y isis. is there merit to that argument that when, look, when it comes to these issues that both countries care about, they need to focus on working together instead of what divides them? the united states and philippines have been long-time allies and friends. the united states is treaty bound to defend the philippines should the philippines be attacked. and the philippines is the single largest recipient of u.s. aid in eastern asia. what does that spell out? that means the united states, the united states government has tremendous leverage over in the philippines. and historically speaking, former u.s. presidents have used that power and influence to promote human rights and due process. that is not what president trump did during his meeting with president duterte. very quickly before i let you go, joanne, it was not just the bringing up the human rights abuses, it was the optics. and i think some of the language that was used, the fact that
paraphrasing, you are the light of my life, half of my heart. that happened. and you also got the president, not talking about human rights publicly, but instead in this meeting between the two, talking about isis, illegal drugs, trade, the white house says human rights briefly came up. the filipino government said it didn t come up at all. there are those who wish the president had taken this moment on the world stage to say something more declarative when it came to the human rights abuses here in this country. so lots to watch as the trip winds down and the president gets ready to head back home, hinting at a major trade announcement on wednesday, by the way. that will keep you busy back in d.c. we ll be ready for that, hallie, as you come back home. that was the big question surrounding the meeting with duterte, would he bring up the issue of human rights? fantastic reporting all of last week, this weekend and today. thank you for your work, appreciate it. i m joined by joanne
joanne lynn, thank you for helping us understand a very complex situation. we really appreciate it. and now i want to turn to ed mcmullen and my panel, of course. we have tamara keith of npr. thank you so much for being here. evan hill as well. evan, let me start with you. we saw similarly eyebrow raising optics when the president s billion-aside with russia s president vladimir putin. the white house said, look, the president did bring up the issue of meddling in the 2016 race and the president initially said, putin said he didn t do it, i believe him. time to move on. time to move on and work on these issues where we have common ground. i want to play a little bit of what former vice president biden had to say and get your reaction to it on the other side. i don t think many objective person should believe putin on that score. when i said that to putin, his response to me was we understand one another. it wasn t meant that, i want to make it clear to him that i
killings or they are hiring paid assassins. and the victims of the killings are overwhelmingly the poor. and they include children who are bystanders to the shootings. these are people living in the most impoverished areas of the philippines. it s a tremendous lost opportunity that president trump failed to raise this critical human rights issue. with rodrigo duterte himself, he hasn t denied and, in fact, boasted about the killings that even he personally claims to have done. and he s promised to pardon philippines national police who have committed or overseen these killings. so this was a terrible time for human rights protection, due process and the rule of law. joanne, the white house would probably make the case that, look, the president needs duterte to work with issues like fighting irs cyst.