revolutionizes feelings of procedures and distractions extensive record system laying the foundations. metropolis of crime. starts january twenty ninth. t w. hello welcome to quadriga coming to you from the heart of the world and the focus this week is on u.s. president donald trump who has now been in the white house for two years and we're marking that anniversary by taking a closer look at trump's america the economy continues to hold up but the country is deeply divided as is clear from the longest government shutdown in u.s. history and foreign policy meanwhile the u.s. has pulled out of a number of key international agreements and

a recent surprise announcement that washington plans to withdraw american forces from syria left many commentators asking who will step into the breach so our question on quadriga this week is two years of trump what next from the wrecking ball and to discuss that question i'm joined by three astute observations here in the studio beginning with grace doughboys who's an american freelance journalist and an editor at the business daily hundreds but she says trump has brought out some very comes true colors interesting stuff also with us is matthew carney chief europe correspondent with politico he says trump may be the president everybody loves to hate what's harder to acknowledge though is that his impact hasn't been all bad. and a warm welcome to developing her and her valerie has a trance atlantic background to work for spiegel online and she argues that donald trump is divided not only the new. but also the world america's allies no longer

regard the u.s. and you will liable partner very interesting comments to begin the show i'd like to begin with yours grace your son you say that president trump has brought out americans true colors one of the true colors of the american people i'm fascinated to find. i think we've had in the last few decades this increasing difficulty in discussing items of importance with each other with discussing issues in a way that is start for and trump has just exacerbated that to decree that we've not seen in recent history i think that there are a lot of discussions happening right now regarding basic human rights that would have been inexplicable. even five years ago just an example of one of the human rights you're talking to have that is in contention. oh my goodness how many can do this i mean aside from the right of people to seek asylum in the united states

being called into question the backpedaling on rights for l.g.b. t. people. the discussions and the. not civil wars but the very impassioned discussions happening about police brutality and treatment of black and brown people in america all of these things. they've been boiling under the surface for a long time and trump has now gotten them to a point where it's all coming to the surface and freedom of press absolutely yes. never the most violent or you mention that some we've heard were great seems to center your president trump gives himself an a plus rating for his first two years in office water. well that's that's a hard question. in my opinion he hasn't gotten much right i mean i feel like he has divided the nation so far that really between between americas

trump america and america liberal america is just such a vast ground that i don't really see how people are going to cover that people are going to get back to a point where they can talk to each other way where respectfully they can acknowledge that they have different points of view and that's ok so i feel like he hasn't done much right in sense of that. i'm sorry i can't give you any good news here matthew if we're going to break. you so the president trying to impart hasn't been. well i think it depends what you you know measure measure him by. you know certainly in the foreign policy sphere if you look at what he set out to do and what he's doing on the economy i think a lot of people look at him and they were against the policies that he campaigned on to begin with and so by that yardstick if you will of course you'll be against him and you'll say that you know these aren't good things but if you look at what

he promised during the campaign things like pulling out of the paris climate deal things like pulling out of the iran nuclear deal things like pulling out of the middle east which he hasn't really done yet but he's threatened to in the process of these are all things that you know that he's doing and this is why you know his supporters elected him to be president so i think it's a you know support to differentiate between one's own views of his policies and what he promised to do and he certainly is feeling that i would challenge grace a little bit on this idea that he's you know divided the country more than it was because the country was pretty divided even before he got elected certainly you know obama was somebody who also divided the country were by the end of his presidency it was much more divided than before and a lot of these issues that are coming up the racial tensions stuff like this you know these have been sort of confidence in american history you know really since the since the civil war you know as you might remember things like the rodney king

uprising or the uprising in and riots in los angeles after the rodney king beating in the early ninety's and things like this these are things that have always happened but now it does seem that there is an acceleration and maybe also because of social media and a lot of these technological changes that we've seen the reaction is much quicker and much more forceful as we saw over the weekend for example with. this protest by a native american in washington d.c. and this standoff between him and these white college students and that was just a high school student sorry this is just an explosive reaction of people responding to something that they didn't really you know the facts hadn't really come out about what happened leading up to that everything here and they were wearing trying to make america great again hats and so this is all sort of you know put on trump again which i think might be a little bit unfair but i mean legislation wise we didn't see anything like the muslim travel ban i mean that's something that is poured into legislation so i

think it is a difference that the president thought of. enhancing these discussions amplifying all of these in the. sea a lot of the years he promised to do sorry it is something that he said he would do during during the campaign but he said he would enhance or amplify or enable racial tension i mean ben ben muslims from coming into ok but i'm sure for his reaction to charlottesville i mean that was one of the most disturbing things i think i've ever witnessed in politics like well you know what i mean the idea that there were bad guys i. pretty clear attack yeah ok let's hear just a little bit matthew about what you have got to say about president trump's method because it often seems sort of to be pretty destructive is that it's his and has he made it his mission to destroy pretty much everything that remains of president obama in the liberal sort of heritage its certainly seem so and he's he said as

much he wants to reverse everything that obama did and he's said about it really there's method in their areas and it's a neat kind of project destroys the destroy a lot of stuff to rebuild he ran as a change agent and this is what his voters wanted of him and you know he is certainly fulfilling that including i think by shutting down the government and sort of starving the federal government of funds this is a long time you know conservative priority to basically you know make the federal government more or less able to spend money because it is too bloated already in the saddle it was so much debt the saddle the country was so much debt which he's doing through the tax cuts which is something they also campaigned on and followed through with so you know i think that there is a bit of method but behind the madness and also you know on the on the international front ok you mentioned the shutdown has brought hardship to some eight hundred thousand federal workers in the u.s. president trump is insisting though that it will go on until he gets his wall along the border with mexico. and you want to shout i know you're talking to let's start

. at the white house on december eleventh there was a very public spat in the oval office when we don't get what we want one way or the other whether it's through you through a military through anything you want to call i will shut down to go ok i'm going to and i am proud and i mean i just want to read from follow through on his threat and the democrats continue to refuse funding for troops well. again we saw a temper tantrum because he couldn't get his way and he just walked out of the meeting very. very although that way all of that narrative is the law but the fact is this that what the president is proposing is not the best way to protect our borders over the years that houses of americans have been brutally killed by those who illegally entered our country and thousands more lives will be lost if we don't act right now

. as a must stop holding a hostage manufacturing a crisis and must reopen the government for the last time can there be any winners in this battle quickly and we want to do what you know what he called for congress let's take that question straight come there be any winners in this remarkably breathtakingly ugly battle i'm not sure who's going to be the winner but there are going to be obviously a lot of casualties namely the hundreds of thousands of federal workers are going without pay as long as the shutdown continues not to mention all of the contractors who work for the government who are also out of work at the most interesting that you say that because obviously they have those people many of those eight hundred thousand people will be very tight budgets indeed and they'll be very hard pushed to this point in time trump was of course in large measure voted into office

initially by people who he calls and i'm quoting now the forgotten men and women of america he promised that they would be forgotten no longer house he delivered on that promise in any way. he has delivered on that and that he continues to speak to them and to push forward the interests no matter how misguided of people who for the past few decades have felt ignored by washington i think. has president. delivered on his promises to his own people to his own constituency is it well i think that konami place speaking with the terrorists a lot of these people in the rust belt are also are also are also they actually are not making more money and they are the steel industry is going down the farmers are making less money because of the tariff so i'm not really sure if he he konami i agree that he definitely continues to speak to them and continues to speak to a third of. accomplishment that they want to be heard that they have

accomplished whatever they think is important for their lives i do feel that they do that yes. the economy softening up a bit slowing down a little bit the shutdown is not a challenge to president trump's probably didn't his own sense that he's the right person to steward to manage the economy and to reinvigorate the economy because that's that's where the next election will probably be decided absolutely and that's why his his strategy here particularly on trade and the trade standoff with china it has yet to play out and if it plays out in his favor meaning if china actually makes concessions if the europeans make concessions then you know he will have one right now it's not looking very good because the american economy is slowing down a bit it's still growing much you know at a much stronger pace than most of the european economy is but i think that you know it's probably be a few a few months before we know where that goes but there are signs that you know he's

making progress on that front that the confrontational approach particularly with the europeans is working they've now come back to the table on the trade front and said ok we're willing to talk about this and this and this and you know i wouldn't be surprised if you see in the coming weeks some kind of agreement on on cars between the europeans and the u.s. so you know at the moment it's certainly the case that the chinese are so. offering more. than the americans on the from from the from the terrorists i would like to point out though that this week a white house economist said that the shutdown likely will drive the growth of g.d.p. this quarter to zero percent. which. is maybe even our optimistic number. depending on how much longer the shutdown continues it's already cost more it's the cost the economy more than the wall it would cost and i heard that some republican senators are openly thinking out against the top down and also

that they think if the existential question and if they do i mean i think they have to rally behind him. what to do in deciding what well in deciding the fate of the republican party if they go against the president there and then they have all rallied behind him and tied their fate to him for better or for worse and so i feel like they have to sort of rally behind him even though i'm not sure how much mcconnell really feels about the shutdown and i'm not sure how out a lot of senators are viewing this though i think and i mean he went and the like just recently and that's a clear sign that he has afraid that they're not going to they're not going to vote in his favor so that at some point i'm speaking up on how likely it is clearly brutally close to increasingly and the donald trump and his policies have triggered a progressive renascence in the united states. of progressive forces is that true

do you think plausible or is it wishful thinking on the part of the sort of the liberal left i think it's mobilized a lot of young people who may be were indifferent or just mildly interested in politics before i think that this resistance movement sprung up in the months following term selection has legs it was mobilized how selection. last november not as strongly as people would have liked but i think we saw aspects of that and the question now is whether democrats will be able to continue that holding that interest and continue. channeling that anger into elections in two thousand and twenty especially if they have something like sanders versus clinton i think that was the big part of why people stopped rallying behind one candidate like friends of mine i know that decided to not vote for clinton which i think well well in my opinion that with well you know if there thing. though i feel like if

they find a candidate that everyone can rally behind then they really have a good chance of winning this next election but we'll see ok let's address trump's foreign policy which is undoubtedly been a roller coaster his approach to international relations described as variously mercurial or impulsive lately there's been confusion too over his of ministrations policy on syria talk of withdrawing u.s. troops has opened up a potential power vacuum and the question is who will fill it. the kurdish city of monday in northern syria one thousand people were killed in a suicide bombing here last week including four americans. so-called islamic state has claimed responsibility for that attack came less than four weeks after trump had announced the pullout of the two thousand u.s. troops from syria saying that i had been defeated and the u.s. could no longer be the world's policeman so we're not the suckers of the world.

his decision has left the field open for other parties in the conflict the russian president an ally of syria's bashar al assad was clearly pleased. if the us decided to withdraw its forces that's correct. and turkey's president also sees his chances of launching an offensive against the kurds in northern syria improving. there soon is a. part of the terror corridor in syria will receive the necessary lesson. there is no difference between the p.k. k y p g p y d and beautified. the united states has been a guarantor of security and not just for the kurds what risks are posed by an american pullout. what risks indeed matthew off to this suggestion of the us could possibly pull out of syria

they've withdrawn from the nuclear part with iran the global climate to cold trade to trade pacts with asia germany has been bemoaning about spain talking about a giant vacuum left by the collapse of american leadership. of the giant well i don't really see the giant vacuum to be honest i mean you know the united states is still here they still have i think about forty thousand troops stationed in germany and for the past seventy years the united states is guaranteed the security of this country and continues to do so it has been a pretty good. deal for germany actually because they haven't had to spend that much on the military they have this security guarantee and not only that they've been able to tap the american market relatively unfettered it's a you would be difficult to look back you know there was a bit windy country that has been so worried because there was a special worriers that's was. something to worry about there's always this kind of woe is me there's been a long history of this if you look back to the one nine hundred eighty s.

when reagan wanted to station the person this is here during the cold war and all of the people that created the europeans are always worried about what the united states is going to do but when it comes down to it the united states has always been here when it mattered in world war one and world war two in the second world war in these discussions about the middle east the united states doesn't have a very large presence in syria i mean we would be pulling out very many people to begin with and i think there is a debate that you know has to happen in the united states as well how long are we going to be in the middle east because there's always an isis there's always an al-qaeda and there's always going to be this argument you know well if you pull out now then you know they're going to come back and well then you need to decide we're going to be there forever look how long the u.s. has been in afghanistan now you know it's going on twenty years which is much longer than we were in vietnam what do you say about this political ladies. well i feel like i feel like you have a point i think that the germans always always it was quite easy for them to be like oh we're past that because obviously you have the u.s. in the u.s.

army that you know should push come to shove. they they were going to step in and i think there was always that sort of security that the germans had and obviously regarding the history that's one of the reasons why no one wanted germany to have a strong military and i think. it's just the big question over how the european union is going to set up their security forces with france and germany and i think that's going to be a big debate in the next years i don't really feel but i think you're right it will be a dick to be debated in ultimately nothing will happen because they don't want to spend the money on it but america america started pulling back the world policeman under obama as well so i think this is not something we're only just seeing now groups there's a sense in germany that the u.s. job he has it in for the chance of them has to do through the e.u. do you boy. the u.s. says a home or trump specifically i'll give you a quote from mike pompei zero for example he say's that the talking about the e.u.

. you know that every reason to wonder whether the you will actually survive if you just recently came out and said the year is one of those international bodies that must be reformed or eliminated no wonder that people here in europe here in germany are moaning. about the end of trance atlantis ism and so on and so for me too to mangle a mark twain quote the death of the e.u. is greatly exaggerated i think really in this time of upheaval united states in the . the idea that there's maybe a power vacuum where the us is pulling out this is a time for the e.u. is specifically germany to step up and shine to become that beacon of liberal democracy to become a good example for the world but how can germany really become the beacon of liberal democracy i feel like america that image of that that's like that's where but we've seen now but now with the with the increased divisions and the social

strife happening i think we now see more clearly than ever the faults that come from the american system the lack of the. lack of any type of social safety net for example. there are those who suggest that vladimir putin and the americans on donald trump have the same objectives that is that that is weakening the e.u. and its member nations. i don't see why that would really be in the interest of the united states because you know the u.s. is very engaged here also economically the e.u. is a hugely important market for american business also strategically i think that you know if you look at what the u.s. is doing in europe at the moment the strategic objectives one thing is to get the russians not to build this pipeline with the germans for example north korea to so that the u.s. can sell more of its own gas to europe and this is an example i think if you look at you know all of these accusations out there of the u.s.

as against multilateralism and the germans are now a beacon of liberal democracy a multilateral civil war as multilateralism in the north stream to a discussion for example where the rest of europe is against it the united states is against it and you have germany standing up. that this go through so you know this is why you know when we started out with troops personality really offends a lot of people you know it's more about the style off and then the substance of what he's saying and doing grace to talk about style and substance in just under just to go off a little bit of a tundra but a question that is important to me i've made a little list trump breaks it both the yellow vests alben and what do they have in common. this is a riddle that sounds like i don't think anyone's going like the punchline to the joke. that i'm not i'm i'm what i'm war room wondering whether donald trump is is the beacon of populist far right political tendencies around the

world rather than america being the beacon of liberal democracy as it will as it traditionally was yeah i mean what we're seeing now in brazil seems to be an echo of the type of politics that trump has been. purveying in the united states for the past two years like trump boston r.-o. is big twitter user enjoys making inflammatory statements and speaking up for traditional values at the cost of any type of disadvantaged people. that may or may well have happened no matter who is in the american white house but it certainly seems to be a global trend. i agree i think what they have in common is that they're populist movements but they yell of us are left wing radicals and right well we don't quite know what's going on really really really know what's going on there but i do feel like that populism is on the rise than it had been for for

a couple of years i mean the honesty and i we see it all across. so i'm i'm not really sure what came first the header that ag like. but being the beacon of that but i do feel like both of our i know that has been called many or has been called you know brazil so i think that that that style is more. more acceptable to us as well and definitely has to deal with being such a big influence on everyone give me one sentence each of you what we should do what should we expect from for the next in the next two years he spoke to me. in a more i would say more unpredictability. i agree but. i'm still holding out hope for those tax returns ok we're going to get out now thanks for joining us here on quadriga this week to come back next time around to drop the show troops to.

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this is the debris of news online for less venezuela's nicolas maduro rejects u.s. led calls to step down the embattled president accusing washington of quote colonial behavior. and regimes recall the country's diplomats from the u.s. china and russia back and as does the army for now at least also coming up.