Fisheries it a way that is completely unacceptable to the country and since we have 10 weeks until the end of the transition period on jan 1st i have to make a judgment about the likely outcome and to get us all ready and given that they refused to negotiate seriously much of the last few months and given that this summit appears explicitly to root out the candidates start on the i conclude that we should get ready january the 1st we arrange groups that are more like australia is based on simple principles of glue free trade. Thousands of supporters of the south African Opposition Party the Economic Freedom fighters of facing off against white farmers in the free states of semicolon to block but a jew in court that accused of the killing of a 22 year old white farmer. In thailand thousands of protesters are out on the streets of bangkok defying a government ban on gatherings police of blocking roads in whats expected to be another tense night of antigovernment demonstrations calling for the Prime Ministers resignation for reforms to the monarchy Prime Minister prialt channel is refusing to stand down. Hundreds of prisoners are put on the frontlines of yemens civil war continuing to return home to planes carrying who 3 fights is it going to help by the saudi u. A. E. Coalition arrived that day there are calls again for syrias president bashar assad to step down people have been out testing an province and have been on his rule and attacks on the area its the last rebel held pocket in syria and those are the headlines the news continues here on out is here after the boss and why next. Hi im Steve Clemons and i have a question has donald trump been good for america and is he going to win this election lets get to the bottom line. In this polarized country half of the people see President Donald Trump as a davis and harmful leader and the other half see him as a messiah this 5050 split applies to everything about him half of the American People get inspiration from him and the other half cringe so what makes him popular what makes folks vote for him and how do his chances look for reelection next month well today were talking to someone who worked closely with President Trump and his closest supporters in his 2016 Election Campaign which is we all know worked rick gates was the Deputy Campaign manager for trumps 2016 election hes a former assistant to paul man afford a Top Republican strategist and lobbyist and both came under investigation as part of the motor investigation into russian interference in the last elections he cooperated with the investigation and last year he was sentenced to 3 years probation for financial crimes and lying to the f. B. I. This week he published a book about his work with the 1st campaign his role in the f. B. I. Investigation and more its called wicked game an insider story on how donald trump one molar failed and america lost rick its great to be with you today thanks so much for joining us let me just ask you you were there at the beginning when paul man afore was hired by hired for free to come in to advise the Trump Campaign on how to approach the 2016 election and i dislike to get your insights on that and then apply it to today does it look like donald trump is going to win to you. First thing. Having me on the show great to be here look 2016 was a very interesting time in president ial politics and one of the things i kind of capture in my book is this idea that you know donald trump was in a way fighting the Republican Party establishment much more than he was Hillary Clinton in the general election and i think thats important because as we go back and look historically at how president s are elected there were a number of instances along the way that clearly the Republican Party and the Republican Party leadership did not want President Trump to to win and so when you look at the technical processes that are behind how the president actually secures our candidate secures the nomination theres a lot more to it then people realize so it was it was a Good Opportunity to kind of walk people through understanding how president s are actually elected where there are parts of this story that were uncomfortable for you i was surprised that you know you kind of look at what you did for him as a hired person and to be you know candid with our audience youve also worked with democrats in the past i thought you describe you to flee particularly in International Campaign consulting lots of democrats and republicans Work Together but but you also critique President Trump for a kind of recklessness somewhat you know a kind of lightness with the truth but im just interested in how someone in your role felt about certain key moments during the campaign and whether you thought you thought it was going the wrong direction. So obviously at any campaign at any point there are instances where candidates can go off Say Something that probably doesnt resonate as well you know the example that i use in the book you know what president drop it relates to you know judge curial who obviously you know became an issue the thing that you have to understand i think about President Trump is hes not politically correct and one of the reasons that he wanted to run is because he thought the politicians were not very authentic and more importantly they never delivered what they said they were going to do and the one thing that i didnt get to see is his passion and his love for the country and thats really what drove him into this race but look on the flip side you had Hillary Clinton you know at the magical moment when she had her infamous deplorable you know comment so in any candidacy there are always going to be issues i think what you have to you know understand is looking at the way that both campaigns deal with those moments because those are very very important moments of how people are going to react and how theyre going to be perceived. Donald trumps case it might be because he was an outsider and because he was not a politician people and braced his directness his authenticity he had never seen a candidate like this before and so they gravitated to or Something Like that because they were tired of the political system there were moments where donald trump stepped forward and started a style of really demeaning Hillary Clinton demeaning his opponents demeaning the press some of the terms he called were crooked hillary the corrupt news media the failing New York Times brain dead bernie i mean its a fascinating you know but but kind of disconcerting style but in the end Hillary Clinton went out after she lost and she said we need to give donald trump a chance that didnt come out in your book as much that that you know here was a moment a sensually where i think hillary telegraphed her people because it seemed to me donald trump does well when hes portrayed himself as a victim and my getting something wrong there. So what i would say about that is that you know when hillary came out of that moment if you remember the night before there was a lot of question of whether or not you know they were going to concede or even make a comment and i think as youre going to see it 2020 and why its important is the stakes are extremely high and just the other day you know joe biden came out with a comment relative that you know now he thinks he cant lose and the only way he can lose is if theres some you know kind of shenanigans you know happening behind the scenes so i think what youre seeing is a reaction by you know both sides to the belief that this election is going to be so intense that we all kind of need to step back and make sure that whats most important is protecting our democracy right because thats really what this is about its about being able to elect a president and having the right in the privilege to vote and making sure that our voters expression of the of the person that we support so i think you know to your question i think its going to be interesting to see you know how these these candidates both come together and the one thing ill say you know to a previous point the one the greatest asset the president has there is in sticks and you know 99. 9 percent of the time hes generally right so when he sees kind of some of this you know potential Election Fraud hes highlighting it because at some point youre probably going to see some instance of it it may be insignificant it may not matter to the overall result but hes right about it existing in certain states is there a red line for his behavior in the election that would you know be something to help you see it differently and you just raise the issue of accepting Election Results which is on everyones mind you just said you know biden mino may be concerned at all but i guess one side is posture and then the other side is after the election you know these folks very well would it be a red line for you if you saw the president not accept those results and and to you know continue essentially you know they might make might makes right you know power contest. Sure if the election were held and it was free and fair and the results came out you know in favor of joe biden and look i think the president would ultimately concede i think what he does very well is he throws messages out into the Public Domain the media of course take in every bit of bait that they can and then it comes across either as something that he hasnt fully expressed or frankly there are things that you know he will often say that he doesnt necessarily you know really mean and we just have to watch for that but i will tell you based on experience that he does believe that there are potential zx and now joe biden does as well that there could be you know fraudulent circumstances in this election with ballots ballots missing completed you know whatever the case may be so i do think theres going to be a greater awareness on the free dissent fairness of this election but at the end of the day president trouble like i said he loves his country he will protect and really promote the democracy in the end you know one of the questions that a lot of people have about President Trump and his surroundings which you deal with in the book is whether or not he respects experts whether he listens to them whether he you know puts policy d expertise you know paramount or at least science paramount in some cases relating to cohabit and you describe how you were able to influence in particular in Foreign Policy and get him to listen to max experts what are some tips you would share with those folks who want President Trump to learn something about the issues hes being asked to decide on. Sure 1st and foremost the president has very strong convictions about you know a host of policy issues and on those issues he was largely unmovable and other ones that again youve got to remember hes an outsiders on other issues that maybe werent as prevalent in his mind at the time when he 1st ran to today were now he is president for the entire country and so theres a multitude of other issues that have you know landed on his plate i think there are a number of things he look he absolutely listens to advisers in fact he learns by listening and thats why you know there are a couple references not just from me but from other people as well that you know putting a a 100 page document in front of him is just not the way that he learns and learns best so by consulting with people by hearing peoples opinions and look he did a great job on the campaign he would call 1520 people on a regular basis and solicit you know their input and sometimes he would lead them down one direction just to see what they would say and i thought i always thought he had a very you know interesting way of reaching out to people and one making them feel important to making their opinion count and matter and that he was able to kind of take all that and synthesize it and then he would make is in his own decision and i think thats probably the most important thing that we have not had in many president s in the past is an actual absolute decisive Decision Maker like his decisions or his decisions and thats i think thats a particularly strong asset you know for a president to have so wrecked my jaw dropped wide open i think it fell on the floor when i was reading the chapter on the Vice President tell us you know i had been talking to Chris Christie and Chris Christie you know as you write you know thought he was guy up until the night before. The president announced his selection just days before the Republican Convention but tell us where President Trump started with his desire for a Vice President ial candidate and then how you and paul man afford redirected him. Sure it looked that that was probably one of the i think one of the reasons i wanted to write the book is to capture this type of history so that americans could see kind of what happens behind the scenes how do you choose a Vice President and in the case of President Trump i mean at the time you know his idea of a good Vice President was somebody kind of like him somebody that you know he could be friends with that he knew that he understood and if you ask any political operative or person with political experience they will tell you that youre always looking for a candidate that can bring something to the table i. E. Electoral votes and so in that case with with my parents it was you know one thing after the other in trying to get him into that position he didnt want you to not not interrupt you didnt start with mike pence you started with someone really really like him and im afraid to even ask. Yeah and so and i put the book i mean after we go through a list of potential candidates you know some of them he knows some of them most of them he does it. Again this is one of his strong assets what does he go to what does he gravitate towards family its loyalty its trust and you know people are often try to take this instance so this anecdote i wanted to use out of context and make it look like he was going to you know absolutely choose or in the end as i say he would have never i think gotten there but what he was trying to do is show youve got to remember hes a c. E. O. Not a politician so hes not thinking like a politician so in his mind who are the best people around him who are the best and brightest in this case and a lot of people interesting they wrote op eds at the very time that it was being discussed that she would make you know a tremendous v. P. Candidate a lot of people think that she was still what but with that said it was an anecdote to show what matters to him the most so as we you know paul i tried to figure out what kind of criteria he was looking for we learned along the way about those most important assets to him. Now as i find it absolute passing that when you began looking and you move from the evocative you know possibility and she removed herself from that then you moved to mike pence whom he who had endorsed ted cruz whom donald trump had sort of seen himself as a loser kept calling mike pence a loser but you and paul metaphor thought that he was really the right guy how did you succeed to shove the president in his corner so well so that that stuck because there are not many stories out there where people who had been so firmly against the president managed to become so closely aligned with him. You know i like to say it was divine intervention in some juncture because we had so many obstacles hit us along the way you know with mike pence you know Little Things to big things where it just made the relationship you know awkward at the beginning but you know the president i you know came around to the idea of understanding you know the value of somebody in that role and what the real Decisive Point it look it took a lot of people it wasnt just you know paul and i it was a lot of people that the president consulted with as i said he makes his own decision so even though he might get a recommendation he doesnt research he does as you know kind of analysis and then pull out of it to see what their thoughts are on it as well but in the end there is one defining moment i felt that really kind of switched the president s thinking on mike pence and it was kind of when paul was explaining to you know donald trump what a Vice President was supposed to do and traditional politics the Vice President is somebody that kind of is the guy out there you know attacking his opponent you know coming across as very negative and that way it enables the president ial candidate to look president ial well in this case donald trump was that individual so also police said you know donald why would you want somebody like you to step into that role that you are so good at. And that is your role so its almost in this case that the roles of what it Vice President can do on a campaign trail were already embodied in the way that you know donald trump approached the campaign so that little kind of idea planted in his head i think gave him the ability to kind of expanded stinking on well wait a minute lets lets think about this lets consider other people and then again it took a lot of people to get you know mike pence to really be chosen but obviously i dont think theres anybody out of that original list that we had that would have been more loyal right and as proof and rick another key part of your story with the Trump Campaign is this russia thing right so and i have to say and i go back to sort of trey gowdy you know former congressman trey gowdy who stepped in you know to sort of chair the House Intelligence Committee you know said hey if youre innocent act like it and there were a lot of people looking at President Trump statements about Hillary Clintons emails or calling on russia to you know generate these and we now know from the senate Intelligence Committee report which is a bipartisan report that there was a very dense set of interactions from lots of folks in world with russia whereas the president had said no one in his campaign at any that there are these gaps and i know that you got stuck in a crucible to try to explain these gaps and fell into legal jeopardy so i read very carefully that youve made a distinction between violations of law and perhaps violations of posture and id love to know how you rationalize what you heard and saw and some of the gestures you know because you were held and made accountable for a lot of this sure and look theres multitude of components that kind of fit into this for example paul is already being targeted as a republican operative that had close ties to the region even before he went to work for donald trump because as we now are learning and i think this is an important point we know at. A lot more today than we did 3 years ago where this investigation you know was 1st initiated and i think its and very important to make sure you know we get all the facts you know Abraham Lincoln had a great quote you know let the people have the facts and the country will be safe were still getting there theres i think a lot more information to come out but in that context of the campaign and specifically with russia you know one of the earliest reactions i saw with the president is he was watching the i had the very idea the media was covering you know kind of trumps overtures to to russia and he just looked perplexed because i dont understand why this is such a big deal because it is mine it wasnt but like also went off and he understood the value of Something Like this with media and he constantly was baiting them on this issue and the best example of that i raise in the book where he is doing an impromptu press conference in miami after he has spent an evening with gold star families talking about military veterans except her up and the one thing the media picks up on that day is his little statement about you know a lot of repute if you have the emails lets see him and he knew it was going to drive the media nuts and it absolutely did and it course it call into question you know his his interest in association with russia but at you know steve from my experience my time with him i can tell you he knew it baited the media and thats why he did it had nothing to do with any historical relationship to the point that i even went back and tried to do as Much Research as i could to understand if there was ever any relationship between him and Letterman Putin or any other major you know russian Government Official and it was absolutely done you know was a very clearly articulate your knowledge in awareness that russia was trying to meddle in us the u. S. Election and you make it clear that it had meddled in previous elections but you were youre very very overt about that what do you think keeps the american president from being as overt as his Deputy Campaign manager. Well sure i mean i remember at the time you know today we knew a lot more so that was one of the most disturbing things about you know the russian best asian 2016 is not just russia but weve had plenty of adversaries that have been interfering in our elections for decades and no government has decided to you know make this pronouncement that weve got to now look into this why was it that 2016 was the only year that we really started focusing on it seriously and again theres Additional Information is coming out that we may now see that theres more to the story about why it was it was done as a political diversion tactic right if it turns out to be true as as more the truth comes out but i think from that standpoint again the president a politician he doesnt understand all this nuance behavior with russia politics and Foreign Policy right before he campaign so that was a big part of it is he didnt disappear how big of a story you know would be i think wed have to ask him if you ever regrets any of his statements about russia i personally dont think he does but i would be curious as to why i let the media control this part of the narrative because it was absolutely not accurate in the way that they portrayed it another job dropper for me in your book honestly was what they found the perjury charge that they found you guilty of i as i understand it you were not in a meeting with paul mann a fort and former congressman vin weber who was a consultant that had to do with ukraine and you corrected a statement where you said one of them had said you know that the meeting and gone well and then you thought well maybe both of them said that and said no one had that triggered a perjury charge against you i never saw that i had you know ive i when i 1st read about this i said ah because they caught rick gates and experience lie is how to but i just want to understand the pressure you were under i think its important for our viewers to understand to be fair in this story you know it one of my recounting this correctly but it is fascinating if true. Yes absolutely this is a very hard part of the process for me because if this was kind of a deal breaker in terms of agreeing to any cooperation and it honestly took me the better part of almost 2 years to unpack you know what had happened particularly since we went to the special counsels office and volunteered you know the information this isnt something where they caught me you know it it over and thats what made it even harder and the fact that my lawyer was there as well it was very very disconcerting and it goes to show you by kind of these and how they interrupt you rick this was about whether or not you recounted whether one of 22. 00 men had said whether a meeting had gone well thats all it was about with and then you said no one of them paul man of ford said the meeting had gone well not vin weber i just find it remarkable that your life was put in such in jeopardy over that statement. Yes but again if you understand the rationale for it and at that moment i didnt but if you look at what and again this isnt really an ethical in my opinion tactic used by the special counsel and when they have absolute authority to determine who lies and who doesnt youre really put in a very very difficult you know position and this case it was quite disturbing that they were able to do this and if you look at it and i did this after steve look at all that every Single Person involved was charged with perjury why is that if you step back if because we get to this point where now i can go out and talk they wanted to make sure that i was as discreditable as possible so that they could use it and make it sound like what all this information came out that it wasnt necessarily believable and again i think it was a it was a tactical move diabolical tactical move but every Single Person involved had a perjury charge leveled against them right just quickly youre very close to power in the in the team or were and you make a call for a kind of politics that returns to compromise that returns to listening to one another their returns kind of healthy democrats and healthy republicans id like to just give our viewers a snapshot since you were caught in this trap of what youd like to see for the future of american politics. Absolutely i mean if theres anybody that should be angry over what happened you know i could say you know me but anger is destructive you know if you let it consume you itll destroy your life so i really wanted to step back and at the end it is really hope that the American People can read this story and understand that we can learn from it and we can learn from each other and i think thats kind of our that weve all lost i think politics obviously has become very divisive and we have a difficult time even talking amongst our own families about it and i think we need to get past that we need to figure out how we can once again learn from each other learn tolerance political tolerance from each other and really you know kind of embrace this idea that our country will be better for it because i think the most disturbing thing out of all this in both the political system in the brokenness of the Justice System is as i said watching our adversaries kind of write allow us to tear ourselves from within right well rick cates former Tram Campaign official author and a star witness for the mahler investigation thank you so much for being with us today steve i enjoyed it thanks so much for your time so whats the bottom line in the last election more than 60000000 americans voted for donald trump who never held a Public Office for being raw direct impulsive and not constrained by accuracy and truth in other words hes the opposite of most politicians saying and tweeting whatever he feels like whenever he feels like it and a lot of people will continue to celebrate this kind of intentional pugnacious trump ism even if he isnt reelected this is not just an american thing love him or hate him a lot of folks prefer a strong man who does it his way over politicians who promise a lot but rarely rarely deliver and thats the bottom line. The worlds biggest economy was put on hold. Deregulating industries of old delivered new growth for a president who promised greatness again. On the coronavirus pandemic has seen resurgence replaced with a recession as the world eagerly watches on to see how either president ial candidate might revive the flagship u. S. Economy. Details coverage of the u. S. Elections on aljazeera. Global community we are i think overseas you know both but so i will tell chris what response that looks like be part of the debate if you nicci you can jump into the conversation right away when no topic is off the table youre not afraid of anyone taking are we just going what he lives in the least in the world uses 3 targeting richer and the poor getting poorer its not kill destroy the system its just to look at the system and the modern world this street on out is the euro. As protests rage across america more black lives are lost despite the promises of Police Reform faultlines hears from those demanding justice the truth countability transparency thats what i desire from the city i desperately need to change i have no faith in the institution that needs to be reminded not to proclaim moment of reckoning racism and police in america on i just get up. Amount of money d. N. A. And dual how were bringing you live pictures right now from the thai capital bangkok where protesters are being faced by riot police and water cannon the thai police are trying to spare spare testers there with those water cannon there on the streets night for the 2nd day this comes of course after a decree a ban on gatherings which was instituted
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.