Does Trump really think North Korea will scrap its nukes?

Donald Trump is hanging on desperately to his "friendship" with Kim Jong-un, expecting their mutual liking for each other (allegedly) to lead to a great foreign policy coup, the denuclearisation of North Korea. The trouble is, everything else to do with the North Korea issue has gone wrong. Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, has got bogged down in his negotiations with North Korean officials, and the upcoming meeting has been cancelled by Trump. Jim Mattis has talked about possibly restarting the US/South Korean military exercises (much to Trump's displeasure), and Kim is getting on with his ballistic missile production. In fact very little has really moved since the Trump/Kim summit in Singapore in June. A few body remains of US soldiers from the Korean war have been returned, and activity has been observed at a missile engine site which may have something to do with dismantling it. But we've yet to see the pictures. So it's a pretty dismal situation and, despite Trump's insistence that he and Kim are best mates, it's not going anywhere. That doesn't mean all is lost, these sort of negotiations can take years. But so far there's no promising sign that Kim is going to scrap any of his nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles.

Civilian casualties in Yemen are grotesquely high

James Mattis, the US defence secretary, promised during a press briefing at the Pentagon yesterday, that the US was doing all it could to make sure the number of civilian casualties in Yemen was kept to the minimum. The British government has said the same. Yet their promises are falling on dead ground - ground littered with innocent victims. There is no such thing as a safe war, and no wars have ever been fought without there being civilian fatalities. But in the case of Yemen, the US and Britain, and also France, are providing the means to kill but are not actually participating. Bombs and missiles have UK or US stamped on them, precision weapons sold in multi-billion dollar arms deals with Saudi Arabia and it's these munitions which every day are killing and injuring civilians. The Saudis simply do not share the same "collateral damage" philosophy followed by the UK and US. They are given advice by American and British military advisers but at the end of each day it's the Saudi pilots who press the button to release the bombs. The battleground below is complex. The Islamic Houthi rebels are trying to take over the country and destroy the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi who is in exile. A Saudi-led coalition of more than half a dozen other Arab states launched an air campaign to try and restore the Hadi government. The bombing has been relentless. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Isis have benefited from the chaos that has ensued and are entrenched in the south. They face bombing, too, but by American special operations forces using armed drones. While the slaughter continues, life for the Yemeni people is a constant struggle for survival. The remarks by Mattis yesterday provide small consolation. He said US support for the Saudi-led coalition would continue. The war in Yemen will carry on for years with neither side winning and the casualties will go on and on and on. Yemen used to be a wonderful country. It is now the scene of wholesale killing.

Will Trump win a Bafta for his Nafta deal?

Donald Trump knows how to bully to get his way. Canada used to be a much-loved ally of the United States but Trump has had it in for America's neighbour ever since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the G7 summit of most developed countries that he wouldn't be pushed around by the US president. Trump put a big cross against Canada and set about forging a revised North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), by persuading Mexico to sign up to a new deal and then threatened to leave out the Canadians. Poor Canada. The foreign minister Chrystia Freeland had to hop onto a plane as fast as she could to get to Washington to find out what the hell was going on. Canada will be forced to give in if it wants to stay in the new-look Nafta which will be given a different name, probably something with Trump in it. Bully boy tactics come easy to Trump and he will be pleased to be getting back at Trudeau who dared to raise his voice against him. Mexico has given in because it has been bullied more than any other country, friend or foe. Immigration, The Wall, drugs gangs, Mexico has had the lot thrown at them. Trump will get his way with Canada because he knows that Canada cannot afford to be left out of a free-trade agreement. After 19 months in power, Trump is not making friends anywhere. But for sheer Trumpery, the new Nafta is a Bafta performance.

John McCain deserved more than sympathy from Trump

There are times to be brutal, there are times to be indifferent and there are times to be magnanimous and gracious. Donald Trump chose indifference when marking the death of Senator John McCain. Everyone but Trump has aknowledged that McCain, while he had his faults and weaknesses, was nevertheless an icon in American politics, a man with a huge reputation for integrity, courage, patriotism and driven devotion to the US military. He is a massive loss to the nation. But Trump offered just sympathy to his family and vetoed a White House eulogy of his career and achievements. McCain was no friend of Trump's, that's for sure. But McCain's passing surely gave Trump a chance to say that the senator had been a great man whether he liked him or not. But he just couldn't say it. So it's not surprising he won't be invited to the funeral or memorial service. Every other former president has been effusive in their praise of McCain. It's a sad day when the encumbent president cannot voice the same affection for a man who strived all his working life to serve his nation. McCain was an extraordinary character. He wanted to be president but failed, the second time after making the mistake of appointing Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential candidate and having the bad luck to face Barack Obama as his opponent. By all accounts he had a fearsome temper which might have caused problems had he made it to the White House. But other presidents have had tempers, Nixon, for a start, and even Obama was known to get angry. But my personal view, having spent three years as Pentagon Correspondent for The Times in Washington, is that John McCain would have made a fine president. I wish I could say the same about the current president who didn't have the grace to say kind words about McCain on his passing. Even his wife, Melania, thanked him for his service!!

Rats are on the increase in Washington

Washington has always had problems with rats. The capital was built on a swamp, so rats feel it is their natural habitat. Now there are so many rats milling around, the clean-up authorities are having to think up new ways of getting rid of them. Donald Trump is also worried about rats. He believes he is surrounded by rats. Not the small sniffy-nose long-tailed type but his closest aides and legal advisers who are turning against him like, well, rats leaping from a sinking ship. It's a good lesson to learn, Mr Prsident, that your worst enemies can sometimes be your best friends because if they "betray" you for whatever reason - fear of prison, Damascene conversion to the other side, nasty FBI types - they know more about you than your normal enemies. So beware beware of pissing off your trusted supporters and advisers. I wonder who Trump really trusts right now. He has got all types of White house people to sign confidentiality documents, but that seems to make little difference. So, can he trust the First Lady, the First Son-in-Law, the First Son? Well probably for the moment. But who knows for how much longer. Melania must be getting seriously angry about all the women allegations, but she can't squeal to the FBI because a wife's evidence isn't valid in law. So outside the family who can Trump turn to and know for absolutely sure that he or she won't run off to Robert Mueller and reveal all? Despite all the rumours of internal feuds in is administration, I reckon he can count on his chief of staff General John Kelly because Kelly is an honourable man who owes loyalty to his commander-in-chief. Well done, Kelly, for staying in the job after all, despite the rumours of his imminent departure last month. I put Jim Mattis in the same bracket, and probably Mike Pompeo and Nikki Hayley. For the moment. But if it gets very very bad for Trump and there are real stirrings for impeachment, how many of these trusted souls will want to stay on for a second term of Trumpism?

UK seems resigned to a break-out no Brexit deal

It is surely one of the most despicable abdications of political responsibility for ministers of the British government to casually announce that as a Brexit deal now looks increasingly unlikely that it's time to warn of the dire consequences, and to outline the steps that will need to be taken, none of which are good for this country or for individual citizens. Now it may be necessary to say this because of pressure on businesses and industry but the overall message to all of us is that the government is now more interested in the worst-case scenario than reaching a proper, effective and beneficial deal with the EU. What a state we are in, this poor country of ours. There is noone with the leadership quality to negotiate a decent exit from the EU. The soft exit advocated by Theresa May was neither acceptable to the Leavers nor to the EU. A hard exit might be more loyal to the alleged mandate from the disastrous referendum but would bring so many uncertainties. But a no-deal Brexit, now the most talked about option, would surely be catastrophic. Why is the Brexit Secretary even mentioning it when it his HIS job to make sure we do get a proper deal. Is Dominic Raab, the man with this job, the right individual to give us all a happy future? No, absolutely no. He is not an inspirational politician. I preferred David Davis. So under Raab and Theresa May we have the prospect of crashing out of the EU with no agreement. If Labour were to win an election, they would be no better, probably worse. There is only one answer: a second referendum and a resounding YES to stay in the EU after all. That has to be our future. Otherwise it's a gloomy future for us all.

Moves at the top at the CIA

The top leadership tier of the CIA is to be exclusively made up of career intelligence officers, with no outsiders brought in to the agency for the first time for many years. Gina Haspel who took over as director of the CIA in May is herself a veteran spy who worked her way up to the top job after joining the intelligence agency in 1985. Now she has moved to make sure that the most senior members of her leadership team are all career officers. The CIA confirmed in a statement that her deputy is Vaughn Bishop who is one of the agency’s most experienced intelligence analysts. He had worked closely with Haspel in the past when she was serving as an undercover spy on foreign assignments. Bishop joined the CIA in 1981. He retired in 2011 but returned to serve as the agency’s ombudsman for “analytic objectivity”, before being offered the deputy job. Andy Makridis has been appointed the new chief operating officer. He is also a CIA veteran of 32 years, underlining Haspel’s wish to have career agency people around her. Haspel took over as director from Mike Pompeo who had never worked for the CIA, although as a former Republican member of the House intelligence committee, he had deep knowledge of the agency’s operations. Pompeo, now secretary of state, brought in a businessman friend, Brian Bulatao, to be the CIA’s chief operating officer. Haspel was, of course, Pompeo’s deputy. Bulatao has now moved to a senior government management position. In recent administrations, CIA directors have often been outsiders. For example, General David Petraeus, former commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, was appointed CIA director by President George W Bush, although it seemed a strange move at the time. And of course he didn't last long after he was forced to resign over his affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell. Leon Panetta, ex-chief of staff to President Clinton and a former director of the office of management and budget. was appointed CIA director by President Obama. John Brennan who took over from Petraeus as CIA director, had worked for the intelligence agency for 25 years, but had left in 2005. He was brought back by Obama after serving as homeland security adviser in the White House. But, for his deputy, Brennan chose David Cohen from the US Treasury. Cohen was an expert in tracing financing networks used by terrorist organisations. But Haspel has gone for veteran CIA people for her top leadership because she obviously feels that insiders are family. Haspel also announced the appointment of Sonya Holt to be the CIA's chief diversity and inclusion officer. She joined the CIA 34 years ago. A CIA source said: "The top three at the CIA have about 100 years of service between them."

Is Donald Trump getting closer to impeachment?

It doesn't seem to matter how bad the news is for Trump on the Russia collusion/payments to porn stars/dodgy deals to keep alleged mistresses quiet front, the president dismisses everything as a witchhunt or lies or both. Michael Cohen, his very ex legal chum, has come in for the full Trump treatment. Everything he is being quoted as saying to his lawyer about Trump ordering him to pay off women, let alone his apparent willingness to talk about Trump and Russia collusion, the president poo poos and laughs off. Cohen, one-time trusted lawyer and Mr Fix-it, is now the scum of the earth in Trump's eyes. It's almost impossibe to make a judgment about whether Trump is on the slippery slope to impeachment or just building a bigger and bigger wall around him to keep all his political enemies and former friends at bay. Impeachment is a very big word, too big for most people, especially if you're a Republican. So, provided the Republicans keep their majority in the House and Senate, it ain't going to happen. But if the mid-term elections have some surprises and the Democrats slip into the lead, who knows what might happen, although even then, some Republicans will have to agree to go for Trump. The Cohen affair will run all the way to the elections in November and by then someone else will no doubt emerge as the new bete noir of the president. Can Trump dismiss everyone as liars and witchhunters? I guess he can. He is the president after all.

Non-truth and nothing but non-truth

Truth is a very marketable product in Washington these days. As Rudy Giuliani, Trump's one of many lawyers, has helpfully pointed out, truth isn't necessarily the truth. Truth is what one person sees as against the truth that someone else sees and the two truths could be very different. In fact they could be contradictory. On that basis, how on earth are humble mortals like ourselves going to establish whether Trump is telling the truth about the Russian collusion affair or whether, say, Mike Flynn is telling the truth or James Comey or Donald Trump Jr or Jared Kushner? (where is Jared these days?). So, with potentially so many different versions of The Truth, how is it going to be possible for Robert Mueller, special counsel (please note, Mr President, it's counsel, not council as per your tweet yesterday), to figure out whether Trump or any of his accolytes have actually lied or have just come out with what they believe is the truth. We're not talking about murder here, or robbery or bag-snatching. This is about what may or may not have happened prior to, during and after the meeting in Trump Tower with the exotic Russian lawyer with Putin-type connections. Even if Ms Natalia Veselnitskaya appeared before Mueller for interrogation and stated categorically that she was blameless and innocent and only interested in Russia/US adoption cases, we wouldn't believe her because she has "Kremlin links". Giuliani. anyway, has already admitted that the meetng with Ms Veselnitskaya was all about acquiring dirt on Hillary Clinton. So is that a truth, a non-truth or just Giuliani's version of the truth? He wasn't there. But it's the sort of truth which is music to Mueller's ears. He, I'm sure, believes it. Trump, by all accounts, is scared that if he agrees to be questioned by Mueller, he might perjure himself!! Why?! Because of course, his truth could be different from everyone else's truth. If Mueller doesn't believe his version, does that give him the right to accuse the president of perjury? Well, no. Because he can't accuse Trump of perjury unless he has absolute proof that Trump's version of the collusion fiasco is intentionally false. There is no hidden tape of Trump telling his elder son to go see this Ruskie woman and come back with dirt to destroy Hillary's campaign. That would be collusion with a foreign power full stop. That would be criminal. But if Mueller had that sort of evidence he wouldn't still be coming into the office every day and asking his team: "Where the hell are we going with this?" Trump says everything Mueller has got is fake news, rubbish, witchhunt stuff. The truth may never be known, and thus, Trump will carry on as president, and Mueller will eventually give up, or be fired.

Trump takes on the Washington elite

How Trump must hate all the former intelligence officials who are coming out of the woodwork to condemn his decision to revoke John Brennan's seurity clearance. There are now so many of them that you would have thought Trump would begin to wonder what he has taken on. Well, this is precisely what he said he would do when he was campaigning. He wanted to clean up the "Washington swamp" and take control from the elite establishment who, in his view, represent no one but themselves and their careers. I have mixed feelings about this story which is getting bigger by the day. Trump has tweeted that John Brennan was the worst CIA director in history. That's not true of course. Brennan was a CIA career intelligence officer who performed pretty smartly as the boss of the Langley organisation under Obama and helped mastermind the tracking down and killing of Osama bin Laden. It may have taken ten years but it was one hundred per cent successful. But since Trump came to power Brennon has been mouthing off against him and not holding back with his insults. The main reason why I think this has been poor judgment by Brennan is because he is making life difficult for the person who is the current CIA director. Gina Haspel would have worked with him at some point in her CIA career. Trump agreed to appoint her on the recommendation of Mike Pompeo. She had been Pompeo's deputy. Now that Brennan is becoming Trump's third most hated figure. Robert Mueller is his number one enemy, and James Comey a close second, Gina Haspel must be cursing Brennan. Every time he opens his mouth to attack Trump, she must be sending off emails to the White House to reassure them that she is loyal and getting on with her job. But perhaps Trump is starting to think he may have appointed the wrong person. He shouldn't associate Haspel with Brennan because she worked most closely with Pompeo but Trump is suspicious of all spies. Brennan is definitely persona non grata. Brennan says he might sue Trump for removing his security clearance. Well I don't think that's going to help. Everyone should calm down. The fact is, no doubt for all the right reasons in his view, Brennan is making a public spectacle of himself and that doesn't sit well with his previous office as director of the CIA. For Gina Haspel's sake he should stop berating Trump and keep a dignified silence. As for his security clearance, he is no longer CIA director and is a private citizen. I fail to see why he should continue to have access to top secret intelligence.

Venezuela beyond the brink

Venezuela is a nightmare turning into a humanitarian disaster and the world watches. Jim Mattis, the US Defence Secretary, has just returned from a trip around South America and spoke glowingly about the importance of relations with countries like Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. He spoke of democracies flourishing in the region and raised the troubles in Venezuela and how President Maduro was responsible for the plight faced by its citizens. But that was it. Of course Mattis didn't want to stir up more trouble for the Venezuelan people and he is the defence secretary, not the secretary of state. But surely a bit more condemnation of Maduro and his regime might have been appropriate. Venezeuala's neighbours are now closing their borders to stop the millions of Venezuelans trying to pour into their countries without passports or visas. While understandable, this will create suffering on an unbelievable scale for those desperate to find food and medecine and a decent life anywhere but their own country. It also means tragic separating of families. In thousands of cases, Venezuelan fathers have left the country to find work in other South American countries and then sent for their families. But when theirwives and children get to the border they are turned back because they don't have visas. In fact they can't get visas because the Maduro regime isn't providing visas, or food, or medecine, or toilet paper or anything. I truly think Venezuela is currenty the worst country in the world to live where there isn't an actual war going on. So not worse than Syria obviously, but worse than North Korea. Venezuela is full of lovely democracry-loving people ruled by a monster democracy-hating despot. Jim Mattis, you should have spoken out against Maduro with the full force of the US behind you.

John Brennan has the right to attack Trump, say ex-intelligence chiefs

It is quite something when a distinguished bunch of former CIA directors get together to condemn the US president. Bob Gates and Leon Panetta, both CIA directors in their respective careers as public servants, are two of a dozen former spy chiefs who have given their support to John Brennan, CIA director under Obama, whose security clearance has been revoked by Trump for publicly criticising the president's leadership.While not necessarily agreeing with everything Brennan has said they insisted he was in his rights to speak out. Freedom of speech is a basic tenet of the US constitution. These excellent public servants who have worked under different presidents, Republican and Democrat, have come out of retirement to voice their concern. Will this make Trump change his mind? No, because he will see it as further evidence of a conspiracy against him. The more people who criticise him, the more determined he will be to ignore the attacks. I truly think Trump is building up to sack Robert Mueller and his whole team to stop them investigating the allegation that his campaign colluded with Moscow to win him the White House. Brennan, the most outspoken of any CIA director in recent memory, has described Trump's claim that it is all a witchhunt and fake news as "hogwash". I have asked this before. Does Brennan know more about this alleged collusion than Mueller? If so, why doesn't he reveal it? For if there is concrete evidence then it would be a federal criminal offence and put the alleged crime on a level above and beyond the Watergate burglary of the Democratic National Committee HQ in the 1970s. It would be a monster crime which would lead to the downfall of Donald Trump.

Trump will never love the press

I always thought it was a sign of insecurity when a politician started to attack the press. But in Donald Trump's case he attacks the press because he knows that very few newspapers in the country actually like him, and most of the editorials that appear around the country oppose his leadership, his decisions and his attitudes. Three hundred newspapers have clubbed together to attack Trump's apparent disinterest in the freedom of the press. He can't take criticism in newspapers and rants at anyone who dares to suggest he lies. But Trump doesn't attack the press out of a sense of weakness or insecurity. He attacks the press because he believes it is his God-given right to be respected and obeyed. He believes in free speech but only if it supports his way of thinking. This is truly the mark of an autocrat. But I think he also enjoys attacking the press. It gives him vigour and energy every day. For the press themselves, all reporters in Washington are facing a dilemma. If anyone writes a piece that Trump and the White House dislike, that reporter can be banned from briefings, barred from attending events at the White House and prevented from asking questions of the president. It is a deeply unhealthy situation which can only get worse as the Trump administration ploughs on.

What is Putin up to now?

Vladimir Putin, he of the deadly eyes and tight lips, is urgently seeking a meeting with Kim Jong-un. What on earth is that all about? Surely it's Putin up to his latest piece of mischief-making. Perhaps he is so angry with Trump over the new US sanctions against Moscow over the Novichok poisoning that he is determined to undermine everything the American president is trying to achieve in North Korea. The best way to do that is to promise Kim that Moscow will trade with North Korea whatever Trump says and will allow as many North Koreans into Russia to work as he wants. Or maybe he has even more cunning plans up his sleeve to make friends with Kim. The North Korean leader can't believe his luck. On minute he is the pariah of the universe with only Beijing deigning to talk to him, and then suddenly he is on everyone's visiting list. First it was Xi Zinping, then President Moon of South Korea, then Trump, then Bashar Assad, and now Putin. He has done pretty well for himself, except that he has still failed to lift the crippling sanctions on his country, and this may be where Putin steps in. I can't think of any other reason why the two leaders should suddenly get all chummy. Poor Trump, he tried so hard to make friends with Putin but he is stuck with the law and Congress. Nobody else in Washington wants to be friends with Moscow, so Trump has to go along with sanctions while still letting Putin know he loves him really. Putin has probably had enough of this American duplicity and is going to do a bit of stirrng on the world stage by chatting up Kim and promising lots of goodies. But of course that won't impress Congress so, in the end, he will realise this is no way to get the sanctions against Russia lifted. Putin is probably thinking long term, just like the Chinese. He doesn't have mid-term elections to worry about or reelection in 2020. So whatever he has in mind with Kim in Pyongyang, he must think it will benefit Russia at some point.

Is Turkey with us or against us?

Turkey joined Nato in 1952 and has, until now, been a consistently reliable, strong and valuable western ally. As a Muslim country, it straddles the cultures of the west and east, and that was always a good thing in my view. Allowing Turkey to become an EU member has always been a trickier question because Turkey is not really seen as a European nation as such and at present fails to meet the required standards to become a member. Its human rghts record for example is a long way from meeting the EU's criteria. Under President Erdogan, especially the new or renewed Erdogan who has become increasingly autocratic since his reelection, Turkey is now about as far away from EU membership as Kazakhstan. But that's not the issue today. The problem right now is that the US and Turkey, for a long time a crucial relationship, are falling out in a disastrous way. It's not just about the detention of an American Christian pastor and the charges of terrorism made against him. It's about the fierce tariffs imposed by Trump, Turkey's willingness to consider buying a Russian anti-missile defence system and Erdogan's conviction that the US is behind an attempt to bring Turkey to its knees. Turkey's currency is in free fall. Erdogan is now so angry he is talkng of switching his alliance with the West and turnng to others, such as Russia. That, of course, would be bad for the US, for the West and, ultimately for Turkey. Erdogan and Trump are two tough individuals, like rival godfathers in a gang war. Autocratic leaders are bad for democracy. It's one thing to have an autocrat in Kazakhstan, but quite another to have one sitting in Ankara and spitting blood with Trump in DC. Sounds like it's time for grown-ups to take charge.

Treachery is everywhere in the White House

Beware the disgruntled avenging employee. Omarosa Manigault Newman, former Trump Apprentice star contestant and ex-White House "aide", actually taped her sacking while sitting in the top security Situation Room in the bowels of one of the most protected buildings on the planet. Unbelieveable breach of security, and if John Kelly, chief of staff, hadn't sacked her then, he would have been forced to do so later once it became known what she had done. Perhaps she could still face prosecution, although I doubt that will happen. The irony is that Kelly took her down into the basement room because he was afraid she might tape him. No one, NO ONE can tape anything in the Situation Room because of the danger of being hacked by an outside malevolent individual or nation. But still Manigault Newman managed to secretly tape the conversation with Kelly. He clearly didn't pat her down for wires!! Actually what she is complaining about, that Kelly was a bully and intimidated her, isn't borne out by the tape which she aired on NBC's Meet The Press. Kelly was trying to be nice to her, suggesting she resign rather than face the indignity of being fired and removed from the White House. She didn't take up the offer and subsequently had to be escorted from her office and hand over her security pass. Now she has come out with lots of dirt about the White House and Trump. I wonder if Bob Woodward interviewed her for his upcoming book, "Fear", all about the internal goings-on in the White House. How she managed to secrete a taping device into the Situation Room is extraodinary. Kelly slipped up there. Now all mobiles are banned from the White House. Having been fired, she has now produced a book of course which by the sound of it will accuse Trump of being racist. It's not a book I shall be runnng to the bookstalls to buy. I think I'll wait for Woodward's version of life in the White House due out next month.

Jim Mattis does NOT want to be president, apparently

An obscure US media publication I have never heard of has reported that Jim Mattis, the Defence Secretary, has quiet ambitions to be president and said privately to fellow military types that if he stood against Trump in the 2020 election he would "kick Trump's ass". It's the sort of private comment a would-be president might make to his mates and have a good laugh. The report appeared in an online publication called Beltway Breakfast. Although it's hardly the New York Times or Washington Post, the story received some attention and spread about a bit. So Dana White, Mattis's press secretary, was quick to poo poo it and tell everyone that it caused a laugh in the morning meeting at the Pentagon. Ho ho ho, what a lot of nonsense. She didn't say it was fake news, which was wise on her part, but she did say it was "pure fiction". Obviously only the reporter and his editor at Beltway Breakfast - such a great name for a Washington online news publication - know where this story comes from, whether it's from a source who heard Mattis say it or whether it was a source who heard it from a friend who heard it from his cousin etc. But the interesting thing is the alleged Mattis remark comes amid rumours - just DC Beltway rumours - that Trump is considering dumping Mattis for someone who might be a little more amenable than the retired four-star Marine Corps general. Mattis wasn't involved in Trump's decision to have summits with Kim Jong-un and President Putin, even though he is a crucial member of the cabinet. By all accounts he doesn't like Trump's order to create a separate Space Command and he certainly doesn't want anything to do with the Russian military other than maintain the so-called deconfliction agreement for Syria under which the US and Russia keep in touch about where their military aircraft are flying each day to avoid mid-air crashes or confrontations. But Mattis is a solid performer. He is very very careful not to say anything in public which might anger Trump or indicate he is not in favour of a Trump policy or approach. He is a gold standard defence secretary and pretty popular at the Pentagon and throughout the military. That, of course, can be dangerous when you have a president like Trump in the White House. He wouldn't want to be trumped by Mattis! But I can't believe Mattis has really entertained the thought of standing against his commander-in-chief in 2020. Wherever that supposed remark came from I suspect it was an off-the-cuff comment from someone else in the Pentagon who thought he would stir things up a bit. Either way, the atmosphere in Washington being what it is, it's a dangerous story to have flying around. I somehow doubt Trump had a laugh about it.

Boris Johnson and his burka comment

There is a huge debate in the UK about Boris Johnson's comment in an article in the Daily Telegraph that Muslim women who wear burkas look like letter boxes and bank robbers. He has been told to apologise by the Prime Minister, the chairman of the Tory Party, a former ministerial colleague at the Foreign Office, Muslim women and many others. Only Rowan Atkinson of Blackadder and Mr Bean comedy fame seems to have backed his comment on the grounds that it is funny and comedy should never be banned. Well, firstly, Johnson, not that long ago the UK's foreign secretary and, as the Americans like to put it, the country's chief diplomat, he got his facts wrong. He was not referring to burkas but to the niqab which covers the whole head and face but leaves a slit for the eyes. The burka covers the whole face including the eyes and I can't remember often seeing Muslim women wearing that style of dress in the UK, but very often in Afghanistan. The niqab is much more commonly worn, and the hijab, a black scarf around the head, is even more common on the streets of the UK's towns and cities. Secondly, Boris Johnson held one of the most prestigious state appointments in this country and even though he is currently footloose and fancy-free and has no political responsibilities other than to his constituents - and to his supporters who want him to be the next prime minister - he still should be aware that he can't go around taking the mickey out of people, especially those of the Muslim faith because they are I would suggest more sensitive to his sort of poor humour. Thirdly, he wrote what he wrote because he probably thought it would get tremendous publicity and keep his name in lights and also appeal to the baser type of person - and I'm not referring here to Rowan Atkinson. He should eventually apologise. He will be forced to say that he did not mean any offence, although he is intelligent enough to know that that it is precisely what the letter box and bank robber comment was bound to do. Apart from being rude and insensitive, it was a stupid thing to write, and to come from a person who still seeks the highest office in the land it was wholly reprehensible.

Trump in trouble with his new friends

President George W Bush said Iraq, Iran and North Korea represented an axis of evil. By contrast Donald Trump has made it clear he has three new friends on the world stage who form part of his, shall we say, axis of friendshp. They are, or were, Kim Jong-un of North Korea, Xi Zinping of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia. In each case he sought their friendship and declared them to be good guys whom he wanted to do business with and settle longstanding disagreements. But since then, since his session with Zinping at his Florida golf resort home, his day with Kim in Singapore and his long chat with Putin in Helsinki, it all seems to have gone wrong. Trump is waging a trade war with China that seems to be never-ending, he has approved new sanctions against Moscow for ordering the nerve agent attack in Salisbury and his sweet talks with Kim have fallen to dust because of the North Korean's apparent refusal to start doing anything that smacks of denuclearisation. So much for personal friendship. How much longer will Trump stick with his axis of friendship? Zinping must be furious with him, Putin will feel betrayed - ah there there - and Kim.....well Kim was photographed wearing a sort of vest because it's hot in North Korea. He probably doesn't care what Trump thinks. I have a good idea, Mr President. Why don't you start courting people like the leaders of America's closest allies in Europe? You just might get a better return.

Iran and the EU versus Trump

Iran is trying to put a brave face on the reimposition of US sanctions, warning Trump that the US is isolated and that other countries who signed the 2015 nuclear deal intended to carry on lifting sanctions and doing trade with Tehran. Trump has warned that he will take action against any country which continues to do business with Iran. The truth is Trump simply cannot stop other countries from trading with Iran and buying its oil, but he can certainly make life difficult if, for instance, the EU refuses to oblige him by barring trade with Iran. But it is also true that Iran cannot rely on life continuing as normal, with the EU and others stepping in to help where the US axe has fallen. Already some of the world's biggest companies have pulled out of deals done with Iran after the 2015 nuclear agreement was signed, allowing for the phased lifting of sanctions. These companies know what's best for them, and trying to carry on as if nothing had happened, with Trump breathing down their necks, makes little business sense. Deals are done in US dollars, that's the way the world is, and any attempt by European companies to get round this will be seized on by the US Treaury sanctions-busting specialists and Trump revenge will not be far away. It's too risky. So EU plans to thwart Trump by putting a blocking measure into the system to prevent Trump from taking retaliatory action will make a fortune for lawyers but will do nothing to improve relations between Europe and the US. Relations are bad enough as it is. Leaders need to come to their senses. There has to be a sensible arrangement somewhere. But Trump's style is to go all out for what he wants, no compromise. The EU stands no chance.

Not much love around in the world and it's not all Trump's fault

There is so much division on this planet that it seems to leave little room for love, loyalty, honesty, steadfastness and dignity. Donald Trump's arrival in the White House has definitely contributed to this era of antagonism, but it's not all his fault. Saudi Arabia and Canada are having a hateful spat right now over the arrest in Saudia Arabia of human rights protestors, some of them with Canadian links. The Canadian ambassador in Riyadh has been kicked out. So much for all those promising signs of a new more moderate, more modern Saudi Arabia with the promotion of Mohammed bin Salman to the Crown Prnce slot. Then there's the increasing exasperation, frustration and hatred being shown between the UK and Brussels over Britain's departure from the European Union from March next year. We're rushing headlong into a doom-laden situation of a no-deal Brexit, and who the hell is really doing anything about it? You see, I'm getting angry now! In Washington friends and colleagues are turning against each other to avoid going to prison. Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman who faces the serious possibility of a prison sentence for alleged fraud and money-laundering, is being betrayed wholesale by his one-time friend and business associate Rick Gates. He is spilling all kinds of nasty stuff in the trial about how Manafort allegedly broke the law. Heaven knows what we're going to hear when Mike Flynn reveals what he has told Robert Mueller, special counsel, about his time as national security adviser to Trump. But it won't be nice. Trump hates anyone who opposes him. Look at his tweet earlier today warning the EU that if they so much as dare do trade deals with Iran he will ban them from any deals with the US. Hate hate hate, ultimatums, warnings. That's what politics is all about now. Perhaps it's the heat that's doing it, but I doubt it. Heat or cold, we all have a future of division and verbal battering, thanks to the way politics is going.

Everyone does political muckraking, says Trump. He's right but....

In a remarkable new development in the Russia collusion affair, Donald Trump has admitted that his "wonderful" son, Donald Junior, did talk to a Russian lawyer during the presidential election campaign about potential dirt on Hillary Clinton. But there was nothing wrong or illegal about that, he said. Everyone sought dirt on their opponents in the political world. Strictly speaking he is right, politicians with much at stake in their careers will always dig deep for skeletons in their opponents' cupboards because there is nothing like a bit of scandal to liven up a campaign. With all the focus on the Trump campaign and whether the Russians played a crucial part in getting Trump into the White House, the "secret" deeds done on behalf of the Democratic Party to find dirt and filth on Trump - the infamous Christopher Steele dossier - have been largely pushed to one side. It has to be said, however, that even though allegedly Hillary knew nothing about the commissioning of Steele, the former Russian specialist MI6 intelligence officer, and even though the British ex-spy, allegedly, did not know where his research was going to end up, the fact is that the dossier which contained salacious stuff about Trump in a Moscow hotel room (the notorious and massively Trump-denied "golden shower moment")was explosive material. It was dirt, dirt, dirt, and the FBI was aware of it. The company that commissioned Steele, Fusion GPS, had been contracted by the Democratic Party to investigate Trump once he had won the Republican nomination. A natural thing to do, you would argue. But Fusion GPS chose Christopher Steele to do the dirt-digging, and his speciality was Russia. They chose him because they wanted a simple question answered: why did Trump as a businessman seek to do deals in Russia when others avoided the country judging it to be a bad and unwise investment? Fusion GPS and the Democratic Party and, therefore, the Clinton campaign, got more than it bargained for. The Steele dossier remains a highly controversial issue. If any of it is true - and General James Clapper, Obama's director of national intelligence, has claimed more and more of its contents have proven to be accurate - then it could still be deadly for Trump's continuing presence in the White House. Certainly, it provided juicy morsels for Robert Mueller, special counsel investigating the collusion affair. But Hillary claims she knew nothing about its contents until BuzzFeed published the 35-page document in full ten days before Trump's inauguration as president in January 2017. People seem to forget that it was actually the American magazine Mother Jones which broke the Steele story, publishing the details about Trump's links with Russia in a massive scoop article on October 31 2016 - a few days BEFORE the election date. David Corn, the driven and highly competent journalist who broke the story, revealed that the dossier had been drawn up by a British ex-spy. He did not name the intelligence officer who was clearly his source for the story, although the name emerged eventually. Nor did Corn include in his article the salacious Golden Shower stuff. That only came out in the BuzzFeed blockbuster. Despite all the above which supports Trump's statement that everyone digs dirt on their political opponents, there is still one distinct difference. Trump Jr met this vivacious-looking Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and had a chat about what she (and presumably her Kremlin friends) could provide to knock Hillary out of the race. Nothing came of it, says Trump Senior. But the mere fact that the son of the soon-to-be president of the United States was talking to a RUSSIAN about getting dirt on Hillary must surely go down in history as catastrophically stupid, unbelievably risky and potentially unlawful. Ok, so Steele's stuff was all Russian based. In other words, he got all his material from his sources in Russia. So he could easily have been unwittingly duped by his sources, although if Moscow wanted Trump in the White House this is difficult to square. But it was Steele digging dirt on behalf of his client. It was a hired ex-intelligence doing the bidding of his paymaster. In the Trump case, it was a Russian woman with highly dodgy links offering free gratis to provide the Trump campaign with deadly stuff on Hillary. There is definitely no like-for-like here. Trump's casual acknowledgment about his son's involvement and the president's dismissal of anything remotely untoward do not wash.

Trump and the media

Trump should stop his war with the media. The New York Times head honcho has given this advice but Trump simply isn't interested in being nice to journalists unless they ask him pathetic flattering questions. He does actually give interviews a lot, especially to Fox News and CBS but he basically hates the media because when they do their job properly and ask intelligent questions he just dismisses them as fake news merchants. In the end, this will do him no good. The best presidents know that it is far better to have the media on your side or at least to treat them with respect so they respect back. There's a way of doing this. Not kowtowing to journalists, that would be a huge mistake, but just being prepared to answer questions in a reasonable way. No ranting! Obama was terrific at it, so was Bill Clinton until he had all his troubles with Monica Lewinski. The press loved Ronnie Reagan because he gave such brilliant one-liners and was always charming. George W Bush had a tricky relationship with the media but survived, and his father George HW Bush was good at developing relationships with journalists, although his classic "read my lips" statement when he said there would be no tax rises brought him a helluva lot of trouble in the media when he then raised taxes. But Trump is so anti-media that in his most recent rallies he seemed to spend most of the time raging against the fake news merchants. He should get a life and start winning the media more to his side. For a start, stop this ridiculous war with CNN. The trouble is, Trump's press team are obviously too scared to suggest he starts winning friends in the media. All they do is amplify Trump's prejudices. It's a kind of vicious circle and it's becoming excessively boring.

Trump thwarted by Congress

Congress probably feels that it has a president in the White House who is there to undermine them at every opportunity. Trump's latest ploy is to threaten to close down the government if Congress fails to pass the federal spending bill which includes money for his Mexico wall. But Congress, both Republican members and Democrat members, have ways of getting their own back. For example, in the huge $717 billion defence authorisation bill which has just been approved there is something in there which will irk Trump. Congress has decided to include in the bill a total ban on two Chinese telecom companies from doing any business with the US government. They are ZTE and Huawei, mammoth conglomerates who have done well out of exporting to the US. But ZTE was punished earlier this year when it was discovered the company was selling electronic components to Iran and North Korea, breaching sanctions imposed by America. As a result the company was on the brink of collapse and President Xi Zinping himself appealed to Trump to save thousands of jobs. Trump agreed to see what he could do. But he met with stony faces in Congress, and now they have underlined their opposition to helping the Chinese by reemphasising the ban on any form of business deals with the two companies. The Pentagon had ordered all retail outlets on military bases to stop selling Huawei smart phones because it judged them to be a security risk. In other words, the Chinese government could use Huawei to gain access to personal information carried by US military personnel on their phones. Huawei denied any such possibility but the Pentagon thought otherwise. Now Congress has firmly placed its support for banning ZTE and Huawei which, for Trump, means a slap in the face after his promise to Xi to help out. Mind you, with Trump raising the stakes by imposing more and more tariffs on Chinese goods, there can't be much good will around these days between the two leaders.

The tweet king should watch his step

Donald Trump knows, because we all now know, that Robert Mueller, special counsel or "witch hunter supremo" in the president's mind, is currently investigating the Trump tweets to see whether any of them represent an obstruction of justice. But then up pops Trump and in one of his many tweets today he calls in no uncertain terms on the Attorney General, the much besieged Jeff Sessions, to sack Mueller and stop the investigation into collusion with Russia. Trump says there was no collusion between his campaign team and Moscow and that's that. So sack Mueller, says Trump. Well, the White House hastily said the president was NOT ordering Sessions to fire Mueller, he just wanted Mueller gone because the whole thing was rubbish fake news. But if Mueller has turned his attention to whether the president is guilty of obstruction of justice, Trump's latest tweet was a godsend. But I'm not sure why Mueller is examining the Trump tweets. First of all, it will take him days if not weeks to go through them all and second, what has this got to do with the allegations of collusion with Moscow? Perhaps Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general and in overall charge at the Justice Department of the Mueller inquiry, should tell the former FBI director to narrow his lines of inquiry and stick to the main theme. For example, much is being made of the trial of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, but he has not been charged with a single offence that relates in any way to the collusion affair. He is charged with money laundering and other offences. That doesn't mean he should be let off, he is accused of a serious federal crime. But Mueller's first scalp sent for trial is unrelated to the issue which he was supposed to be investigating. Shouldn't someone else in the FBI be involved in dealing with stuff like this? Mueller is getting bogged down in a mass of legal investigations when he should be focused on the one story. Did Trump and co do a deal with the Russians to undermine Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the White House? That's all we and the American voters want to know, surely. It's time you delivered your report, Mueller.