During a midday segment on Middle Eastern relations and terrorism, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer interviewed former ambassador to the U.N., Iraq, and Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad. Blitzer and CNN ostensibly were interested in having Ambassador Khalilzad as a guest on the program for his expert analysis and insight. However, instead of discussing policy, Blitzer instead deliberately derailed Khalilzad’s academic breakdown of the issues in favor of pushing him to criticize President Trump.
After a discussion of the recent diplomatic developments among the Gulf States, Blitzer turned the topic to the London terror attack and Trump’s criticism of the city's mayor Sadiq Khan on Twitter after the attack:
WOLF BLITZER: Talk a little bit about what's going on in London right now. You saw the president's tweets. Really criticizing the London mayor who himself is Muslim.
Khalilzad, a policy expert on terrorism, begins discussing modern terrorism and the London attack—but Blitzer’s concern is not on the terrorist attack in question. Instead, Blitzer is focused entirely on the President’s Twitter comments, not the actual attack or its implications for the U.S. or U.K.
ZALMAY KHALILZAD: Well, of course as long as this crisis of Islamic civilization, the rise of extremism, the rise of terror, state sponsorship-- alleged-- taking place, you can't really get rid of this problem overall, but you can contain and manage it. I suspect it will increase in the coming weeks and months as we press ISIS in Iraq and Syria. They were more like an insurgency there taking over territory. Now they're becoming a full-fledged terrorist organization attacking everywhere that they can reach out, including the West.
BLITZER: You saw this last tweet, from 9:49 this morning: "pathetic excuse by London mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement. Mainstream media is working hard to sell it!" It's pretty extraordinary that the U.S. Ambassador to the UK, the acting ambassador, he tweets positive things about the London mayor, but the president is going after the mayor of London at a time of crisis in London.
Blitzer, unsatisfied with Khalilzad’s response, continued to press him not to continue the policy discussion but instead to criticize President Trump:
BLITZER: Is it appropriate for the president to be slamming the mayor like this who's got a lot on his agenda right now?
KHALILZAD: Well, he does have a lot on his agenda and we all need to be supportive of the mayor and of the UK government as they confront these very difficult days and difficult circumstances.
Unable to get Khalilzad to bash Trump's tweets, Blitzer turned to another topic:
BLITZER: Very quickly, the travel ban, the revised version, are you with the president on this or against the president?
KHALILZAD: I'm with the president that we ought to be extremely careful of who we let in the country although most of the terror problems here are home grown terrorists. But, I have no doubt terrorists are trying to get in here from overseas.
Khalilzad has a background in U.S. foreign policy and international diplomacy with the Bush Administration as well as academic study of international affairs. He is not known for commenting extensively on domestic politics or partisan debates. However, Blitzer was only interested in hammering the President, not in a thoughtful discussion with an expert analyst on how to combat terrorism.
Full transcript below:
CNN
The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer
June 5, 2017
1:33:14 PM EST
(...)
WOLF BLITZER: Talk a little bit about what's going on in London right now. You saw the president's tweets. Really criticizing the London mayor who himself is Muslim.
ZALMAY KHALILZAD: Well, of course as long as this crisis of Islamic civilization, the rise of extremism, the rise of terror, state sponsorship-- alleged-- taking place, you can't really get rid of this problem overall, but you can contain and manage it. I suspect it will increase in the coming weeks and months as we press ISIS in Iraq and Syria. They were more like an insurgency there taking over territory. Now they're becoming a full fledged terrorist organization attacking everywhere that they can reach out, including the West.
BLITZER: You saw this last tweet, from 9:49 this morning: "pathetic excuse by London mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his no reason to be alarmed statement. Mainstream media is working hard to sell it!" It's pretty extraordinary that the U.S. Ambassador to the UK, the acting ambassador, he tweets positive things about the London mayor, but the president is going after the mayor of London at a time of crisis in London.
KHALILZAD: Well, we are all with London and with the UK at the present time.
BLITZER: Is it appropriate for the president to be slamming the mayor like this who's got a lot on his agenda right now?
KHALILZAD: Well, he does have a lot on his agenda and we all need to be supportive of the mayor and of the UK government as they confront these very difficult days and difficult circumstances.
BLITZER: Very quickly, the travel ban, the revised version, are you with the president on this or against the president?
KHALILZAD: I'm with the president that we ought to be extremely careful of who we let in the country although most of the terror problems here are home grown terrorists. But, I have no doubt terrorists are trying to get in here from overseas. I think ultimately the president, judiciary and our political process will come to a balanced equation. I don't know whether the travel ban is the right approach.
BLITZER: The former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Iraq, Afghanistan among other things. Thanks for joining us.
KHALILZAD: Great to be with you.
