Tom Bradby

I think there's a direct connection.

There are many things that have been written about the 2016 election in America and all the rest of it.

And not to start all this by blowing smoke, but I do think the series, both the subscribers only one, which I thought was brilliant, and the more general one that you guys did,

was kind of the definitive take on, is Trump an agent?

Obviously you concluded no in the sense of being a controlled agent, but also in terms of what Russia was trying to do and the operation they were trying to run, you draw very clear conclusions about what impact it did and didn't have.

I was, of course, thinking about all this in the mid-teens.

To sort of summarize, because I think one of the questions you have to address when you're talking about these issues is if you're seeking a mass audience, and we hope we'll have a mass audience for this, I guess people think, well, why does it matter?

I listened to your series a second time, and as I was going through it, I was trying to think, what could you say if I walked down the pub now and someone said, oh, I've heard so much about this.

Tell me what we can't argue about.

I would say, unarguably, I think you would say,

The Russians at some point saw Donald Trump as a person of great interest, somebody who would be friendly to their interests, who liked the oligarchical system of government, and all the other things that you outlined so well in your series.

They did try to help him get elected.

Again, you debate how much that did or didn't change the 2016 election.

Unquestionably, and this was the conclusion of your series, it poisoned the well of democracy in America.

Why does it matter?

Well, where are we now?

I think NATO's dead.

I think if you're British or you're European, you're thinking if Vladimir Putin does a kind of false flag,

operational, some kind of thing in Estonia, is Donald Trump coming to our aid?

Answer, I would say very clearly, no.