Madeleine Albright, Stephen Hadley Speak With Students On Trump
by Steve Tawa
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A former top diplomat for President Bill Clinton, and a former senior aide for President George W. Bush gave their bi-partisan takes on President Donald Trump, and the situation in the Mideast, during a discussion with Philadelphia high school students.
The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting moderated as students from the Science Leadership Academy, the magnet public high school, fired off questions, the first of which centered on President Trump's immigration plans.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the students his travel ban order "was a gift to ISIS."
"It's a great recruitment poster for them," she said.
She says Trump's nationalist approach was theoretically intended to protect us, but she contends it's done the opposite.
"It has made it more difficult for us to have cooperation in the region, especially for our troops and people in Iraq. It's made it more difficult to collect intelligence that would help us deal with the issue," Albright said.
Albright, the first female Secretary of State, who was born in the former Czechoslovakia, says it's a mistake not to welcome the diversity that immigrants bring to this country.
"I'm a refugee. I came here when I was 11-years old. My father was a Czechoslovak diplomat," she said.
Albright claims Trump's "discriminatory" way of dealing with immigrants is "anti-American."
Both Albright and former National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley believe on the Palestinian state issue, a "two-state solution" is the right outcome.
Hadley says both Israelis and Palestinians will have to "give up something to get something." But, he says, "neither side seems willing to do that."
Albright recalls on one mission visiting a school in Ramallah, the Palestinian city in the central West Bank.
"One of the students asked 'what is my future?' I couldn't answer. The problem is a lack of consensus and leadership. It's very easy for Israeli leaders to say there's nobody to talk to in the Palestinian territories. I very much hope that there's a two-state solution, because it's the only answer," she said.
Albright and Hadley are part of an initiative to engage the international community in discussions about Middle East peace.
