Page 329 - Robin Wright News Today

Correspondent, who is monitoring president trumps trip to the middle east as well as the iranian elections. >> thank you. >> again, ill be back in a bit, but jim, what is the latest? >> we are awaiting the first big moment of the presidents trip. he is set to deliver any moment now a speech about islam. and this is not just any american president speaking on islam, this is the president who told anderson cooper during the campaign that he thought islam hated america. he will do so in saudi arabi...

A few minutes of comments before president trump speaks. when president trump speaks, were going to go right to him. robin wright, as you -- again, im struck just by the vision here of the saudi leader, the american leader there, seated in what look like thrones. of course the saudi people are used to this kind of pomp and circumstance, but the separation between this scene and what are the number one concerns of people, whether its the saudi street or the iranian street or elsewhere in the regi...

My colleague at the "new yorker" robin wright has a story today about how tens of thousands of people across the middle east dont have electricity, major cities have blackouts, go for 12 hour periods where they dont have electricity. these are regimes and governments and economies most importantly that are not functioning. so selling a bunch of weapons to saudi arabia on top of the weapons president obama already sold doesnt improve the lives of average people in the region. isis uses that frust...

With us. or we dont go. and that pledge means the world to any one of us. and so to see that code being broken shocked me into action. >> to find out more about his story, go to cnn heroes.com. moments from now president trump will depart on his first overseas trip of his presidency and it is an ambitious schedule for any president. trump is visiting five countries in eight or nine days. one white house official saying this trip is do or die. president trump prepping for the days ahead tweetin...

Number of troops to fight in afghanistan as the taliban is resurgent. >> michael, i think i saw something some morning. nine days, hes tacking five countries, two cores and major alliances. what could go wrong? what do you think is the most important stop? >> to quote robin, trying to get out of his twitter war with the pope. who would have thought it would have come to this. robin laid out a good agenda. i would settle for something more modest at this point. i would settle for a generally mist...

Theres a clamp down in egypt. it was frankly problematic for me in the obama administration in regard to egypt in particular. and of course were sort of stuck in how were approaching the syrian conflict where we still claim we want assad to leave power at one level or at least we havent replaced that previous policy but its entirely unrealistic at another level, in the short term anyway. so i think hell probably give a speech thats okay to sto. >> a lot of opportunities for all of us to see how ...

Guys, with the time we have left, what is the most important thing, robin, that you are watching for on this very big trip? >> well, i think a number of thing. first of all, were trying to see what hes going to do in creating a new coalition, the so-called nato version in the arab world to do a number of things. to confront iran and create a new kind of regional coalition that is active in providing its own security rather than always relying on the united states. in isreal well see if hes going...

Questions that play out among our allies as well as in washington. >> does this mean that other world leaders would know about these contacts and the nature of them, robin? >> absolutely. you have to believe that whether its angela merkel in germany or theresa may in britain, that a lot of them know exactly what their intelligence agencies picked up and what may have been happening, what interference the russians have engaged in when it came to the united states. and i think this is, you know, w...

Get at this stuff. but i think it does raise a bigger issue that i bet you many americans and people around the world who watch this program, you know, were reminded of. 16 years after 9/11, we are still fighting a war in afghanistan. the longest war in american history. 8,000 or 9,000 american troops. >> is that why general hertling was so offended by president trump saying weve done more in eight weeks than in eight years? >> i this i so. you can drop a lot of these bombs. what is the politica...

>> robin, some of this came from the british, youll recall, that the president created a diplomatic incident when he claimed that the british had tapped his phones in trump tower, at the former president barack obamas request. they say this communication was picked up during incidental collection during routine surveillance of known russian targets. thats different. just as it happened with the u.s. thats different, right? >> absolutely. and the deniability of the evidence becomes ever harder. t...