Do Reports Of WH Chaos Distract From The Real Issues?
GORANI: Many people who dislike Donald Trump will see the claims in Bob Woodward's book "Fear" as yet more proof that the president is just simply unfit to serve in the role he holds. But if you take away the chaos depicted in books like Woodward's, many big concerns remain, like, how the administration, as a whole, is handling the real day to day issues on both the domestic and international fronts? For those who criticize the president and believe the problems stem from him, and possibly him alone as an individual, are they missing the point? Let's discuss this with assistant professor of global politics at the University College London, Brian Klaas. Thanks for being with us. You on your Twitter account are very, very critical of the president. You get thousands and thousands of retweets and favorites. But if you look at the wider picture, ideologically speaking, all the people around him are very much aligned with President Trump, they just don't do and say the thing that cause outrage in the same way the president does.</s>BRIAN KLAAS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF GLOBAL POLITICS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: That's right. So there is a Venn diagram that exists between traditional Republican values and Donald Trump. And in the middle of that is something like health care policy and tax policy. So I would expect that if there were a change of leadership in the White House, if Trump were to lose power, those things would continue. But there's a lot of very much -- not overlap in areas like trade and international security that are very different where, for example, NAFTA and NATO. Pence would be different on these. He believes in multilateral trade, he believes in multilateral alliances and security agreements. And also, I think this is the most important point, is that Trump is different because he's a threat to norms and institutions. The way that he lashes out at the press, at political institutions that are the pillars of American --</s>GORANI: Isn't that a reflection of ideologically of the people closest to him? I mean, if you -- think about it. John Kelly, long before he was chief of staff was in favor of things like child separation. I mean, you had others, for instance, Mike Pence and his stance on certain issues deemed homophobic. Jeff Sessions as well on certain issues, ideologically aligned with the president certainly domestically, right?</s>KLAAS: Yes. On a lot of issues, they are, in terms of policy. The difference is how aggressively they do these things. You would not have a Vice President Pence who would be regularly tweeting about how the press is the enemy of the people or --</s>GORANI: Is it just the tweeting then? Is it just how aggressive? Is it just because he's considered unfit in his behavior?</s>KLAAS: But the tweeting is a reflection of policy, too. I mean, the administration is proceeding along the tweets as though they are official presidential statements. So when the president says, as he did three days ago, for example, that it's a shame that Jeff Sessions is prosecuting Republicans because they're Republicans for corruption charges. That actually has a knock-on effect, the chilling effect where people in the Department of Justice and in law enforcement are getting orders on Twitter from the president to basically protect his political allies.</s>GORANI: Do you think things would be different if Mike Pence were president?</s>KLAAS: I think it'd be different in terms of norms, I think it'd be different in terms of international trade and international security which are very important, right? These are major issues for the economy and for national security.</s>GORANI: But what about these very important policy announcements that you say are made on Twitter? We're talking immigration, trade, North Korea, the fact that Nikki Haley said at the United Nations -- and it barely registered on the radar in the United States, that essentially as long as Assad doesn't use chemical weapons, you're free to go ahead and carpet-bomb Idlib. We're fine with it. Is the focus on Trump, the individual and the outrageous behavior he sometimes exhibits, taking away from serious journalistic coverage of policy?</s>KLAAS: Yes, in a word, yes. And I think that there's also a question about Mike Pence himself in a sense that because Trump was such a circus act during the campaign itself, he wasn't vetted the same way that a normal vice president would be vetted. Most Americans don't know the things you are talking about, with his homophobia in the past. Well, for example in 2000, how he said that smoking doesn't cause cancer in an op-ed. That was never part of the conversation in a way that previous vice presidential candidates have been vetted because Trump was a show. And so I think it is a distraction in some ways from the policy --</s>GORANI: Is that a mistake?</s>KLAAS: No. I think we have to be good enough to be able to do both tracks. It is dangerous that Trump is a reckless impulsive individual who makes policy by tweet -- it is also dangerous that the policy themselves are not getting enough scrutiny. But we have to rise to this occasion and be able answer both challenges at the same time. We cannot simply say, let's just -- let's disregard the insanity unfolding on Twitter or let's just regard these policies that are potentially very dangerous.</s>GORANI: Would you consider yourself part of the #resistance?</s>KLAAS: No. I think -- the way I always describe my --</s>GORANI: Because on Twitter, you are very much --</s>KLAAS: I'm extremely anti-Trump. And I'm very critical of him. But I say that I am a non-partisan 2015 American because what I am arguing are things that were uncontroversial two or three years ago. I believe in a free press. I believe that people should not be scapegoated because of the color of their skin. I believe that religious minorities should be treated with respect. I believe that you should not make policy impulsively, you should make it based on evidence and reason. Those things are now partisan. But that doesn't make me partisan. It simply makes me anti-Trump because he's disrespecting those basic principles that used to be foundational principles for both parties in the United States.</s>GORANI: But at the same time, Donald Trump is a natural outcome of many, many years, whether the White House was in democratic or in Republican hands, right?</s>KLAAS: He is. And I think one thing that's very clear is that for a lot of people who support Trump, he will never be more guilty in their eyes than the system he's attacking. And that's one of the reasons why his base is so solid. So there is something that is good about Trump and that he's producing a wakeup call in politics that people have been ignored for a long time. There are these -- the sort of under the surface anger, there's also a lot of under the surface racism that he's tapped in to. But in the end, I think that that positive story is absolutely swamped by all the negative stories in terms of his impulsivity, his recklessness, the corruption around him, and all these other stories.</s>GORANI: Let me ask you about Steve Bannon invited and disinvited by the New Yorker. A lot of people, even really Trump opponents said that was a huge own goal. Because -- OK. You invited him but then when you invite him, don't disinvite him. You're basically telling his base, you know, we're snowflakes, we can't handle it. It should be a free exchange of ideas and you've turned it into a platform for people who are an echo chamber for the same liberal ideas.</s>KLAAS: Yes. So I think this is a question where obviously it was mishandled, to invite and disinvite was a mistake. The question is whether he should have been invited in the first place and that's a much trickier question.</s>GORANI: The Economist thinks that he should be.</s>KLAAS: I think that Steve Bannon, when he was part of the administration, was a legitimate newsmaker. He's no longer part of the White House. We know that his views are bigoted. And at some point, you have to say, do we want to make that be the platform that we promote to a lot of other people? He is not a run-of-the-mill conservative. So people trying to say that this is censoring conservative viewpoints are incorrect. His views are much more incendiary, the mainstream conservatives and he is effectively peddled white nationalism on Breitbart for a very long time and had headlines -- he printed headlines when he was a publisher of things like, would you rather my child had feminism or cancer? That is not a normal viewpoint or a normal headline for a conservative publication.</s>GORANI: He won't be at the New Yorker but he will be at the Economist festival. Thanks very much, Brian Klaas. Always appreciate your time. Thanks for watching tonight. I'm Hala Gorani. "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is next.