How does it feel to have your legacy systematically demolished by President Trump . Obama Foreign Policy advisor ben rhodes takes us inside the obama situation room and tells us all. Finally, welcome. Well bring you the best of ten years of gps but first heres my take. With their successes this week in the california primaries, democrats are increasingly optimistic about their prospects for the midterm elections, but they should take note of the Bigger Picture when it comes to left right politics these days. Over the last decade the center left has been destroyed electorally across the west. Unless democrats face up to this reality and devise a strategy to reverse this tidal wave of defeat, they might find themselves surprised one more time this november. When you tally up their numbers, they have almost the lowest representation in about 100 years according to political scientists, but they are not alone. Brittains band opened that a year before the labor party had received its second worst electoral result in a century in germany in 2009 the once dominant social democrats had their worst showing since the federal republic was created in 1949. Things have changed a bit since 2011, though mostly for the worst. In france for the establishment left recent results have been worse than at any time since 1969. The situation is even more puzzling when you consider the backdrop. Ten years after the start of the worst economic recession since the great recession, a Global Financial crisis caused in large part by the recklessness of the private sector, the parties that have been punished are largely on the left and those rewarded are largely on the right. Why . To answer this, a group of scholars published an excellent book last fall titled why the left loses. Sherry bernard points to some answers. One is the nature of the Economic Issues with large work forces, regulated economies and safety nets. This market economy was largely created by the left, thus, berman argues, when the whole system found it threatened by globalization and Information Technology and cracked by the financial crisis, it was the left that found itself most at a loss as to how to respond politically. Left has damaged themselves further in my view by immediately turning on themselves by many of them claiming they never should have embraced turning on the market itself. The free traders such as bill clinton, tony blaire, Gerhardt Schroeder won election after election after election. It is their left wing successions that is there. Here the left confronts its greatest challenge. Throughout the World Politics has shifted from poor issues of economics to those of identity. Perhaps this is because of the rise of a mass middle class. Perhaps it is because the left and right do not have dramatically different programs certainly compared with 50 years ago when many on the left wanted to Nationalize Industries and many on the right wanted no social safety net at all, but for whatever reason, people today are moved by issues of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, identity. On those issues the left faces a dilem dilemma. It cannot celebrate identity and diversity without triggering a backlash of the older, whiter population. Berman summed it up it to me in a conversation. The left has always been about a hopeful version of the future, one in which everyone pros percent, but when a large part of the public is fearful and pessimistic and nostalgic for a world gone by, offering hope is a hard sell. Go to cnn. Com fareed and read my column for more. For now, lets get started. The g7 meeting between america and its closest allies has historically been congenial and predictable. All of that has gone out the before this weekends meeting in quebec, trump was complaining about the unfairness of allys trade policies but the club came out after the meeting. Trump tweeted that america would not endorse the traditional statement because of the quote, unquote, false statements by justin. He was referring of course to Prime Minister trudeau of canada. Very dishonest and weak. What in the world is going on . Joining me now is tony blinken, former deputy of state, Deputy National security adviser in the Obama Administration and cnn Global Affairs analyst. Tony, i think we can both agree, weve never seen anything like this, the United States refusing to sign a joint declaration with the closest allies, insulting the canadian Prime Minister. I want to get to the substance. Does trump have a point that there is a systematic set of predatory practices that europeans have enacted . In other words, have they taken ntage ofrica on trade . You know, fareed, he has a point on specific products and industries, but starting a trade war with our closest allies is not the way to make that point and to make it effectively. Hes now started a race to the bottom and far from retreating, our allies threatened to retaliate. If you are making pork, harley david sons, orange juice, peanut butter, youre going to have a tariff slapped on your product. The Business Roundtable said this is a profound mistake, that in terms of prices for consumers here in the u. S. , our own ability to export and Economic Growth all endangered by a tariff war the president started. Heres the irony. Overall, fareed, in terms of taxes, the United States, e. U. , canada, very low, under 2 . There are specific products that get high tariffs. The president is right about milk products being sold to canada just like the canadians are upset that we slap a 300 tariff on tobacco. The Transpacific Partnership resolved the milk issue with canada. That would be a way to do it. Starting a war with your best friends, not the right way. Its important that people understand, these trade deals are complex packages. You can always then point to one area where you feel you got shafted, you know, you got something else. For example, the United States sells its Services Everywhere and often other countries resent the fact that we get that special treatment so everyones making some concessions in return for some reciprocal concessions on the other side. Thats exactly right. Thats the tragedy of having thrown out the Transpacific Partnership. There was an opportunity to resolve some of the outstanding issues. For everyone to succeed, to have a winwin. Now were heading back to a zero sum world again with our closest partners. Let me ask you about a specific charge President Trump also made which struck me as an odd one. He said that if he had been president , he doesnt think russia would have gotten away with an exit in crimea and invading ukraine. You were deputy secretary of state at the time. In effect hes blaming obama for the russian annexation of crimea. Whats your response . When he gets out of play on something he blames someone else, including president obama. After the russians annexed crimea and went into eastern ukraine, president obama led the world pulling together a coalition, bringing the europeans together often the toughest sanctions on russia, beefing up nato right along sides natos boarder, working on energy security. Now when President Trump talks about letting russia back in, thats amazing. Theyve doubled down. Theyve medaled in our elections, exporting corruption everyplace. Theyre not a responsib actor. They were originally, of course, brought into the g8 to make it a g8 on the premise that they would be a responsible actor. They were kicked out when they didnt become one. Now its only gotten worse. The president , fareed, is doing putins bidding for him. Were talking about collusion. What worries me is the collusion is now, whether intended or not. Which is to say whether its tearing down our own institutions or our own alliances, President Trump is doing everything that mr. Putin would want him to do. Dont go away, tony. When we come back, i want to talk about tuesdays big summit in singapore. What can we expect . Well be joined by a couple others when we come back. E beste if youre at outback. Introducing the aussie 4course, starting at 15. 99. But hurry, aussie 4course wont last long and try our everyday lunch combos, starting at 7. 99. Allow you to take advantage of growth opportunities. With a level of protection in down markets. So you can be less concerned about your retirement savings. Talk with your advbout shield annuities from Brighthouse Financial established by metlife. Come fly with me, lets fly, lets fly away. If you have a garden, you know. Weeds are lowdown little scoundrels. Draw the line with roundup. The sure shot wand extends with a protective shield and target weeds more precisely, right down to the root. Roundup. Trusted for over 40 years. Most people come to la with big dreams. We came with big appetites. With expedia, you could book a flight, hotel, car, and activity all in one place. President trump and north Koreas Kim Jongun have both arrived in singapore for their tuesday summit. Trump has said he will know within the first minute whether the summit will be a success. When will we know . Back with me is tony blinken and here in new york susan carey joins us. She is a senior career analyst with the cia and elise hue is the bureau chief. Elise, what is your sense of whats going on there . Usually these summits with heads of state are pretty choreographed. This is the opposite, fareed. In fact, i was talking to one diplomatic source from u. S. Nbc seoul who was saying they have somewhere between a dozen to 15 different contingency plans because typically these heads of state summit or even you know working level summits are a lot more choreographed, down to the number of steps it takes to get to a podium, but in this case there are so many different possible ways it could go because not only was it on and was it off but now you have the president saying that he could be walking out of it if he doesnt get a good deal. And so this is definitely unprecedented already because its so historic for the u. S. President and a north Korean Leader to meet, but its also unprecedented in how improvised its going to be. Terry, when you look at this, weve talked a lot about what trump wants. What is it that you think the North Koreans, what are they looking for . What have they gotten already . Well, what they want is International Acceptance on north korea as a Nuclear Weapons state. They want a little bit of respect and want to be treated like a normal country. He wants to be a normal leader of a normal country and one thats equal to the United States. I think hes already gotten that. Look at all of this publicity. Hes like the hottest guy on the planet right now. Everyone is looking at him. Hes being treated like a normal leader, right . So hes already gotten that. What do you think the north korean strategy here is going to be . You have said on this show many times you dont think theyre going to give up all their Nuclear Weapons. They must have processed through. Theyve been very strategic so far. What do you think theyre going to do . An agreement where they say we will denuclearize. They could go for a peace treaty. They might even give something up front like its going to look really good, look like north korea is turning a new leaf, ballistic missiles, a new facility and get out and buy time and wait out the administration. This is a couple years game, even 1994 reframework. We didnt know it has failed until 2002 when we found out that north korea was cheating on the agreement by purchasing a uranium enrichment program. North korea agrees, that isnt the hard part. Hard part is implementation and verification. Tony, that seems to be a very big point. 1994 they signed a deal with the Clinton Administration. They agreed to denuclearize. It was 2002 that we found out, six years later, that they were cheating. It feels to me like thats a real danger. When you helped negotiate the iran deal, arent those kinds of checks, cameras, inspections, thats the heart of the process . Fareed, thats exactly right. The president to some extent has already hoisted on his own hyperbo hyperbole. He tore down the iran deal, every conceivable adjective. Now can he meet the same standard with north korea. Can he get them up front as iran did to dismantle virtually the entirety of its program. Can he get the most intrusive verification and Monitoring System in north korea as we did with iran . Look, we should all want the president to succeed. Its great that hes pursuing diplomacy. Sumi is right, he has such a strong need to make this a success. If he doesnt do it on the substance and merits, were going to be right back where weve been. In 2005 the North Koreansdenucl again in 2012 and they didnt follow through. They are masters at string, ring, walk. String out negotiations, ring out the sanctions and walk. We wont know whether this succeeds for many, many months if not years. Tony, one quick thought on the psychology. Youve seen president s operate up close. You were in the Clinton Administration as well. There must be an additional temptation to have the summit succeed because hes just come out of one which sort of failed. On the heels of the g7 summit in disarray, with the United States at odds with its closest allies, you cant have a second summit fail. Yeah, that would be, i think, for the president disastrous. That is going to further tempt him to declare success. For example, the more he hypes the success of the meeting with kim, the more it says to china, go ahead, lift economic pressure. After all, the North Koreans are doing the same. It keeps them at the table and focused on doing something concrete. The real problem, fareed, when you step back. Weve demonstrated at the g7 that America First is america alone. That means its harder to put pressure and to confront common challenges together whether its russia, china, or for that matter north korea. Confidence in Global Leadership has gone through the floor. Its down 20 points. Hopefully again the president can make a turn here. This is an important moment. If he can make something of it, keep the focus on, do the work necessary, it would be a very good thing. Sumi terry, when you look at the North Koreans again, how do you think theyll react if President Trump does what he claims hes going to do, which is bring up the issue of human rights in north korea, the abductees, policy randomly kidnapping japanese individuals. Im struck by iran. He was scathing about the iranian governments repression. Theyre an open society compared to north korea which really is a kind of, you know, perhaps the most repressive regime in the world. North koreans are not going to react well. I think kim jongun is very sensitive about human rights issue. This is a guy thats been declared by the united nations. They have a 400 page report saying this is a guy who commits time against humanity. This is a guy who runs ghoulags in the country. He might bring it up, an abduction issue as a favor to his friend Prime Minister abe. I dont think hes going to respond too positively pulled off without a hitch. The one country we havent spent a lot of time on is china, which is north koreas main patron. 90 of the energy for north korea comes from china. 50 of the food. The danger here is if theres some kind of declaration of victory, the chinese can say because theyve never really wanted to put as much pressure on north korea as the rest of the world has. They can say, hey, we can ease up and we can have better relations again. The reality is the chinese are already easing up. After xi jinping met with President Trump the first time, weve seen reports sanctions are not being implemented or being loosened up. We know north korean sea ports are showing up on the other side of the border. Political will to implement sanctions has already weakened. Kim jongun is already in a better position today than he was last november or december. Political will isnt there anymore. Its going to be also we cant go back to talking about preventive strike. After all of this diplomacy. Thats why im saying kim jongun is already in a good place right now. With all of the squabbling with the allies, it would become harder to reinforce or tighten sanctions. Lets put it this way, Justin Trudeau is not going to look timely on this one. The president s chief Economic Advisor said he stabbed the president in the back. Again, language and imagery ive never heard. We will be back in a moment with a preview of my brandnew documentary on north korea. The two faces of kim jongun premiers tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern pacific. We will give you an exclusive sneak peek when we come back. Is that small . When you own your own thing, its huge. Your partnerships, even bigger. With Dell Small Business Technology Advisors youll get the oneonone partnership you need to grow your business. Because the only one who decides how big your business can be, is you. The dell vostro 15 laptop, with 7th gen intel® core™ processors. I had a very minor fender bender tonight in an unreasonably narrow fast food drive thru lane. But what a powerful life lesson. And dont worry i have everything hand