we don t think democracy in the united states has died. we don t think it s necessarily dying. but we think there s reason for concern. daniel, you talk about how quickly it can turn. you have the coup, that s one sort of version of it, it happens swiftly, you can see it, then the slow drip, drip, drip. like in venezuela, you had an election, another election, then you slide in. people don t feel the radical changes, so they don t really know it s happening. is there a country i m throwing this to daniel, steve i think answered first, is there a country analogous to where we are now, similar to us? first of all, the u.s. is a much older democracy than many of these countries. since the collapse of communism, the way democracies die is through elections. politics get elected and democ way, like venezuela and turkey.
indication, this is complex investigation, we re looking at months if not potentially beyond the next year in terms of what the time frame might look like. steve, are you comfortable that enough has been done to prevent meddling in the 2018 mid-terms? no, not at all. first of all, it s a very difficult thing to figure out how to keep a nation state like russia or china or others who might be set on disrupting democracy in the united states, it s a really hard chore. you have to strengthen defense which is hard enough itself, but that requires money, a lot of concentration and most importantly political will. so i don t think we think in any way, shape or form sit back and say, yeah, we re comfortable that the mid-term elections in 2018 or the ones in the future, quite frankly, are going to be immune or even meaningfully safe
shouldn t it come through the ballot box or through what john kerry says? isn t this colonial, what john kerry said today? to me it s very colonial. but are you suggesting that there s real democracy in syria right now? well, do you think real democracy in the united states when they deal with countries like this? in syria, there is a war, a horrid terrorism. the syrian people are suffering a huge deal. there is a lot of bloodshed. but i can say that the interference of country, namely syria, turkey, and the united states, has called the syrian people, their institutions, their live, their security, their peace of mind. so i think what we need from countries the accusation against your regime, your government, is that more than 100,000 syrians have been killed, that hundreds of thousands if not millions have been placed in exile externally, internally, and that war crimes
a bad guy, but he was our bad guy. megyn: are you worried about the muslim brotherhood? not terribly worried. even within the muslim brotherhood, not a monolithic entity. we should be fully supportive of their fight for democracy and freedom. megyn: you also worry where it s going to lead. look what happened in gaza. democracy is not pretty. democracy in this country when it was being made was not pretty. we had a ref pollution this country to create democracy. it doesn t happen in an orderly fashion. megyn: democracy in the middle east is unlikely to look like democracy in the united states. it s more than just an election.