Q&A: A historic far-right win & are we biased against Trump?

0:00This is a global production. This is the very first time since the Nazi era. That means since World War II, that any far-right political group has won such an overwhelming victory in any German election of this kind. Populists and nationalists and nativists are good at playing on people's legitimate fears, their legitimate economic hardship, and promising that they can provide the answers. This lot also support Russia. Sorry, they do. They want Germany to stop helping Ukraine, and this is a disaster for Germany and for Europe. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Q&A episode of The X Files with me, Christiane in London,

1:01and Jamie Rubin here in Amsterdam. Just wanted to say that you've had a lovely, lovely long holiday, and I hope you're back rested after a pleasant three weeks off. Hope you're well rested. Well, thank you for that. Thank you for your concern as well. So, everybody out there, this is where we answer your questions, so we are going to get started after that slight aside. Jamie, I'm going to ask the first one. Sarah on Instagram, although I've got a lot to say about it, how worried are you by AFD, the alternative for Deutschland's historic victory in the Saxony and Halt State elections in Germany? Is this party now a genuine threat to the political mainstream? So here's the thing, Sarah on Instagram. This is the very first time since the Nazi era. That means since World War II that any far-right political group has won such an overwhelming victory

2:02in any German election of this kind. It is a state election. It's a small-ish state. It's in the former East Germany, where a lot of people feel disenfranchised, economically, socially, politically, etc. since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of their Soviet-propelled order. And they feel that they hate all the immigrants who've come in, especially under Angela Merkel in 2015. It was the immigrants we were talking in our first episode about Iraq. It was a lot of Iraqi refugees from the ongoing war and instability, a lot of Syrian refugees from the war that was going on at that time. Most have assimilated and God knows we Europeans need a workforce. But it is easy and populists and nationalists and nativists are good at playing on people's legitimate fears, their legitimate economic hardship, and promising that they can provide the answers.

3:06That it's all the fault of some nameless, faceless elite, and they are the representatives of the people and they will provide the answers. So I think it is very, very dangerous. I think it tells you a lot about Europe right now and the very difficult circumstances that Europe is in right now. What do you think, Jamie? Well, I agree with all of that. I guess I would say one thing that I'm pleased about, they didn't get a majority. They got a plurality. So it doesn't look like they're going to be able to take the government over for sure as having a majority of the seats. They get the largest number of seats. Yeah, so if the other parties behave responsibly and put a government together, and I expect there will be weeks and weeks if not months of wrangling, this government will not be run by these far right people who are questioned the Holocaust who don't just talk about immigration in a responsible way

4:08but talk about it in a monstrous way. Look, immigration is a problem. Immigration is a problem in the United States, doing it responsibly and well and carefully, allowing for legal and illegal immigration to be cracked down on to make sure you distinguish between the two is the proper role of government. And none of our governments have done a particularly good job of it. I think it's mostly an attack on government itself right now. For a lot of reasons for many, many years now, the institutions in our world, and the Western world have been discredited, whether that's the executive branch of the United States under beginning way, way back under the Nixon administration when Watergate started, whether it's the Vietnam War that made people question government in the United States or whether it's all the problems that have subsequently occurred all over the world. Yes, it's a tragedy that government is now seen as somehow run by elites, for elites, for the rich, for the powerful.

5:09When I happen to know in the cases where I've worked in government that that's not the reasons why things are done. You're not helping Ukraine because you think it's good for business. You're helping Ukraine and Europeans have been brilliant at this and their government's deserve enormous credit. The German government itself deserves enormous credit for recognizing the danger from Vladimir Putin and reversing their reluctance to build up their military. So I've always been impressed until today by Germany's ability to be recognized, the dangers and take responsibility for the Holocaust and World War II. They've done it really, really well. They've built a brilliant democracy. This is the first time I have to say I'm worried about it. How could it be that the German people are not offended, appalled, disgusted, and turn away from those who would minimize what Germany did in World War II. To me, that's the threshold question

6:12and those AFD people do that. And guess what? Not just do they, you know, is that part of it really, really, really troublesome and concerning? But this lot also support Russia. Sorry, they do. They want Germany to stop helping Ukraine and this is a disaster for Germany and for Europe. It's a real disaster. Now here's the thing before we move on to the next one. Germany has this thing and I can't say it in German, but it's this firewall. So up until now, just like the French have had, vis-à-vis the national front, that if there is a threat from one of these far-right groups or I guess far-left, but anyway far-right, they ban together to make sure they don't get into power. That's what's in question right now and whether the amount of seats AFD has won in this state will allow them to ban together if they can ban together and try to prevent it. So I think that's going to be a very, very interesting watch

7:13to watch and then obviously following what they actually do for policy, you know, in the future. Do you want to ask the next one? I do. George on Instagram. Very important question. Are we finally seeing the US engage in genuine diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine? Do you have any hope that the latest round of peace talks will lead to any progress towards ending the war? So as we are talking the famous team of Whitkopf and Kushner have visited Russia, met with Putin, visited Ukraine and met with Zelensky. That's a good thing in principle. You know, getting the two sides to talk and to realize, as I think Ukraine realizes, but Russia does not, that this war isn't going to improve the situation for anybody other than get a lot more people killed and wounded and harmed and hurt both countries. Will Vladimir Putin realize this? I mean, to me, it's one of those questions that I hate

8:16to keep saying the same thing, but until the day comes that Vladimir Putin realizes that every day that continues this war is worse for Russia than better for Russia, the war is going to go on. The Ukrainians are not keeping the war going. The Russians are keeping the war going. The Ukrainians would love to have a complete ceasefire right now and negotiate an end to the war. The Russians for the first time, and this is the one ray of hope. I think there was a sort of an informal agreement that bombings would stop and keep and Moscow over this short period of time when the two American negotiators are there. But are they the right negotiators? I kind of doubt it. These are the same people who fly around and do Iran and fly around and do Gaza and fly around and do Ukraine. They're not particularly skilled at knowing what you need to do to create a cessation of hostilities along the line of control across Ukraine. It's a very complicated issue.

9:16What do you do about sanctions? What do you do about war crimes? What do you do about money that should be paid back to the people of Ukraine? These are extraordinarily complex issues. In the Biden administration, we had teams of people looking at it. I'm not sure that Whitkopf and Kushner, the famous team are capable of making constructive suggestions right now, but it's not really them who I expect to change things. It's really going to happen when Russia, as a society, finds its way to send the message to Putin that enough is enough, that we're not going to improve our situation and it just gets worse and worse. The Ukrainians have done real damage to the Russian economy. It's starting to, we hear, affect the Russian economy and the Russian people in new ways that it hadn't before. That's more likely to bring peace than any meeting from any meeting with Kushner and Whitkopf.

10:17Yeah, and nothing positive has come out of the meetings that they've had and by the time this, as we speak, they will have arrived back in the United States. I actually do think there is a role for the president of the United States, writ large in trying to knock heads together and lay down the law and the lay of the land and explain what could good and what bad could happen depending on whether they choose peace or more war. But this president just isn't interested in that. He just has not shown any interest in it. And it is disturbing to see that this is the first time in nearly two years of this administration or a year and a half that they've even visited Kiev. They've visited Putin like eight or nine times. They've never visited Zelensky in Kiev until now. So I don't know, it's really, it's really sad.

11:17Listen to this, some CIA estimate. Russia apparently loses something like 30 to 40,000 personnel per month. So that's to injury and death. The CIA put this figure on the survivability of Russians recruited to the front. 20 to 30 minutes, not days, not hours, not weeks, 20 to 30 minutes from the moment they are deployed to the moment they take their last breath. I mean, really any other country, any other leader would realize that this is not, you know, not, not something that can continue. And don't forget, on the front line, there's almost no movement. There's almost no movement at all. It's practically, you know, frozen Putin makes almost no gains. But what they're doing is upping their terror of the population in Kiev and elsewhere. It's now gone round the clock there, tax used to be, you know, just nights and maybe not every night, but round the clock

12:19while the Ukrainians are trying to do the same to the Russians now. And the Ukrainians are out of, you know, significant anti-bolicitic weapons. In other words, defensive missiles. And it's really, really, really taking a toll on the people there. So I just hope there's some sense that can be slammed into somebody's head to just realize that there's no winning this. They've got to talk about it around a table. Right. Alan on Instagram, how significant is the foiled Russian attack at Leipzig airport and has the response been strong enough from Germany and its NATO allies? Jamie. Look, Russia is engaged in a war of nerves with Europe, not just a war of military operations with Ukraine. They're using all sorts of local mercenaries to attack kill leaders of military firms to attack

13:22population centers through drones, through interfering with aircraft. They are trying to create chaos. They call it hybrid war. They deny it, but it's pretty evident that Russia is behind it. Fortunately, so many of the Russian diplomats have been expelled from all the Western countries that it's not actually Russians themselves who are doing this. They and one of the reasons they're able to uncover these plots is because the Russians tend to use open source, kind of recruiting devices that the authorities can track to get local thugs or local idiots, useful idiots to conduct these sabotage operations. I think the responses have been pretty strong. It's always a struggle to get the response exactly right. You want to show that you're taking it seriously. You want to deter it from happening again, but you don't want to escalate the situation. Not you don't want to put Russia in a position where it

14:22feels it needs to escalate. Look, the good news is that Russia is pretty busy in Ukraine and it can't do its job in Ukraine. And one of the reasons that I'm less worried about an attack on a NATO country is because Ukraine has shown the resiliency and the defense of its country and shown that Russia's not a 10-foot tall military operation and that NATO would have even stronger equipment, whether they may not have exactly the same fighting spirit that Ukrainians developed over time. But I do believe there is deterrence. I believe it would be a crazy risk for Putin to take. And you have to worry about it, but you don't want to overdo it. I mean, people should remember the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Routus, told Europeans to be prepared for war in on the continent. And I think he's trying to show Putin that the countries of

15:24Europe are not only spending money to help Ukraine, but are getting ready themselves for what may come. And that's what you have to do if you wanted to deter Russia right now. Yeah, you do. You have to, as many people have told me, people who know Putin is former ministers and others in exile now, that and former leaders who dealt with him like former French president, former British diplomats, essentially it boils down to you have to punch him in the nose if he punches you. You have to punch him because that's all he understands. So I think in my opinion, there was quite a lot of FTSE FTSE being played with Putin trying to persuade him, trying, you know, and not doing enough at the beginning. And now he, you know, he's, he's not stopping. So we've got to see how he goes. One thing I would say, I mean, look, I hope you're right, that he wouldn't dare, nor would he be equipped to take on a big war in Europe while he's trying to survive his war in Ukraine. But, you know, former NATO military official and current president of the Czech Republic told me that, and this was

16:25months ago, that Putin would seek to test NATO, seek to, and he's doing it, right? He's, whether it's on Romania, Poland, where it is, the Baltics is doing stuff, you know, that sort of teasing. But maybe more of that, that would pretty much straddle that, you know, straddle that sort of red line over whether, have you attacked a NATO country or haven't you attacked a NATO country? And what are you going to do about it, NATO? So I think that's actually, you know, quite, quite worrying. We'll see, we'll see where that goes. You asked the next one. All right. I'll do the next one. And I think you'll enjoy this question. Christian Almond Poor. So, Sonya on email asks the following. It's a long question, but it's provocative. You recently spoke with Matt Fry about the war in Bosnia, particularly in light of the reaction among Serbians and especially Bosnian

17:28Serbians to the death of Rotcombe Lodic. How can Vic concerned are you about the influence of Trump and his approach to foreign policy on the potential destabilization of Bosnia in particular could his support or encouragement for a Republican Serbska to secede and potentially join Serbia, increase the risk of renewed conflict in the region, given these resurgent nationalist tendencies. So Jamie, let's work backwards. You worked on this issue in government, whether it was during the, you know, the Bosnia war and to the end of the Bosnia war, I covered it. First and foremost, we've just talked about Putin. Putin is behind inter-Aliya, along with others. This secession movement by the Bosnian Serbs and this support of the nationalist forces, including the current Serbian president, Alexander Vucic in Serbia itself. So this is also a very clear Putin destabilizing effort in what he considers to be to this day his backyard in Europe. Trump has not been able to fully digest what happened in Bosnia

18:34during the war, the genocide, the crimes against humanity, you know, all the killings of civilians in Bosnia by the Serbs backed by, by the Bosnian Serbs backed by Serbia. And he has not been able to digest what America did to end this war. He also has through his family, the Trump foundation or the Trump organization, they've got certain business deals with, with Serbia. They've got real estate deals and all the rest of it. They're hand in glove with Vucic and maybe even with, whoever's running the Bosnian Serbs these days. So it's a very big conflict of interest there in my view. And it doesn't bode well for trying to keep Bosnia, hertsu-gavina together and not have it, not have it destroyed again. This time politically, you know, after all these years and decades, that the military attempt to destroy Bosnia was foiled. My other big, big, big, big, big question here and answer to Sanya,

19:40because I don't know where Sanya's from. I once had a fabulous translator and field producing assistant in Bosnia and Sarajevo called Sanya. But whoever it is must understand that what Ratcom Lattich, the general in charge of Bosnian Serbs forces did during the war, or the most monstrous crimes that were ever committed in Europe since World War II. The first kind of crimes such as they are since World War II. He was Julie finally captured after being more than a decade on the run. He was sent to the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague, where he was tried fairly and squarely even though he didn't recognize the legitimacy of the court. He was convicted and he was sentenced to life in prison. There was no death penalty. That's how it should be for the mass murder of civilians inside Sarajevo for four years and the siege of Sarajevo and of seven to eight thousand Bosnian Muslim men and boys

20:41in Srebrenica in July 1995. That was his project. He was responsible. He did it with the, you know, accomplices that he had around the Bosnian Serbs forces and insurbia. And he was judged for infangility. The idea that as we speak and this week, he has had what amounts to a dignified burial and funeral insurbia with the Orthodox Church playing its full blessing with the Serbian president and others saying that he deserves his full military honors. And this is the will of the family and the Serbian people. It is a disgrace and that's an objective description for me. It is a disgrace. I don't know what you think, Jeremy. Yes. You know, if the Germans were honoring the death of Nazi war criminals with, with giving them honorable funerals,

21:44I wouldn't have said what I said about Germany's growth and, and Germany's beauty in the way it dealt with the horrors of World War II. The way to stop the wars of, ethnic wars is to assign individual responsibility and expunge collective guilt. And to expunge collective guilt, the leaders of the modern Serbian need to stop praising the, those who are individually convicted of the war crimes. They are creating collective guilt by putting into the minds of the Bosnian and the Al-Kosar Albanians that this work that these monsters did is supported by everybody. That's how collective guilt continues. So I know a lot about this. I've testified in war crimes trials, Madeleine Albright helped create the war crimes tribunal and I worked with her on that. That's the concept of sign individual guilt, expunge collective guilt.

22:46But if the political leaders of a country don't participate in that, crucial principle, then collective guilt continues indefinitely. And then wars of conflict, ethnic conflict can continue indefinitely. It's not the responsible thing to do. It's crucial that European leaders who have leverage, who know that Serbians want to join the European Union, hold Serbians leaders to account and say until they make clear their rejection of those convicted of war crimes, there is no place for Serbian, the European Union. That's the point. And let the Serbian people decide, which is more important to them to honor these war criminals, or to join the modern world of Europe that they, some of them, say they want to. Until they figure that problem out, we're going to continue to see problems in that part of the world. And those who use disinformation and information manipulation and information

23:50operations to try to continue to this collective guilt, blaming the Albanians for the war or blaming the Albanians for this or blaming the Bosnians for that. The Serbian people aren't going to get the freedom and ability to thrive that they deserve, but it's got to be their choice and we can't make it for them. Yeah, I agree. It's a shame. It's a shame in the correct term of what shame actually means. And I really hope the people there make themselves, make their voices heard. They want to join Europe. They want to be, you know, in the Democracy and Human Rights Club. Anyway, lastly, and this I think is a good one to end on. And I'm glad to have this question by Barbara on YouTube. It's quite provocative, quite accusatory. Sorry, Barbara. Why do you present President Trump as evil? And she has that in a quote mark. Why are you so biased against him? All right. Time to take the gloves off.

24:50Firstly, Barbara, I kind of understand what you're saying, but please don't think that we've ever used the word evil because we haven't. And if we have, it's wrong, but we haven't used the word evil. I would never use that word except for mass murderers like Brad Comladish. That's evil. My opinion is, and I will tell you, Barbara, that when the president was reelected in November 2024, nearly two years ago, and then when he was inaugurated in 2025, I said to everybody around me, I said, look, I'm going to give it six months. I am going to watch, report, digest without fear nor favor. I'm going to do my job as an objective journalism journalist. And then I'll maybe come up with some more pointed, you know, views this way or that way. Barbara, I couldn't even get to six months. The level of busting norms that this American president has willfully

25:53and wholeheartedly conducted and embraced is so extraordinary that it makes an ordinary person myself, like myself, just my head is spinning, whether it's inside the United States, the whole sale war against people like me, journalists and journalism, independent journalists and journalism who tried to report without fear nor favor, whether it's against the judicial system, whether it's against DEI, IE the basic rights of blacks, women and other minorities, whether it is against climate, just rolling everything back with nothing in its place. And then when you get overseas, whether it's wars of choices, whether it's a going against allies and going towards what should be adversaries like Putin, like Kim Jong Un, you know, even Xi, whether it's destroying alliances, as I said, questioning NATO, not sending military aid to Ukraine.

26:53I don't know where to stop. That's not bias. That's objective fact. And I would prefer to operate on behalf of world order and try to point out where disorder is flowing from. And beyond that, and we didn't say this in our main episode, but I do believe this is true, that Osama bin Laden tried to destroy American leadership in the world and American super power. And in my opinion, many, many chapters since Osama bin Laden have now led to where we are now with a current administration that in my opinion, and in my observation as a journalist and covering all this, objectively, it is the current administration that is wittingly or unwittingly contributing to the weakening of America in its power around the world and in its moral force as a democratic beacon at home.

27:55So that's the answer to your question. I hope I've answered it correctly. Jamie, what do you think? Why are you so biased? I don't think I'm biased. First of all, I'm only biased to the extent that I am a Democrat and I've always been very honest about that. I've been very honest about saying I didn't vote for Trump. What I try to do is analyze international affairs objectively and I've really tried very hard to do that. I've tried to focus on Trump's policies. What effect these policies have, not so much of the personal because I don't live in Washington and I'm not part of a daily journalism. But when we talk about Ukraine, when we talk about Iran, when we talk about China, when we talk about various, the Middle East, I look at President Trump's policies and Marco Rubio's policies and the policies of Pete Hegg Seth and say, what are they doing to the current situation in Gaza, to the current situation in Iran, to the current situation in Ukraine?

28:58And then objectively, that's my analysis. People can disagree, but it's not personal. The president has been elected. He's my president. I didn't vote for him, but he's still my president. I just hope Republicans, someday when there's a Democratic president, say it is honestly as I just did, that it's a Democratic president, it's their president too. Sometimes Republicans don't do that. That's always quite frustrating to me. He is the president of the United States. He's demonstrated extraordinary power as president to use the power of the presidency to do things that's never really been done before. The war in Iran, I think, is demonstrably harmed American national interest for the reasons that I've stated over and over again in that we didn't get much from it. And we've lost a lot and given a lot to Iran from it. That's an, to me, an analytical point. It's not a personal point about the evil or not evil. Vladimir Putin, in my opinion, is an evil dictator.

29:58Yes. He started a war that has killed millions of people. Arguably, there are other leaders in the world and I don't not going to list them all right now. They could fit into that category, said, I'm saying certainly was one. Mladic and Losevich were certainly those people. President Trump made, in my opinion, made a mistake because he thought the war in Iran would be really easy. That's not the same as calling him evil. And I don't believe I have. And if I have, I didn't mean it that way. The results may have terrible damage for the people of Iran and for the people of the world who are suffering from the economic damage done to the straight or for a move. So I hope that's an honest answer. Analytically is what I like to do. I don't find it as, you know, I'm not a Washington journalist who wakes up every morning finding the mistakes of the Trump administration. We've done this program looked at issues and I've tried to be as honest as I can about them. It's acknowledging that I'm a Democrat and acknowledging that I care more about

30:58our alliances and want to be tougher on our adversaries and nicer to our allies than President Trump has been. That's my big difference. I want to alienate the adversaries and bring the alliances out of our eyes closer. He's not done that. I think that's an objective truth. Yes. And so the whole world, certainly the democratic world, the NATO world, the EU world is on a perpetual, you know, work around footing. So that's it. Now, I can promise you, Barbara, that when something happens where we can legitimately raise up and praise and Lord, L.A.U.D., the Trump administration for doing something unbelievably good, we absolutely will. If he ends the war between Russia and you guys are briefly, I know we did. Yes, we did. We did. When he forced Clinton etteniau to stop the war, we did. Yeah. And we said it. I think that if he could over and again, and I'm happy to do it.

31:59If he solves the Iran problem, believe me, I'd be happy to do all of us. And the global economic problem, which has been made worse by all these tariffs and, and as you say, strangling the straight of hormones worse for so many people in the global South, that's for damn sure. Anyway, Barbara, I do appreciate your question, because I think it's really important to engage with that kind of question and challenge. I really do. And Jamie does too, if you don't mind me speaking for you. Anyway, thank you everybody for listening and watching. If you do have a question for us that you'd like us to answer on our next Q&A episode, you can find us on all the major social media platforms. Our handle is at Amanpur pod, or you can email us where our dress is. Amanpur pod at global.com. An ex to episode will be out on Tuesday. Remember, you can always listen on global player for free. And don't forget, you can always watch by subscribing to our YouTube channel, where you can watch all our episodes. You just search Christian Amanpur presents the ex files and on that note.

33:01So long farewell. It's time to say goodbye. I can buy from the Amsterdam. This has been a global production.