Transcripts For BBCNEWS Outside Source 20170517

The new french government. Its gender balanced and politically diverse. And in outside source sport, the fallout over the decision not to give Maria Sharapova a wild card in the french open continues. Well bring you up to date. Donald trump has always relied on his core base for support. Most politicians who get to the top or near to it do need a core base of supporters. But according to two recent polls that support is slipping. This from politico and Morning Consult shows his approval has sunk to a new low of 42 . That is as low as Approval Ratings have gone. This is a completely separate study. This is a completely separate study. And this from Quinnipiac University. Again his approval is at a record low 36 . Both polls were conducted before the latest controversies. Tim malloy from Quinnipiac University says it is the erosion of white men, white voters without College Degrees and deepening concerns about trumps honesty, intelligence and level headedness are red flags that the Administration Simply cant brush away. They are also red flags that are ha rd to they are also red flags that are hard to respond to because some of these are reactions to Donald Trumps personality. These are reactions to Donald Trumps personality. Earlier i spoke with Elizabeth Price foley, a professor of law at Florida International university, about whether mr trumps alleged actions constituted obstruction of justice. She said people were overreacting to the sacking ofjim foley. But some people are saying he may have obstructed the statutes require a very specific mindset. But even more important, as a lawyer, as a textual matter, the statutes simply do not apply for various reasons. There are several different obstruction statues. Some prohibit corrupt influence of ground jewry s or court officials. Some require physical use of force or threats of use of physical force. Some require a quid pro quo Bribery Attempt and even the broadest Obstruction Statute, which is section 1505 of the United States code would not apply because it uses very specific language that requires a pending proceeding, which means a pending court or quasi court action, which is simply not applicable here. Nonetheless the president issued a tweet saying to jim nonetheless the president issued a tweet saying tojim komi, do not think that leaking because it would not be a good idea. You could say that was threatening. If this memo exists and if it is true that he told james komi to let the investigation go, whether it was technically Obstruction Ofjustice 01 technically obstruction ofjustice or not, it was not a good idea, was it . No, but those are two different things. One is prudent behaviourfor a politician and the other is what is legally prohibited by written laws. Yes, although there is an Obstruction Statute that prohibits threatening behaviour, again it only applies to threats to ground juror 01 applies to threats to ground juror ora applies to threats to ground juror or a official. His reactions may be reprehensible or showed poor judgment, but in terms of technical violation ofjustice statues it has not occurred under the facts as we know right now. I assume he will face some pretty serious political fallout for his Lapse Ofjudgment again. But isnt the lesson that we learned from Richard Nixon that with president and senior politicians it is not just about the law, president and senior politicians it is notjust about the law, it is about politics as well. When they start intertwining, even though an offence has not been proven, it could still prove fatal politically . It certainly can. Politics to play a role certainly an talk about impeachment. But in article two of the Constitution Impeachment is reserved for conviction of high crimes and misdemeanours. So, for example, president nixon resigned because the evidence showed that he had in fact violated several criminal statutes at that point. The evidence was somewhat overwhelming that if prosecutors chose to prosecute, he would have been successfully prosecuted and convicted. In order to avoid that embarrassment he resigned for the good of the country. President clinton was impeached by the house, although not ultimately convicted by the senate, because of his lying under oath to a ground jury which is prohibited by a perjury statute. So even historically when there have been threats of impeachment, it has been threats of impeachment, it has been because there has been overwhelming evidence of criminal activity, as there should be as required by our constitution. Activity, as there should be as required by our constitution. Next to nashville, tennessee. Heres nada tawfik with some of mr trumps supporters there. In nashville it is the twang of the guitar that moves this music city. And unlike washington politics is not the topic in the buyers. In the capital of Country Music the tune is spelt out the concerns of the everyday american. Paying rent and finding love. And those who voted for donald trump brushed off the image of the white house in crisis. They view the headlines as simply noise. You cannot tell me all these leaks that come to almost daily, hourly, are not because people are trying to subvert this president . The near daily revelations, including how the president has possibly interfered with the investigations into his associates ties to russia, do not raise red flags to his supporters. Obviously we ca re flags to his supporters. Obviously we care whether he is colluding with the russians and trying to affect the russians and trying to affect the election and if real hard evidence comes out about that, then we will have to reassess. But in terms of donald trump, he is doing exactly what he has done for the last year and people love him for that. When you speak to Donald Trumps most ardent supporters, their views on the man they elected have not changed. Instead they are convinced that the constant leaks and revelations are part of a concerted effort to undermine his presidency. Philvalentine concerted effort to undermine his presidency. Phil valentine hosts a conservative talk show, directed at those who do not trust the mainstream media. He says donald trump needs only to worry about delivering on his campaign promises. If he does not cut captors and lower the corporate rate and do the things he said he would do in his campaign, there will be trouble. What has these hockey fans on pins and needles is whether the National Team will reach the stanley cup. The conservatives here have no fears about President Trump. The media is democrats, left wingers, they do not wa nt democrats, left wingers, they do not want to see him do well or america do well, they want to give america a way. The things they are saying our total lies. The media blows things out of proportion. There is no doubt the president s Approval Rating is taking a hit, but there is no sign ofan taking a hit, but there is no sign of an erosion of trust from his supporters, they feel empowered by his presidency and his defiance. Supporters, they feel empowered by his presidency and his defiance. Lets go to Anthony Zurcher In Washington. First, here is a message from tony watching in chicago. He says how many republicans are speaking about this story and which ones are raising the prospect of impeachment . Can you help tony out . We are hearing from the leaders of the Republican Party, mitch mcconnell, the speaker in the senate, we have not had a lot of republicans speak out about impeachment. A congressman has called out for an independent enquiry, he is from michigan. He seems to be a Constant Donald Trump critic, but a lot of republicans are keeping their heads down. This is a question from david watching in milton keynes. Im sure we have no idea if the russians recorded the meeting. I think Vladimir Putin was joking when he was making comments on Russian Television earlier today about having a transcript and giving it over to the us. I do not think the us wants that and i do not think donald trump wants his help right now. Then in london is asking this, if we are talking about impeachment, what would be the next steps . Impeachment would start in the House Of Representatives in a committee that would hold hearings and Draft Articles and hold a vote and it would go to the floor of the House Of Representatives. A simple majority and it goes to trial and senate. First it would start in a committee and would require republicans getting on board because they have the majority in the house. We are way away from that . Very far away. We have not seen a break in the republican ranks yet that would require that. Ross is asking, what is the deal with the Donald Trump Bashing . I hope we are not doing that, we are doing and reporting on what we have. The story of the leaks is hardly being mentioned. We did discuss the leaks yesterday, but in terms of what happened in the oval office, can we say categorically whether it was appropriate or not . We do not know. Right now we have a word of a memo Thatjames Comey wrote. We have not heard from comey himself about what happened. We have donald trump in the white house flatly denying what took place. We really do not know. We do not know whether he had gone up to james comey and said, back up. That is highly inappropriate. Donald trump is james comeys boss. Maybe if donald trump as a citizen says one thing, but as a president what he says carries a lot of weight particularly with an investigation by the fbi. Lets talk tomorrow. Anthony is In Washington and i am in london. Lets turn to spot. This is how la liga stands. Real are currently in second place, level on points with barcelona. Lets go to Tulsen Tollett At The Bbc Sport centre. Who else would the opening two goals for the club, cristiano ronaldo. He was on target twice with a left foot in this game. Just when celta vigo got back into which it was 2 1 minute later. Real madrid are away to malaga on sunday. As it stands, if it remains as it is, 3 1. With a victory at the weekend it would mean they win the spanish title. Very exciting, thank you. Yesterday on os sport, we talked about Maria Sharapova not getting a wild card for french open. It would have been herfirst grand slam since a 15 month doping ban. Well, since then the Womens Tennis Association Chief Executive has issued a strongly worded statement. I dont agree with the basis for their decision. She has complied with the sanction. There are no grounds to penalise any player beyond the sanctions set forth in the final decisions resolving these matters. Maria sharapova has also responded. If this is what it takes to rise up again, then i am in it all the way, every day. No words, games, oractions will ever stop me from reaching my own dreams. And i have many. If only shed brought the same commitment to reading the e mails that advised her of a change to the list of banned medications. She didnt, she tested positive and was suspended. Coming up we are talking about Chelsea Manning who has been released from a Military Prison where she has been serving a Prison Sentence for the last seven years. We will bring you the latest on that. Theres a warning about a squeeze in Living Standards today. It follows official figures that show the Cost Of Living inflation is outstripping wages for the first time in three years. Meanwhile another set of figures show that unemployment has fallen to its lowest level in 42 years. Heres our economics editor kamal ahmed. A Business Fair in leeds and good news forjobs. Firms hiring plenty of people as Economic Growth remains positive. We have just employed a new manager and we have also employed new ground staff. At this moment in time on our Company Website i think we have 15 vacancies posted. The last time unemployment was this low was in 1975. The price of a pint of milk was 7p, but it was also an era of high inflation and rapidly increasing incomes. To date inflation is creeping back and incomes growth is falling. Lets look at the more recent history of pay and rising prices in britain. If we go back to the year 2000, you can see that earnings were consistently above the rate of inflation. On average people were better off. That came to an abrupt halt in 2008 when the financial crisis hit. Wages fell sharply and inflation rose as things like the cost of petrol went up. That led to this long period of pay squeeze. That did not come to an end until september, 2014. Until today wages have stayed above the Cost Of Living, but the gap has been closing and today those lines crossed. Individual incomes on average are going down again. The big question for 2017 is whether wages respond to those two big pressures, fast rising inflation and very low unemployment. If they do not, we will see the pay freeze continue for some time and thatis freeze continue for some time and that is concerning. Is there a spark to the uk economy, away to produce more wealth from the hard hours we work . That relies on productivity going up, but the figures are down again. Until that problem is solved, the danger of a continued income freeze remains. This is outside source live from the bbc newsroom. Our lead story is President Trump has come out fighting after a week of damaging reports. He says no politician has ever been treated worse by the media. Lets take a breather from American Politics and tell you about the new french government. The new french government has been announced. Here it is. Several things worthy of note. First, its gender balanced. Women have been appointed to 11 of the 22 positions, including those of defence, health and labour ministers. Secondly, Emmanuel Macron has been good to his word and recruited from across the political spectrum. For example, here are the new economy, justice and interior ministers. One is a socialist, another a centrist, anotherform the right of Centre Republican party. The republicans, by the way, arent happy. The Secretary General of Republican Party says any of its members in the government will be kicked out. On french politics we often turn to henri astier from the bbc newsroom. He explained whether this was a surprising move. Usually the announcement of a new government after a president ial election is boring. People who are interested in who is in and who is out, who has been fast tracked will be interested, but usually it follows a fairly predictable script. The main event is the president ial election. After that you have a government that is nominated. A few weeks later the party of the president has got momentum and wins the legislative election and there we go. But now the announcement of the cabinet is interesting. Why . Because the president has no party, odd does not have a party in parliament. He is creating one and he has got nothing in parliament. So the announcement of this government is all about laying the groundwork towards the legislative election which will allow him to have a parliamentary majority. Can a cabinet like that pulled from across the political spectrum be cohering in the way it pursues an agenda . That is the challenge. It really speaks to his whole outlook. He says the old left right divide is over. We wa nt the old left right divide is over. We want to work with people, the moderates from the right and the centre, and the rest will be on the extreme. He wants to divide and rule his opponents on the right and left and work with them and he wants to create this big space in the centre and that is what this government is all about. It reminds me of the 19905 and tony blair and Peter Mandelson talking about the third way. Yes and What Emanuel Macron Stands for is this third way. He has got a Prime Minister who is on the centre right. It is very important because his main challengers will be on the right. The left is in disarray and he does not need to divide it any more, that is already done. He wants to divide the right and he has done that and he has also given one of the leading jobs, the economy, to a centre right figure. It was a pleasure to get him on, we will be talking to him again as emanuel macron goes about his business. Emanuel macron goes about his business. This is Chelsea Manning. She was jailed for leaking confidential documents to wikilea ks when she was an Intelligence Analyst for the us army. Today she tweeted this. First steps of freedom shes been released barack obama commuted her sentence just before he left office. Amongst the information she passed to wikileaks were Hundreds Of Thousands of diplomatic cables like this one, published in the guardian newspaper, detailing how diplomats were told to gather intelligence on the un leadership. There was also this video footage of an Apache Helicopter killing 12 civilians in baghdad in 2007. Rajini vaidyanathan has been at the prison where ms manning spent the last seven years. Heres her report. Chelsea manning was released under the cover of darkness in the early hours of this morning from the Military Prison here at fort leave and wide in kansas. She spent seven yea rs and wide in kansas. She spent seven years inside, some of that in solitary confinement. Even though she was given a dishonourable discharge from the us military as Pa Rt Discharge from the us military as part of her sentence, she will actually remain in active service and without pay and that is because her lawyers are appealing her conviction. While that Appeal Process takes place, she will stay on the us armys books. Her supporters have hailed her a hero and the whistle blower, but it is important to note that Chelsea Mannings release has divided opinion in america with many people, including donald trump, labelling perpetrated the compromised american security. Lets turn to aleppo and we wa nt security. Lets turn to aleppo and we want to tell you what bbc arabic has been doing with nasa. It has try to document the impact of the six year war on the city by looking at it from the sky. This is what aleppo looked like injanuary 2012. This video was released to show how the amount of light given off by the city decreases as the War Increases and that is because of damage to the electrical grid. You may well recall last Government Forces made significant gains and the rebels had to leave and tens of thousands of civilians were also evacuated. Bbc arabic has been speaking to some of those people who fled the city about the experience of losing light. That report ends this edition of outside source. If you have a smartphone you can download the bbc app. All the latest information we will publish online from the bbc newsroom. I will see you tomorrow. Goodbye. There has been a familiar cry in recent weeks, we really need some rain. Fora recent weeks, we really need some rain. For a large swathe of england we may not hear that for a little while. This is one soggy outlook on life from dorset in wednesday. For some people there was rain all day long. I suspect some people will be saying enough already. Some people had half a months worth of rain in just 24 hours. It was not long ago that we were talking about a record strike april. In edinburgh there was just a few millimetres of rain all month. We will start with the may rainfall so far at kew gardens. 36 millimetres, three quarters of the average rainfall in may has already fallen. But the transformation has not yet taken place in edinburgh, just nine millimetres in may so far. Things are balanced out a little bit compared with april for some, thanks to this Weather System Clearing away as we go into thursday, but for others we still need some rain. This low pressure close on thursday sitting to the north west of the uk will produce some showers and a fresher feel to the weather right across the uk. This cool air moves in and it is more notably fresher. Where you had all that rain on wednesday it will feel a bit warmer because there will be sunshine in the first half of the day. In Northern Ireland there will be heavy and thundery showers and a few moved into scotland and some pop up in england and wales. East anglia and South East England will stay mainly dry. We go from thursday to friday and there is an area of low pressure and there is an area of low pressure and there is still some uncertainty about this. It will produce a splash of rainfor about this. It will produce a splash of rain for some time in the east of england as we go through friday and as it moves northward it may bring some of that rain fall into scotland. Elsewhere on friday it is sunshine and showers and again some heavy and thundery ones around. It will feel warm in the sunshine and cool when the showers move through. This Weather System may cover the northern half of the uk before clearing away. Elsewhere on saturday there is some sunshine and a few showers developing once again. It is a similar picture going into the second half of the weekend on sunday. There is always a chance the showers may merge to give a longer speu showers may merge to give a longer spell of rain. For many they may avoid the showers altogether and have sunny spells. Next week it may well be on monday for a time that High Pressure takes over, but only briefly before more areas of low pressure come our way. To sum up next weeks weather, it is looking quite changeable. When low pressure comes by their is rain and showers, but in between there are drier interludes and High Pressure mates and experience. It will be quite pleasa nt and experience. It will be quite pleasant in the sunshine between the showers, but fairly chilly at night. There is a prospect of a bit more rain and showers in the forecast as we go into next week. It will be for those areas that still really do need some rain. Contains scenes of repetitive flashing images. . Tonight at ten donald trump faces the most serious allegations to beset his presidency so far. Hes accused of asking former fbi boss james comey to halt the investigation into links between his former National Security adviser and russia. Donald trump hasnt yet responded directly to the latest allegations against him, but he remains defiant. No politician in history, and i say this with great surety, has been treated worse, or more unfairly. But tonight as pressure intensifies on the president , hes facing growing criticism from within his own party. I think weve seen this movie before. I think its reaching the stage where its at watergate size and scale. After the turbulence of the first few months, well be asking how serious a moment this is for the trump presidency