CNN waited four days to put the Erin Burnett interview with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on video.  The videos were uploaded last evening, and the full interview is in two parts.   The first segment is a discussion of U.S. politics and U.S. foreign policy with the Egyptian President:



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In the second, longer, segment Burnett’s discussion with al-Sisi centers around domestic Egyptian politics.
In this second segment viewers can see how clear-eyed Sisi is to the issues surrounding extremism in the North African gateway to the Middle-East. In addition, you can gauge the factual bravery of Sisi as he applies the term “Islamic Extremism” (@06:30) despite the challenge/risk to himself in calling out the hardline faction that exists.
It is unfair to project the definition of Western democracy -separation of church and state- against the sectarian protections of al-Sisi’s governance, who leads nation of 90 million mostly Muslim citizens entirely comfortable with religious values as part of their governing and legislative structure.

No mid-east leader has been as strong against the tide of religious extremism as al-Sisi in Egypt. There is absolutely no doubt the Egyptian people, and al-Sisi himself, can envision a more reasonable relationship, perhaps a partnership, with the United States with a Donald Trump presidency.
The Egyptian people suffered intensely as a direct result of the consequences from U.S. foreign policy carried out by President Obama and Secretary Clinton. It was President Obama’s speech in Cairo, February 2009, which unlocked the cages to the big cats -killed the zookeepers- unleashed the Muslim Brotherhood, empowered religious extremists and walked away ambivalent to the consequences.
One of Donald Trump’s key policy advisers, Walid Phares, discusses the Egyptian perspective and the meeting between Donald Trump and Fattah el-Sisi:

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