jean noel barrot, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. how surprised were you by emmanuel macron s pretty extraordinary decision to call a snap election? well, obviously i was surprised, because it s a very unique way to take a democratic decision, when the political situation in a given country is so severe that it basically limits the ability of the country to act for itself. there are very few leaders in this world that would take such a democratic decision in the face of such important choices. such a democratic decision, you say. many french people, including people very close to emmanuel macron, would call it an almost crazy gamble. no, a majority of french people support this decision. and the reason is simple you re never wrong when you hand the power to the people. and with a situation where the majority was too thin to be able to reform in a political situation where, after the european elections or during the european elections, french citizens expressed some anger,
jean noel barrot, welcome to hardtalk. thank you. how surprised were you by emmanuel macron s pretty extraordinary decision to call a snap election? well, obviously i was surprised, because it s a very unique way to take a democratic decision, when the political situation in a given country is so severe that it basically limits the ability of the country to act for itself. there are very few leaders in this world that would take such a democratic decision in the face of such important choices. such a democratic decision, you say. many french people, including people very close to emmanuel macron, would call it an almost crazy gamble. no, a majority of french people support this decision. and the reason is simple you re never wrong when you hand the power to the people. and with a situation where the majority was too thin to be able to reform in a political situation where, after the european elections or during the european elections, french citizens expressed some anger,
interesting to see how it develops over the next month or so with some controversial views. and nikki haley was really quite strong. right, and i think tim scott a little more subdued but still when i look at the washington post poll a lot of a lot of republican vote reverse still open to him. those four seem to be the go forward candidates to me. neil: interesting, noel some early sentiment reflects what mark said i had one guest earlier who said ron desantis secures his number one spot for being number two, and i wonder what you make of that. well, with respect to [silence] concept to ramaswamy like a tongue tie on this one, but with vivek what i am noticing is he s not criticizing donald trump.
that they re playing. it s a con game. it s at the highest level. we re talking about the united states supreme court. this can go on forever. i can pick five other people. at a certain point people are going to say no, thank you. this is the most coveted job probably in the world. and you know what? i would honestly say, because i interviewed great people for this job, he s great. but i interviewed other great people for this job. i could conceivably imagine going to one of them and saying, it s too bad what happened to this wonderful man, but i m going to choose you number two. i want you to go. and i could conceivably be turned down by somebody that desperately wanted this job two months ago. with respect to, sir this is beyond supreme court. there s nothing beyond supreme court, this is beyond supreme
president, the russians hacked our election and interfered. no one disputes this now but you. this is what s called a fact. during our hearing, mr. president, there is no evidence that mr. obama tapped your phones. this is what is called fiction. you have long been a supporter. you often defend the president on this network. what do you say in response to adam schiff, though? i would agree that there s no evidence that there was any tapping of mr. trump s phones. but the truth is also there s no evidence of any collusion between the trump campaign and russians or any knowledge. there s no facts of any knowledge of what the russians were doing with respect to, quote, trying to influence the election. so, i mean, you make the claim that this is wiretapping is baseless. i would agree with that. there doesn t seem to be any evidence. but there also doesn t seem to be any evidence that there s collusion or knowledge of aren t they really separate issues, senator?