#i worked christmas cause im jewish and it was a mistake

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The Trump interviews: what he said about Brexit, Putin, Israel, Syria … and Twitter

The key points covered in Donald Trumps interviews with the UKs Times and the German tabloid Bild

Donald Trump gave an interview to two newspapers the UK Times and the German tabloid Bild in his office in the Trump Tower in New York. The interview covered a wide range of issues and was reported in the respective papers although there was a variation on what each concentrated on. Heres the best from both.

On Brexit

The Times: Trump said he believed Brexit was going to end up being a great thing because people wanted to reclaim their identity from the European Union. Other countries would leave as well and it would be hard to keep the EU from falling apart under the pressure of immigration, he said. The refugee crisis which started in 2015 had been the straw that broke the camels back in terms of popular support for a unified Europe. If they hadnt been forced to take in all of the refugees, so many, with all the problems that it . . . entails, I think that you wouldnt have a Brexit. This was the final straw that broke the camels back. . . I believe others will leave. I do think keeping it together is not gonna be as easy as a lot of people think.

The EU was basically a vehicle for Germany, he said, and thats why I thought the UK was so smart in getting out.

On trade deal with UK

The Times: Playing up his British ancestry, Trump said his Scottish mother had been so proud of the Queen and said he was eager to get a trade deal done quickly.

Im a big fan of the UK, were gonna work very hard to get it done quickly and done properly. Good for both sides. Well have a meeting [with Theresa May] right after I get into the White House and . . . were gonna get something done very quickly.

Donald Trump with Michael Gove, who interviewed the US president-elect for the Times along with Bilds Kai Diekmann. Photograph: Twitter

On Angela Merkel

Bild: Donald Trump has called Angela Merkels open door policy to refugees a catastrophic mistake which he said Germany would pay for.

Trump said whilst he had great respect for Merkel, who is standing for a fourth term as chancellor next autumn, calling her magnificent and a fantastic chief, she had made an utterly catastrophic mistake by letting all these illegals into the country. He told Bild: Do you know, letting all these people in, wherever they come from. And no one knows where they come from at all. You will find out, youve had a clear impression of that, he said, referring to the December attack in Berlin in which 12 people were killed when a lorry driven by an asylum seeker from Tunisia careered into a Christmas market.

So I am of the opinion that she made a catastrophic mistake, a very serious mistake. But putting that aside, I respect her, I like her. But I dont know her, he said, when asked whether he would be willing to support her reelection, as his predecessor Barack Obama said he would. So I cant say anything as to who I might support, in the case that I would support anyone.

It was also put to Trump in the interview that Angela Merkel and Vladimir Putin know each other well, that the Russian president speaks fluent German and she speaks fluent Russian. Trump was asked which of the two he trusted more.

Trump replied: First and foremost, I trust both of them. Lets see how long this goes on for. Maybe it wont last for long.

On Nato

The Times: Trump repeated his criticism of Nato, one of the mainstays of American foreign policy for decades, calling it obsolete for failing to contain the terror threat in western countries. Her also complained that some countries dont pay what they should pay. However, he added that Nato is very important to me.

On manufacturing tariffs

Bild: In remarks that will likely disturb German car manufacturers, Trump said he would look to realign the out of balance car trade between Germany and the US. If you go down Fifth Avenue every one has a Mercedes Benz in front of his house, isnt that the case? he said. The fact is that … there is no reciprocity. How many Chevrolets do you see in Germany? Not very many, maybe none at all … its a one-way street. It must work both ways. As a result, US manufacturers were losing $800bn a year in trade. That will stop, he said. Under Wilbur Ross, the incoming trade minister, he said, change could be expected.

BMW plans to build a factory in Mexico and export the cars to the US. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

Trump proposed a 35% tax on every foreign car sold in America which was produced elsewhere seen as a particular dig at BMW which plans to build a new plant in Mexico from which it would export to the US market. He urged manufacturers to shift their production to the United States instead.

On Iran

The Times: Trump said he would not reveal the details of his policy I just dont want to play the cards but reiterated his attack on Barack Obamas landmark deal with Iran on nuclear weapons. Im not happy with the Iran deal, I think its one of the worst deals ever made, I think its one of the dumbest deals Ive ever seen . . . Where you give . . . $150bn back to a country, where you give $1.7bn in cash. Did you ever see $100m in hundred-dollar bills? Its a lot. $1.7bn in cash. Plane loads.

On Russia and nuclear weapons

The Times: Trump floated the idea of reviewing sanctions on Russia if Vladimir Putin was prepared to move away from confrontation. They have sanctions on Russia lets see if we can make some good deals with Russia. For one thing, I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced very substantially, thats part of it. But Russias hurting very badly right now because of sanctions, but I think something can happen that a lot of people are gonna benefit.

Bild: Asked if he understands why eastern Europeans might fear Putin and Russia, Trump responded: Of course. Indeed. I know that. I mean, I understand whats going on there.

On Syria

The Times: Trump was critical of Obama for failing to restrain Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and Putin in their war on rebel forces in the country. The US could have made them stick to a line in the sand but now it was too late and the lack of western intervention had helped create a humanitarian crisis. Aleppo was nasty. I mean when you see them shooting old ladies walking out of town they cant even walk and theyre shooting em it almost looks like theyre shooting em for sport ah no, thats … a terrible situation.

A woman carries a child in the ruined streets of al-Rai north of Aleppo . Photograph: Khalil Ashawi/Reuters

Bild: Trump said he thought security zones should have been set up in Syria. That would have been considerably cheaper. And the Gulf states should have had to pay for them. After all, they have money like hardly anyone else has. The whole thing would have been considerably cheaper than the trauma that Germany is now going through. I would have said: create security zones in Syria.

On Iraq

The Times: The invasion of Iraq in 2003, he said, was possibly the worst decision ever made in American history. Its like throwing rocks into a beehive.

On Afghanistan

Bild: US policy in Afghanistan had not succeeded despite a long military intervention, he said. Nothing is going well. I believe weve been there for almost 17 years. But when you look at the whole region in all fairness we didnt let our people do what they were tasked to do.

I have just looked at something… Oh, I should not show you it at all, because its secret but I have just taken a look at Afghanistan. If you look at the Taliban there … Theyre just getting bigger and bigger and bigger every year. And you ask yourself whats going on there?

On Europe and Germany

Bild: Asked if there could be restrictions on Europeans who want to travel to the US in the future, Trump said: That could happen, but well see. I mean, were talking here about parts of Europe, parts of the world and parts of Europe, where we have problems, where they come in and cause problems. I dont want to have these problems.

Asked in the interview conducted on Friday in New York city, whether there was anything typically German about him, Trump, whose grandfather was German, said: I like orderliness. I like it when things are dealt with in an orderly way. Thats what the Germans are quite well-known for. But I also like order and I like strength.

On the Middle East and Jared Kushner

Bild: Trump said that he would appoint Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, to broker a Middle East peace deal. Asked what role Kushner would play, Trump said: You know what? Jared is such a good lad, he will secure an Israel deal which no one else has managed to get. You know, hes a natural talent, he is the top, he is a natural talent. You know what Im talking about a natural talent. He has an innate ability to make deals, everyone likes him. Kushners wife, Trumps daughter Ivanka, would not have any role in government, he said. She currently has the kids and was busy buying a house in Washington.

He said the Obama administrations decision to abstain in the UN security council vote on Israeli settlements in December was terrible and said that Britain should have vetoed the resolution instead of voting in favour. He said he was hopeful that Britain would veto an upcoming resolution on Israel that could be presented this week. I would hope for a British veto. I think it would be great if Great Britain would place a veto, because Im not sure if the US would do so extraordinarily enough. They wont do it, right? Do you believe the US will place a veto? I have Jewish friends who organised a donor event for Obama. I say to them: What on earth are you doing? Okay – what are you doing?

He refused to be drawn on whether he would move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Im not going to comment on that. But well see.

On the Russia dossier sex allegations

The Times: Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent believed to be behind the dossier alleging that Trump took part in tawdry sex acts in a Russian hotel, should be looked at because the allegations were false. Trump said the widely reported suggestion that Steele had been hired by Republicans and Democrats seeking to discredit the president-elect was also false.

He said that he tore up the report. I dont even want to shake hands with people now I hear about this stuff.

On Twitter use

The Times: Trump boasted about his 46 million followers for his handle @realDonaldTrump and said that despite the criticism that he used Twitter too much he hinted that he would continue to use his account when president. Id rather just let that build up and just keep it @realDonaldTrump, its working and the tweeting, I thought Id do less of it, but Im covered so dishonestly by the press so dishonestly that I can put out Twitter and its not 140, its now 280 I can go bing bing bing . . . and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out this morning on television, Fox Donald Trump, we have breaking news.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

.@NBCNews is bad but Saturday Night Live is the worst of NBC. Not funny, cast is terrible, always a complete hit job. Really bad television!

January 15, 2017

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From Marilynne Robinson to Richard Ford, six writers in search of Trump’s America

Six giants of American literature reveal how they are responding to a transformed society

On the night of 8 November 2016, the United States, a mature republic of 241 summers, experienced a dreadful upset and fell into a condition that hovered between catatonia and hysteria.

On college campuses, young women were throwing up. Others were setting fire to things, or phoning their families in tears. Among distraught middle-class Democrats, there was a dramatic spike in psychotherapeutic appointments. Across New York City, a spontaneous graffito, Not My President, summarised the metropolitan mood.

As the tide of history slackened towards Christmas, the national response moved through the stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining and depression. Come the new year, there has been the beginning of the fifth stage, acceptance. The end is nigh is the consensus, but not that nigh.

Besides, there are remedies. Americans know that, ever since Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, theirs is a society constructed with strokes of the pen, in words. Their constitution is a work in progress, constantly rewritten, and the power of an idea is stronger than a demagogue with no ideology. American writers know this better than anyone.

As the unanticipated transition from Obama to Trump gathered momentum, I set out across the east coast to meet six authors Marilynne Robinson, Richard Ford, Walter Mosley, Ariel Levy, Malcolm Gladwell, and Lionel Shriver in search of a new society. Marilynne Robinson, author of Housekeeping and Gilead, is one of Obamas favourite writers. She understands Americas frontier instincts, and shes a Christian, which connects her to another part of the American dream. In conversation with her, the rewriting of America seems at once rational and practicable. Her articulate resilience suggests that the republic is probably not yet broken. In her company, the challenge of the new administration seems answered by the integrity, candour, and good humour of the American mind at its best. Talk to Robinson, and you can detect the beginnings of an opposition to Trump. She admits she has been galvanised by Americas crisis. Im frankly sort of glad that this bizarre thing has happened, she says. Trump has brought us to a state where we will have to do a lot of very basic thinking about how our society goes on from this point.

Robinson has been talking to her associates in the literary community. People have grown very fond of the first and fifth amendments, she reports. My friends say: This is on us. It will be important how we respond, and those who did not vote Republican must become the resistance.

Robinson believes in her fellow citizens. Meaningful democracy is based on the integrity of its individuals, she says, and theres still a basic integrity to this society. In conclusion, Robinsons faith in her country resounds loud and clear. People will try all kinds of things, and will recover a sense of possibility. The people are passionate. We have many resources. Our system is not broken.

Richard Ford lives further north, in snowy Maine, but many of his characters are from red-state America. Frank Bascombe, the protagonist of four novels beginning with The Sportswriter, might not have voted for Trump, but he would know plenty of middle-aged white males who did.

Ford is all-American. He hunts, he shoots, and hes an instinctive libertarian, passionate about words and ideas, and the freedoms they enshrine. Hes more pessimistic than Robinson, perhaps because he was wrongfooted by Novembers vote. I said Trump was an impossibility. The fact that I was so completely wrong has made me doubt what I understand about my country.

Ford concedes that we must blame ourselves. We are the citizens who did this. Our only response is to fall back on our sense of citizenship. But while there is cause for some optimism in the institutions of government, he is not complacent: This is a dark moment in American history.

Walter Mosley, of the same generation, grew up in Los Angeles. His father was black, his mother Jewish, and he came of age in the Watts riots of 1965. An acclaimed crime writer, he sees Trumps election as a necessary misstep. Weve had the blue states on both coasts filled with liberals and progressives who have dismissed the midwest and southern states as stupid hicks for so long that these people finally said, I dont care who I vote for so long as its someone who has nothing to do with you guys. People in the red states felt ignored, and neglected. I can sympathise with, and respect, that protest.

Mosley is keeping a beady eye on the transition. Well have to see what Trump is going to do. If its bad enough, I wont be writing novels, Ill be talking and writing about it. Mosley is sanguine about Trumps trashy, undisciplined qualities. From my perspective, he told me, weve had a lot of bad presidents. Having dismissed JFK, Reagan and two Bushes, hes still inclined to look on the bright side. Theres so much potential here now, he says. Especially now the progressives realise that they will have to do something to have the world that they want, to make America better.

Ariel Levy, feminist intellectual and author of Female Chauvinist Pigs, echoes this sentiment. She says: Hillary would have been a great president, but people have had it with elites. Where do I go now? Thats my challenge. Levy still has a voice. We can still do what we do, and keep writing. A free press is essential. Youd have to be a weird, inanimate lump not to be affected by Trump. Theres nothing that he does not touch. This is our world now, and its going to energise us.

If theres one writer in tune with the zeitgeist, its Lionel Shriver whose high-school massacre novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, nailed much of contemporary America. Her dystopian imagination fathoms the darker parts of the US. Shriver, the perfect guide to this new New World, is revelling in the president-elects antics. Entertainment is the main thing Im getting out of Trump, she told me. This may not be a good thing, but Im going to enjoy it, in a sick way. Its such a spectacle. However, like many Americans she will respect him as her president. We cannot wish Trump ill, she instructs, because that would be to wish ourselves ill. I have every hope that well get through these four years, and that our system will survive.

What might sustain this resilience? A sense of humour is going to get us through better than indignation, she declares. People on the left are so puffed up with self-righteous outrage. Shriver has turned to Elmer Gantry for consolation, but shes discreet about connecting the book to the politician who became an obsession for its author, Sinclair Lewis: the southern demagogue Huey Long, who was assassinated in 1935.

In Greenwich Village the writer and journalist Malcolm Gladwell, bestselling author of The Tipping Point and Blink, shares Shrivers appetite for the potential mayhem of unrestrained Trumpism.Gladwell notes, provocatively, that under the rhetorical genius of Obama, writers lost their tongue. Now weve got our voice back, and its going to be a wild ride. Hes become nostalgic for his days as a reporter: I would do anything to have my old job on the Washington Post. This is the kind of situation you live for as a writer, moments of upheaval and confusion. As a reporter for the next four years, youre going to have the best time getting Washington to talk to you. Youre going to have fun. It will be open season during the Trump administration.

As inauguration day draws near, Gladwell makes a persuasive case for the limitations to Trumps power. Hes probably too lazy and undisciplined to usurp power. His first mistake has been to marginalise both African-Americans and Hispanics. Whites only is not a winning strategy. In the end he will cede vast areas to the Democrats.

During the week that the CIA and Trump have been at war over Russia, Gladwell also questions the wisdom of alienating the spooks. One thing you should never do is thumb your nose at the intelligence community. The CIA is not full of hapless boobs but intelligent people who have all the secrets, and will find a way to do you in.

Gladwell draws an intriguing historical parallel. The last true American bully we had was Joe McCarthy. For a number of years everyone went along with him, and he had enormous success in the short run. But people get sick of this kind of rhetorical strategy. Americas patience with Trumps vulgarity will be limited. Fundamentally decent people will long for a return to dignity. Thats what happened with McCarthy. Eventually someones going to stand up and say, Enough!

America Rewritten, by Robert McCrum, will be broadcast on Radio 4 at 9.45am from 16-20 January

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