Polish Deputy Prime Minister:  Nothing Wrong with Our Democracy.
QUEST: In his final speech as U.S. Vice President, Joe Biden is warning that Russia will use cyber-attacks to influence European elections in 2017. Mr. Biden delivered a keynote address here at Davos and he warned that liberal democracy itself is under threat.</s>JOE BIDEN, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: With many countries in Europe slated to hold elections this year we should expect further attempts by Russia to meddle in the democratic process. It will occur again, I promise you. And again, the purpose is clear. To collapse the liberal international order.</s>QUEST: The Polish Deputy Prime Minister says that nothing is going wrong in Poland. And this is despite allegations of anti-democratic forces in the country. What are those? For example, the EU Commission is investigating allegations that the rule of law is not being followed. There are accusations that the Constitutional Court is being packed with loyalists and, indeed, that media laws have been changed and regulations to make it -- to put threats to the freedom of the press. The Deputy Prime Minister rejected all of this and said we are listening to our people.</s>MATEUSZ MORAWIECKI, POLISH DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: I'm absolutely convinced nothing is going wrong. We are the first in the line. The second was Brexit. The third was the referendum in Italy. The next one before the referendum in Italy was elections in the United States. I hear the same voices, similar as us now against the United States.</s>QUEST: You are cloaking yourself in this populist movement. Correct?</s>MORAWIECKI: Not populist movement. This is hearing the society.</s>QUEST: Same thing, differently expressed.</s>MORAWIECKI: No, no. Completely different. I mean, like the elites or the business establishment lives in a very different space than the 90 percent of the population. We have to take this into account.</s>QUEST: You have changed rules on the constitutional court.</s>MORAWIECKI: We have not changed the rules of the constitutional court. Our predecessors did it.</s>QUEST: You have changed rules on media ownership.</s>MORAWIECKI: We have not changed the rules of media ownership. The United States can confirm this.</s>QUEST: There are regular demonstrations in your country complaining of the changes the government has made.</s>MORAWIECKI: Ten times less populous. Ten times less participants of those demonstrations than three years ago. You have not been asking our predecessors about this. Why is that?</s>QUEST: So, we can go backwards and forwards, I say, he says, they say, we say. The reality is the perception in Brussels and outside --</s>MORAWIECKI: No.</s>QUEST: Is that Poland has taken a nationalistic turn to the right.</s>MORAWIECKI: The reality is we were listening to 90 percent of the population. It was a victory a year ago, in terms of the elections. We had to perform according to our program. We take this seriously. By the way, here in Davos, I spoke to 20 or 25 people. Nobody asked me those questions. They are not at all concerned. They are coming with investments. Lots of green field, brown field investments. Everything is very well -- everybody was well prepared for investment in Poland.</s>QUEST: Final question. Where do you see Poland's position in the EU?</s>MORAWIECKI: I think Poland will go the middle route. One extreme is the United States of Europe. Some utopian politicians believe -- we should go desegregation. We should not because it is utopia. Another fragmentation of the European Union, let's go back to protectionism and nationalist states. We want to preserve the unity of the united Europe and the Atlantic community as well. It will be the best ally of the United States for the next decades.</s>QUEST: Now that, gentlemen is not only the deputy prime minister and the finance minister of Poland joining me. Donald Trump, we have certainly seen he can move companies to change their plans to stock market up some, whatever it is since the election coming off highs. The dollar tumbled after Mr. Trump said it was too strong. He's complaining that a strong dollar is actually anti-competitive for U.S. corporations. Larry Summers is the former treasury secretary. Donald Trump's comments break with decades of tradition. He was treasury secretary under president Clinton. He had the national economic council under President Obama. Warning Donald Trump that his strategy of talking down the dollar is risky.</s>LARRY SUMMERS, FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY: I think such market commentary on the part of presidents or President-elects is very rare. And usually does regret it. I think it is best for presidents to stay out of market commentary and indeed the formulation we used when I was treasury secretary that Secretary Ruben used as treasury secretary that's generally been followed since is not a commentary on a specific market level. Rather an indication of a general principle that a strong dollar is good. The commentary is not something I would recognize as a general practice.</s>QUEST: Did you interpret what he was saying as the beginning of a change in policy designed to push the dollar down?</s>SUMMERS: I wouldn't want to jump to that conclusion. I will leave it to others to interpret the President-elect's comments. In general, I think policy is more important than rhetoric. I do have considerable concerns about the protectionist policies being embraced by the administration. What they will mean for U.S. consumers? What they will mean for the competitiveness of U.S. producers who import inputs into whatever they produce? And more generally, you know, the Mexican exchange rate has depreciated 15 percent relative to where it would otherwise be because of all of the rhetoric. That makes Mexico 15 percent cheaper relative to Ohio. It is hard to see how that will be a good thing for the U.S. economy.</s>QUEST: Larry Summers talking to me earlier. Sharp-eyed viewers will notice you see different takes on the scale of uncertainty tonight. What happened was as the week went on and it got messier and messier and we couldn't work out what anybody was saying we decided just to update it and make it clear. Transparency and clarity is everything. Talking of that Donald Trump dismissed the proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner saying it is an example of power structure and he's fighting. I will hear from the chief executive of AT&T who has since paid Mr. Trump a visit.