we try to advance democracy in the middle east and so much as i would like that to change i won't pin that solely on the trump administration. i would prefer a policy that

i've been speaking about his part in this story with maziar bahari, the editor of the news website, iranhani does not have the power to make any substantial changes in iran. you have to understand the president in iran is like the prime minister and an absolute monarchy. the president is just the prime minister to the supreme just the prime minister to the supreme leader, who has the power and until now the supreme leader has been quiet and it is up to the supreme been quiet and it is up to the supreme leader to make any changes. but so far we have not seen any willingness from the supreme leader to make changes. all this started as an economic protest against falling living standards and has now clearly become political, a lot of anger directed at the all powerful clerics, the supreme at the all powerful clerics, the supreme leader as well. how do you think the leader and clerics will be filling about all this, will they be trouble at all? the protest started as a demonstration manifestation of angen demonstration manifestation of anger, frustration of people across iran against the cle