democracy is on the decline. is this something you think we've seen in the united states or could see in the united states? >> i absolutely think so. i think we're seeing a president who is breaking democratic norms which are the soft guardrails of democracy and poisoning the well of public discourse, which is deeply damaging, and i think we have a crisis of civic culture. we had 36.4% turnout in the last midterms. tunisia had local elections that had 35% and people are saying they were undemocratic. these are national elections. we have problems with gerrymandering, corrosion of money in politics and we have a president who has no interest in securing the integrity of american elections from foreign meddling which we know is a threat and we know will only get worse as we go forward so i think we have a global crisis of democracy. by the way, that's facilitated by president trump's modeling of authoritarian behavior on the global stage because he's congratulating dictators for their sham elections at the same time he's attacking the press calling to lock up his opponents and hiring family members and cronies. how is the state department