This is CBS I on the world with John Bachelor.

Here's John Bachelor.

I welcome Cliff May, the founder and president of the Foundation for the Defense of

Democracy's, and that is at hand, defensive democracies, for democracies.

Cliff has just returned from one of them, Taiwan, but will begin to list the four and the threat.

Cliff, a very good evening to you, it is helpful to consider that what we're looking at simultaneously is an assault by predators

on democracies that are struggling to sustain themselves and also work together with other democracies.

Let us begin with Israel.

Right now we're on the edge of a catastrophe.

Ayatollahs threatened to attack. The General Secretary of the Hezbollah, Nasrallah, has threatened

to attack. I believe that the U.S. administration is participating in the defense of Israel, but you make the excellent

point that Israel's October 7th catastrophe, the outrage, followed by more than a year and a half the invasion of Ukraine,

followed by continued provocations along the DMZ and by Kim the dictator of North Korea

which is consistent with the daily weekly monthly threats against Taiwan.

In general, Cliff, and you talk about widening the aperture,

big picture, do the predators believe

that democracies are inherently weak or are we going through a bad

patch? Good evening to you. Good evening to you. Yes, in a quick answer your question.

I do think they think democracies are inherently weak, but they also

think in Xi Jinping, the strongest communist ruler since Mao Zetung, has said very clearly

that we are in a different period of history that we have not seen

in a hundred years.

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