A show of unity events back home in germany could but with events in germany this weekend that could mark the beginning of the end for the long. Term militias in syria with tanks and troops ready to roll the countrys defense minister says the shelling is part of a planned invasion. Plus will he stay or will he go dormant striker yeah im rick im balmy im hospital laughed out of tonights game and it fueled speculation that he may be on his way to aso in the english premier league. Im phil gayle welcome to the program. Saturday marks the First Anniversary of Donald Trumps inauguration as the forty fifth president of the United States some said he wouldnt last until christmas but with the economy booming and his Health Reportedly good as and trump is Holding Steady hes unpredictable nature however has had his supporters cheering and his opponents cringing heres a look back at an eventful year. It was an audacious first week in office. Migration had been a central tenet of candidate Trumps Campaign within days of his inauguration President Trump issued the first report became known as muslim bans his supporters welcomed the move but thousands of people turned out at airports across the country to protest the executive order legal challenges against the travel ban came almost immediately even after trump signed a second and then a third ban later in the year courts prevented them from going fully into effect the Supreme Court will ultimately decide their fate this year. Shortly after the election the number of illegal crossings at the u. S. Mexican border hit an all time low according to u. S. Border officials throughout the year the government stepped up raids and arrests of suspected undocumented persons in the u. S. The wall on the u. S. Mexican border that trump promised is now part of some key immigration negotiations in washington. One clear triumph for trump was the ascension of neil core such to the Supreme Court for many conservatives this was an affirmation of why they voted for trump course it is an arch conservative jurist at just forty nine years old and with a lifetime appointment he is likely to shape a good portion of american law moving forward. In terms only legislative success so far has been his tax bill with an estimated one point five trillion dollars in tax cuts it advances several conservative republican objectives like slashing Corporate Taxes and in particular lowering the rate for the richest americans he signed the bill into law even though the American Public largely disapproved. The president also fulfilled a Key Campaign Promise when he announced hed withdraw the u. S. From the paris climate agreement over the objections of many of his advisors the u. S. Is now the only country in the world. That is not signed the accord. Building on strategies the Obama Administration put in place trump ups the numbers of u. S. Troops in iraq and syria ultimately helping to defeat the socalled Islamic State the Prime Minister of iraq declared victory over i asked last month. And the u. S. Economy has remained strong under trump u. S. Stock markets have reached record highs and unemployment is at a seventeen year low over the president s behavior has been a daily flash point and many people still feel left behind in the economy mainstream conservatives have a lot to be happy about. Scott more on that side from leon panetta mr podesta was director of the cia and then secretary of defense during the Obama Presidency is also a cofounder of the pathetic institute for Foreign Policy joins us from monterey in california welcome to day w. Here in how would you say the president is doing. Well its three much a mixed record. Obviously its been. The one term that comes to mind is chaotic its been very up and down very erratic at the same time theres been some achievements with as pointed out in your program. The approval of a Supreme Court justice. The economy continues to do well though its hard to tell how much of that is credited to the administration he did he was able to pass a tax reform bill but the reality is that this country remains very divided. The chaos in washington continues from day to day he tweets things that create even additional chaos and the problem i have is that although he tends to disrupt things im not sure he has a strategy for how to deal with the disruption once that happens lets talk about americas position in the world as a world wide gallup poll which says that under present chum the United States has fallen from first to third place in the list of top Global Policy does that matter. I think it matters a great deal i think thats one of the one of the problems is that this president talked about an America First kind of approach to dealing with Foreign Policy he took steps to take us out of the paris climate agreement he has basically torn up about trade agreements that are extremely important nafta the asian trade agreement that was there he continues to. Undermine our alliances and take positions frankly that the World Community does not agree with the result of that is that the United States i believe has lost its leadership role in the world and that is not a good situation when were facing the number of International Crises that were facing at the present time but there will always be International Crises and im guessing the American People voted for a president as you say who would put America First so my guess would be that those votes as i dont care how the world views america should they. Well i dont agree with that i think i think an overwhelming majority of americans believe that the United States has to be a leader in the world weve been a leader World War Two and the reality is we have worked with allies like germany and Great Britain and others to build strong alliances to try to deal with the challenges that we face america has played a very Important Role in that and my fear is that if america doesnt provide that leadership unfortunately no one else will and the fact is we do have perhaps more crises in the world today than since World War Two were confronting the threat of terrorism weve got instability in the middle east we continue to try to deal with iran were dealing with north korea and the threat of a potential war with them were dealing with a russia that is in a new chapter of the cold war were continuing to deal with china and we have cyber warfare that is a reality those are all real threats and very frankly it takes alliances and United States leadership in order to deal with that and yet despite all those crises i see that just in the last couple of hours the u. S. Defense secretary you will one of your successes james mattis is quoted as saying that the main focus of Americas National security is not a competition between great power as rather than terrorism im guessing you think hes got that wrong i think it is. Its the responsibility and i and its states and i think your majesty believes this to work with our allies in order to protect our National Security i think its important for us to maintain a strong nato i think its important for us to build other alliances i think its important for us to work with the nations of the world to deal with climate change. I dont i dont think we can confront the crises that exist in the world today unless the United States and other nations are willing to Work Together to deal with these problems so if we all go it alone if we just Pay Attention to our own interests mark my words it will undermine the ability of the World Community to be able to protect peace and prosperity in the future but you mentioned. The president s a propensity for tweeting youve been quoted as saying that if i had my way id take that tweet and throw it out the window why is this such a. I cannot imagine i was i was chief of staff to the present the United States to bill clinton i could not imagine being a chief of staff and trying to determine what the strategy is for a particular day and then go to work and find out the president at five am started tweeting thinks that. That totally undermined the ability to have some kind of strategy for that particular day youre going to have to spend your time basically repairing the damage that the president did from his tweets it is it is very unstable its very erratic theres no reason that the president has to suddenly get up in the morning and tweet without developing some kind of stable policy approach to deciding what is the strategy for this administration it cannot just be a tweet you cant do Foreign Policy by tweeting the government the u. S. Governments facing a shutdown this evening because congress is deadlocked some votes would say that this is exactly the sort of politicking that made them vote for him a known politician. Well theres no look theres no question that the American People were angry and frustrated what were they angry and frustrated by a dysfunctional washington where both democrats and republicans were not coming together to deal with the problems that they are facing unfortunately that hasnt changed its gotten worse were facing a Government Shutdown in this country the blame rests obviously with both parties but are but it also rests with the president and the republicans who are the Majority Party in the house and the senate that is no way to govern this country we cannot remain a strong democracy if we cant govern ourselves and that is a real critical problem today as we speak the investigation into links between the campaign and russia do you think this is going to do for the president you know i i know bob mahler i work with him he was director of the f. B. I. When i was director of cia. He is a professional and he is someone who is i think a credible Law Enforcement officer. He will do a good job determining what the truth this and thats what we need to know what is the truth whats the truth about what russia did in terms of trying to impact our election what is the truth with. That it looks like weve lost the line but they dont put us and we thank you so much but its interference by the russians all of that julies to be. A geisha. We had a few problems that passed but thank you so much for joining you thanks. Now europes two most powerful leaders germanys im going to machall and president emmanuel macro of france meeting to hammer out a series of reforms to the eurozone some of president macros ideas are radical he wants a separate budget on the single finance minister for the zone but the chancellor is more hesitant reaching an agreement may not be easy and see how theyre getting on much so hoffman has that in paris so welcome max what do these two leaders want well the most important piece of news that came out of the press Conference Held here by macular micro is probably that now its official they want a second a treaty the first of these a treaty having reached fifty five years of age and being the foundation basically for many ways of cooperating between the two countries and therefore a symbol of peace and also friendship between the two countries they want a new one that is adapted to the twenty First Century so both medical and mccraw confirmed that but at the same time of course they also talked about the challenges of what we call the reform of the European Union you just mentioned two of those challenges but the german chancellor also insisted that this would include a defense cooperation even maybe a Defense Union and securing for example the external borders against illegal migration into the European Union ok so thats some of what they want and whether they disagree. Its hard to say because both try to hide any form of disagreement and you have to say that the germans so far dont really have an official government line quite simply because they dont have a new government yet so the real disagreements that come out when you talk about the meat and potatoes about the details about how to put something on the ground they have not emerged yet and theyre clearly trying not to let them emerge either is just to give you an example french president of my cross said listen we know that we might not necessarily have the same ways of getting places getting to the same to the goals that we have but whats important is that we have the same goal and he insisted on that they really had a show of unity as they have always had in the past months and try to dwell on that and not on the possible differences that you mentioned earlier the problems chancellor merkel is having are back home forming a new government lets listen to whats the chance one had to say about that. Then i can understand that france in particular is waiting for a new German Government to be formed in our negotiations for a possible coalition we have put europe at the top of the agenda but we know that to achieve something in europe we need a stable German Government and a study to. Myself what in paris and how the chancellors domestic political problems affecting her position in you policies. You cant really get in the of the big projects done without the most important player in the European Union and that is still germany at least if you look at it it canonically Everybody Knows it and even though i call indirectly indorsed that this grand coalition between the social democrats and the c. D. U. Actually happened he said i dont want to make meddle with interior politics in germany but let me say this there are great ambitions for europe in the exploratory talks theres a document that really deals in the first pages almost uniquely with the European Union with an outlook for europe so clearly he is in favor of that because michael has developed many different ideas many different visions and he wants to start developing them with a strong german partner that he doesnt have it but often in paris thank you. Well the chance of us a political fight could be decided this weekend not by the photos or her own party but by happy tensional Coalition Partners on sunday as pity party leader Martin Schultz will try and convince a special Party Conference to back its leaderships decision to talk to the chancellor and her conservatives about entering into a new grand coalition the s. P. D. Can only start formal negotiations with the conservatives if this conference for us yes but the party is split with particular resistance from its youth wing a no vote would mean ive got a minority government all fresh elections washing shields has been speaking about the coming out. If your quotes are clear on the start of the we are concentrating on reaching a majority of the Party Congress on sunday in favor of the decision to enter into talks aimed at finding a Coalition Deal that is my task to get a majority and others are trying to get a majority for their positions that is how a Democratic Party works up in a lot of it will call fission power to get more on this from his funny across is a Political Science that burdens humble to University Welcome to g. W. German politics gets interesting as a novelty lets talk about sundays vote and its importance will start first of all with its importance for germany yes obviously its very important because you know right now we only have a caretaker government right and if this vote will fail then well probably have to face new elections would be which would be a no win for germany dismounting shelter of the numbers i think its going to be a close race but i think in the end the Party Congress should approve to start negotiations for a call forming a Coalition Government now you see so you think that on balance its likely to be yes the the big problem as far as we can tell. Is likely to be the youth wing that leader kevin kuhn that thinks the chancellor should form a minority government lets listen to him speak thats what if im going to market it means Anglo American would have to secure majorities from case to case. She shies away from that because its not her political style that i can understand that on a human level but