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Americanswers… on 5 Live! Is Chicago really a ‘war zone’?
00:28:30
Donald Trump has sent the National Guard to Illinois
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- [00:00]
Sarah
Hello, it's Sarah here. Anthony, Marianna and I have just come off air with Matt Charlie, where we were answering your questions as we do every week on five Live. And it is a high stakes week in America. The shutdown of the federal government is still not over. And we'll be answering your question on why Republican majorities in both houses of Congress can't get the spending bill over the line that would allow the government to open up again. National Guard troops have actually arrived in Illinois as Donald Trump is expanding his targeting of Democratic led states, cities which he says are defying federal law and have descended into lawless war zones. And There are Trump 2028 baseball caps on sale. What can we glean from this? Is it a sign that the President is really planning to run for office again in another three years time? Welcome to americancers. Americast.
- [00:53]
Matt
Americast from BBC News, when Donald Trump.
- [00:56]
Anthony
Calls, they say, yes sir, right away.
- [00:58]
Marianna
Sir, Happy to lick your boot, sir.
- [01:01]
Anthony
We are the sickest country in the world.
- [01:03]
Matt
Oh dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry?
- [01:06]
Anthony
Of course the President supports peaceful protests.
- [01:09]
Sarah
What a stupid question.
- [01:10]
Anthony
Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
- [01:20]
Marianna
So let's go diving straight in then with a voice note from Michelle in.
- [01:24]
Switzerland, I saw that the official Trump store is selling hats with the local Trump 2028. What's the intention behind this kind of merchandising?
- [01:36]
It's a new way of asking the age old question.
- [01:39]
Anthony
I think we have to think it's.
- [01:40]
Marianna
Quite an innovative way of asking.
- [01:41]
Yeah, we like this. And I've seen him giving them out the Trump 2028 hats as well. So, Anthony, I feel constitutionally we have to come to you first on this question. Can Donald Trump run again in 2028?
- [01:54]
Anthony
No, constitutionally, he can't. Presidents are forbidden due to an amendment in the US Constitution from running for more than two terms. Now, there has been talk about ways around this. He could run as vice president and then the president could resign and then he could be elevated to president again. I mean, it's trying to find technicalities. The Constitution is fairly clear on this. And so it would be remarkable if Trump were able to do it without changing the Constitution. It seems much more likely that he wouldn't run, but someone else that is a close ally of his would run and then he would exert considerable influence from outside the White House over it. So yeah, those 2028 hats, I mean, there were some in the Oval Office. I think actually when the Democratic leaders came by and Trump tried to give them to the Democratic leaders. And Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, turned to the vice president, said, you know, how does this make you feel? And J.D. vance replied, no comment.
- [02:58]
Sarah
Now of it only says Trump 2028. It doesn't say Donald. So you never know. They could be repurposed for Eric or Don Jr. Oh, Barron.
- [03:09]
Anthony
Barron's too young.
- [03:10]
Marianna
Barron's too young.
- [03:11]
Anthony
You have to be 35. True.
- [03:13]
Marianna
I forget this what I was gonna say, though, kind of to answer the question about why is he doing. Answering that bit. Why is he doing it? I mean, as we know, Donald Trump is the expert in rage bait. He is the expert in how to get a reaction by doing a stunt that will make everyone start talking about something. He is kind of the ultimate troll in that regard. And so I'd imagine that that's what he's thinking. It sparks a conversation and gets people talking about him again. Yeah. And then gets people who don't like him very much to be not very happy about it.
- [03:45]
It also means, Sarah, that he sort of extends his influence, both as president, but also within the Republican Party, beyond his term by seeking to own that and make it seem inevitable that he will be the kingmaker, or he would be the, you know, the puppet master, whoever it might be. Rather than this sort of countdown to the, you know, the.
- [04:06]
Ian
What do you call it?
- [04:07]
Marianna
Not dead duck. Sitting duck. No, Lame duck.
- [04:10]
Sarah
Lame duck. You're a lame duck. Yes. If you're coming to the end of a term and everybody knows that you can't be reelected. So why should they listen to you? Why should they obey you when you're, you know, practically out of power? No, and you're right, it does. It creates this kind of omnipresence, which he's very good at doing. He's on television all the time because he's always taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office or when he's making his way to Marine One or whatever. You know, it's great for journalists. He stops and talks to them all the time. But he makes all these appearances as well, doesn't he, at sporting events, at the, at the Open, at the baseball. You know, he's just makes sure that he is in front of you at all times.
- [04:49]
Marianna
Well, we'll see if. What difference that makes. They're $50. $50, though. That's a lot of a baseball cap, isn't it?
- [04:55]
Oh, you should see when we went out for the, when we were almost a year ago, when we, when I was in the States for the Election. I did some very good haggling of general. General merchandise. Didn't we bring you a present? We bought you an umbrella.
- [05:06]
You did?
- [05:07]
Yeah. And it was all very expensive and.
- [05:09]
In fact, one of our daughters, I think, grabbed it one day.
- [05:12]
Sarah
Oh, no.
- [05:13]
Marianna
Didn't realise what was on it.
- [05:16]
Didn't realise it got Trump 2024.
- [05:18]
That was from the inauguration, actually.
- [05:21]
That's very funny.
- [05:21]
Anyway, the merch is famously expensive, I feel.
- [05:24]
Yeah, but it's all part of buying into the gang.
- [05:26]
Exactly.
- [05:26]
Right, let's move on, then, to Donald Trump's campaign to deploy National Guard troops in several US cities. We've had this question in from Ian in London.
- [05:35]
Ian
How common is it for the National Guard from one state to be deployed to another without the other state's governor's permission? Using the National Guard of Texas as the private army of a president doesn't seem usual. Has this happened before without the Insurrection act being invoked? If lower courts issue orders preventing it, have troops ever ignored the courts? Thank you.
- [05:59]
Marianna
Thank you, Ian. We've also had a question from Dave who says, with the deployment of National Guard troops to cities outside their home states, is the US now in a state of de facto civil war? If not, then when does government overreach turn into civil war to do Americans want either thing from their federal government? Anthony, can you explain, first of all, what is the National Guard and what is the Insurrection act for us?
- [06:21]
Anthony
Right. The National Guard is basically the Army Reserve. They're reserve troops that are under the control of governors in states all over this country. They train, they drill, but they aren't active duty military. They get called up in cases of emergency. National Guard troops were deployed to Afghanistan and in Iraq during the war. They've also been deployed by state governors in instances of natural disasters, for instance, hurricanes, things like that. It is much more unusual for the National Guard to be used to address civil unrest and lawlessness on the streets. And it is very unusual for them to be deployed in an area, in a city without the permission of the local authorities there. I mean, I can think of one time when out of state National Guard were deployed, and that was in 2020, during the Black Lives Matters protests here in Washington, DC. National Guard from various different states were deployed to protect federal property here, but otherwise it is extraordinarily uncommon because there is federal law that says that the state governor has to authorize the use of National Guard. And so this is one of those instances where the limits really are being tested by the President by taking Texas National Guard Reserve soldiers from Texas and picking them up and moving them to Illinois when the governor of Illinois and the mayor of Chicago don't want them there. I don't know if it's civil war, there'd have to be people fighting back against them. But it does seem very unlike the United States.
- [07:58]
Marianna
And how much can Americans, Mariana, pick through the sort of the amount of disinformation surround about a why there might be the need for troops and then whether or not there are troops and what they might be doing.
- [08:09]
I think what's quite difficult is all of this enters the ever polarized land of social media. And so depending on which, for example, undercover voters feed you look at, you would get a completely different impression of the reason for bringing in the National Guard. And the conversation is incredibly fractious online. So you've got people who support it saying, look, this is to deal with antifa and blah, blah, blah and all of these different things like anti fascist groups and it's going to make everything better. Then you've got other people saying who don't like it, saying this is civil war and overreach and everything else. I think for that reason it's quite hard to get to get the facts of it, not least because it's not happening everywhere, but in specific places. And so as ever, I would be very wary certainly if you're in the states about what you're being pushed and whether it just plays into your biases and what the actual facts are around crime or around other stuff in the area that we're looking at or talking about.
- [08:59]
And then so what's the end game and all that if, if, if we're not, as Dave says in de facto civil war, how does Trump declare victory without just aspiring for a sort of never ending deployment?
- [09:12]
Sarah
People have different theories as to what the end game for Donald Trump is with all of this in the shorter term, the National Guard go in. What we have seen happen is quite firm policing, shall we say of protests, probably protests around immigration raids or around ICE facilities. If you start firing tear gas canisters and things into the crowd, you know, things will turn nasty. Usually things turn nasty first and then law enforcement would start using tear gas. But you can provoke a riot and then say, look, I was right, the left are destroying our cities, looting, using violent protests. Isn't it just as well that I sent in the National Guard to stamp on this? So he looks like he is the one bringing law and order to the streets of these cities? He characterizes as being chaotic and says they're already like war zones. So he can to a certain extent make that come true and demonize the left a bit as well. I mean, what they are doing is using the National Guard to back up immigration raids quite heavy handedly, some might say, when you see Black Hawk helicopters above Chicago apartment blocks and people rappelling down onto the roof in order to conduct an immigration raid. But, you know, so they are able to back up the immigration rates that we know Donald Trump wants to keep happening across the United States. But there are other people, including the governor of Illinois, J.B. pritzker, who think that there is a much more sinister idea behind this, which is that over the next year or so you've got troops on the streets of mainly Democratic cities like Chicago, Louisiana, New York, and that they would still be in place come the midterms next year. And that this could be used to suppress left wing votes is what some Democrats claim. And that's a little bit more of a kind of conspiracy theory idea about it. But yeah. And Donald Trump likes to project the authoritarian power that this appears to give him.
- [11:13]
Anthony
At the very least, this normalizes this. This makes it much more common if a president can deploy National Guard to the streets of cities when it seems fairly clear there aren't emergencies. This is not a state of civil unrest the way there was during, say, the Rodney King riots in Los angeles in the 90s or the protests and riots after the death of Martin Luther King by an assassin in the 1960s. This is orders of magnitude smaller. But if Donald Trump sets this precedent and he wins these court cases saying that he can basically unilaterally declare an emergency whenever he wants and deploy troops whenever he wants, that is almost unchecked presidential power to use force and to deploy armed soldiers to American streets, which is, you know, an awesome power to be able to have just at his fingertips.
- [12:02]
Marianna
It is worth saying as well that on that strength point, almost all of the kind of messaging that's coming from the MAGA crowd is very much in support of Donald Trump. He's, you know, it's those AI generated images where he's looking like he's got shades on and he's, and he's looking like he's doing something strong and powerful and good. And those are the kinds of images that Donald Trump is projecting on his own social media feeds. But like Anthony says, the reality of what that actually means feels quite contrasted with the image that's being projected.
- [12:30]
Right, let's revisit the government shutdown, which still has no end in sight. It's another thing where we don't know how that's going to end. The latest is the US Senate has failed for a fifth time. This is on Monday to pass spending measures that would reopen the government, which has led to a fairly predictable war of words between the Republicans and Democrats. And Donald Trump threatened to withhold back pay from furloughed government workers. We've got Chris, who's just outside Bristol on the line with a question. Hi, Chris.
- [12:55]
Chris
Hi, Matt. Forgive me if I've missed the point, but if the Republicans hold both the Senate and Congress until maybe next year's midterm elections, how come the Democrats can seem to be able to stop the bill being passed? Why can't the Republicans just pass it anyway?
- [13:13]
Sarah
Well, I think the answer to this is because they need 60 votes to be filibuster proof to be able to get something like these spending measures through. And they although they do have a majority, they have more than 50%. They don't have 60 votes. But Anthony will fill us in on all of this and why a filibuster isn't a filibuster anymore because we, Matt, don't we think of it as somebody standing up and talking and talking and talking for hours or days in order to delay a vote? Actually, it's something a little bit different.
- [13:39]
Anthony
Yeah. I was hoping you explained the filibuster and you did a very good job. In its modern form, the filibuster has been changed to a procedural rule that allows Senate to do other business. But senators, a minority senators, at least 40 can put a hold on one specific thing such as this budget bill, unless the majority can can muster 60 votes to break it. It's not something that's written in the Constitution. It's not something that's that even had been observed over the course of the 249 years of US history. But it is something that in practice the past 30 years or so has been a very real obstacle for the Senate passing major legislation without help from the minority party. The most recent time that one party had 60 votes in the Senate was in 2009 with Barack Obama and the Democrats and they used it to pass Obamacare, the health care reform. But it is a rule that right now is giving the Democrats their one little bit of power despite not being in the majority to block the Republicans and shut down the government. Now, funny thing is if the Republicans decided to change the rules and make it a 50 vote majority instead of 60, they could do that. But that would open the door to when the Democrats get back in charge, being able to pass major legislation with just a simple majority. So in the Republican conservative view, maybe a greater check on legislative power and the ability to do big things in Congress is actually worth having a frustrating shutdown for a few weeks. Right now, I just want to ask.
- [15:09]
Marianna
You, while we've been talking, James Comey, the former FBI director, has just pleaded not guilty in a federal court in Virginia to charges making false statements to Congress in obstruction of justice. How big a moment is this then, Sarah, do you think?
- [15:25]
Sarah
It's huge? Because this is the furthest along of any of Donald Trump's revenge actions against the people he perceives as being his enemies and his attempt to use the Department of Justice to personally target people who he thinks caused trouble for him. And it's an executive attempted takeover of the Justice Department who seemed to be going along with it. So the U.S. attorney in Virginia said he couldn't find enough evidence to take this case against James Comey forward. There was no realistic chance of getting a conviction. But that infuriated Donald Trump, so he managed to get rid of him and replace him with Lindsay Halligan, a woman who had been one of his personal lawyers, but who has no experience as a prosecutor at all, who, within about three days, just before the statute of limitations was about to run out, came up with these charges against James Comey a couple of weeks ago. And this is him in court for the first time today, being formally arraigned and issuing a plea. And they've set a court date for the beginning of January next year. But, I mean, this is the president is supposed to stay miles away from the Justice Department. He's not supposed to be meddling in it like this, but instead, you can see him using the power of the executive office to personally target people he doesn't like. And that's, I mean, pretty unprecedented, isn't it, Anthony?
- [16:49]
Anthony
Yeah, you don't really have to do a whole lot of line drawing to see Trump wants Comey indicted. Trump thinks Comey's a crook. All of a sudden, they change the apparatus, the personnel in this particular U.S. attorney's office, and Comey is indicted. And here he is this morning, showing up for his arraignment, pleading not guilty to two counts, one of lying to Congress and the other of obstructing an investigation. So it is going to all play out here, clearly, because Comey's not going to plead guilty. It'll be an interesting twist to a story that, you know, we've been covering since 2015. 2016. I mean, Comey was central to the Russian investigation and those early controversies around Donald Trump.
- [17:29]
Marianna
Yeah.
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Sarah
And he might be able to use a very novel defense, mightn't he? A vindictive prosecution, which would be very interesting to see that playing out in court.
- [17:35]
Marianna
Wow. It's quite something. And he, yeah, he says, I'm innocent, so let's have a trial. So we'll, we'll await that. More time to come on a similar sort of connected note about Donald Trump's interactions with the justice system. We've got Simon on the line. Hi, Simon.
- [17:48]
Simon
Hi. Donald Trump revealed in recent days that P. Diddy had sought a pardon from the president. Does the president consult other members of his presidential team or the judicial system to come to a decision or simply make a personal choice? Is any pressure put on the president to steer clear of making unwise or controversial pardons, or is it a complete freewheeling decision by the man at the top?
- [18:11]
Anthony
It is a power that is explicitly written into the US Constitution that the president has the power to pardon for federal, not state, not little local crimes, but federal crimes. And it really doesn't give a whole lot of other details surrounding what, any limitations on that power. So there has been a tradition where there are committees, you know, there are groups of people within the executive branch that make recommendations on pardons and then hand them through the bureaucracy to the president who signs off on them. But that's not the way pardons sometimes work. A very famous pardon happened in the 70s with Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon. Here we are, Richard Nixon again, for any crimes he may have committed. And then Donald Trump has used the pardon power pretty much unilaterally, without any kind of consultations to pardon allies, politicians he thinks were wronged. And in theory, he could use it to pardon P. Diddy. I will note that also Joe Biden used the pardon power pretty frequently in the final days of his presidency to pardon his son Hunter for the plea, the guilty plea he had had, and other investigations into him, as well as pardoning some of the people who were critics of Donald Trump from any kind of investigations. Anthony Fauci, Lyn Chaney, also Liz Cheney also. So it is interesting to see Donald Trump could do it if he wanted to do it, and he could do it by the stroke of a pen without anyone else telling him one way or the other.
- [19:40]
Sarah
And I suppose Elaine Maxwell's looking for a pardon as well. That would be another controversial.
- [19:45]
Anthony
Back to the Epstein case. And Jimmy Carter actually pardoned all the people who draft, dodged the draft, the Vietnam War draft and people who had fled to Canada and things. So, yeah, I mean, there are interesting uses of the presidential pardon. I mean, it is a remarkable power for a president to have to forgive. The clemency's a little different. It's not a full wiping the slate clean, but it's allowing them to get out of prison while that conviction in theory, still stays on their record.
- [20:14]
Marianna
Fabulous. I feel like we've covered a lot there. Oh, one final thing I want to ask you about the $1 coin with Donald Trump's face on it. Is that a real thing, Sarah? Is that going to happen? I get very confused about what's really happening. Have you got one in your pocket?
- [20:26]
Sarah
Well, I haven't carried cash for a very long time now. That makes me sound rather grand. Doesn't like, I think I'm a member of the Royal Family or something. But no, I just use my phone now, so I can't imagine who. I mean, you would only use them for, I guess, souvenir purposes, wouldn't they? Do you have any dollar coins about your personal.
- [20:43]
Anthony
You know, I'm actually an amateur coin collector. I was as a kid and my parents would buy coins for me and I have quite a few dollar coins which are actual US Currency, but they don't go into circulation. At least that's what this proposed Trump dollar coin is. But this would be something special minted by. By the US Mint. That is still an official dollar. But it wouldn't. It would only be distributed on a smaller scale and it also would apparently run afoul of current federal law, which says that no living person can be on a US Financial instrument which currency would be. So I'm not sure how they get around that, but it sounds like something.
- [21:22]
Marianna
I wonder, Donald Trump thing's about to happen.
- [21:24]
Currency in favor, he's going to break it twice because he's on both sides.
- [21:29]
But also, it kind of brings us full circle back to the first question, doesn't it, about the caps, which is that what Donald Trump seems to be looking at doing is working out how he can continue to exist as a very important figure in public life in American culture far beyond 2028.
- [21:46]
Because that coin will last forever.
- [21:47]
Yeah, well, exactly. And the caps, obviously.
- [21:57]
Sarah
We've just come off air with Matt Charlie on five Live, and I'm here with Anthony. We mentioned Pam Bondi during the recording in terms of her as the attorney General in charge of the Justice Department when we were talking about the indictment and arraignment of James Comey. But there was something else, wasn't there, Anthony? You and I were watching a Senate hearing yesterday when she was up there for five hours on the Hill answering questions from both Democratic and Republican senators. Everybody was expecting fireworks. And to a certain extent we got them, although maybe without any answers there. It was quite remarkable, wasn't it? I mean, the atmosphere of the whole thing.
- [22:32]
Anthony
Yeah, it was the atmosphere. There was a long list of things she didn't answer. She said she couldn't talk about conversations he had with the President. She couldn't talk about ongoing legal cases like the Comey case. She couldn't talk about any kind of meetings or documents that she may have shared with the White House. What she was perfectly willing to do was give back as good as she got and actually have detailed insults for all of these Democratic senators who were asking her questions, like Sheldon Whitehouse. She went back about his wife had taken government contracts and suggested that they were corrupt. We had Blumenthal, Senator Blumenthal, questioning his military record that he ran on Maggie Hirono, who's a senator from Hawaii. She said that she was consorting with antifa at protest. So clearly she had, like, a long dossier that she could use to essentially try to rattle these Democratic senators. And by the end of the day, Adam Schiff and Peter Welch noted that she was doing this. These personal attacks. Welch actually joked that he was waiting for her to come up with something on him. He's kind of a mild mannered, elderly New Englander, so she didn't have anything for him. But it was remarkable. I think it shows the playbook that members of this administration have now when they testify before Congress. We saw it with RFK Jr. We saw it with Kash Patel, the FBI director, where they sit down there and they don't answer questions. They're more willing to kind of mix it up with their questioners.
- [24:05]
Chris
Were you consulted by the White House before they deployed National Guard troops to cities in the United States?
- [24:14]
Matt
I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the White House.
- [24:20]
Chris
You won't even say whether you talk to the White House about this.
- [24:23]
Matt
I am not going to discuss any internal conversations with the White House.
- [24:27]
Marianna
With you.
- [24:27]
Matt
Chair, ranking member.
- [24:28]
Sarah
I noticed that, yeah, there was no attempt to answer the question. We were used to politicians maybe trying to spin their answer a little bit or take the part of the question that they want to talk about. But there was just. There was just no attempt whatsoever to address what she was being asked and just launch back with an attack, which is very Maga. I mean, it's the sort of thing that you would see Donald Trump himself do. And she was using that playbook, as you say. It felt like she was up there defending his ways, using his kind of attacks, as though she was his personal attorney rather than the attorney general for the whole of the U.S. yeah.
- [25:04]
Anthony
It was also interesting because Republicans had a chance to ask questions as well. Right. And all of their questions were directed to her about transgressions that they viewed the Biden administration as having made or investigations of Donald Trump during his first term. And Bondi generally was agreeing with them and said, yes, and that ends now that Donald Trump is president. I mean, I can't count on two hands the number of times she said that Donald Trump has changed this, and that's not happening anymore. And then when the Democrats took their turns asking questions, they were all about the transgressions that Donald Trump has made. And it's funny because you would hear both the left and the right saying it's important for the Justice Department to be independent and not to weaponize investigations. And the politicization of the Justice Department is awful and is harming American democracy. And then after both of them said that, they would point their fingers at the other side and say they're the reason why it has gotten that way.
- [26:03]
Sarah
One of the really controversial things she was asked about by Peter Welch was this allegation that the border czar, Tom Homan, accepted a $50,000 bribe last year from FBI agents who were posing as businessmen seeking federal contracts. And, yeah, she wasn't. She wasn't going to take that, was she?
- [26:22]
Interviewer
I do want to go back to Homan. You know, there's a tape, right, with Mr. Homan. I mean, first of all, is there a tape and that has audio and video of the transfer of the 50,000?
- [26:34]
Matt
You would have to talk to Director Patel about that.
- [26:37]
Interviewer
No, I'm talking to you.
- [26:40]
Matt
I don't know the answer.
- [26:41]
Interviewer
Senator, you do know the answer to this.
- [26:43]
Matt
Don't call me a liar.
- [26:44]
Interviewer
I didn't call you a liar.
- [26:45]
Matt
You just said, I know the answer. I said, I don't know the answer.
- [26:49]
Anthony
Clearly, the Democrats feel like this was something that one, a lot of Americans can wrap their heads around. Oh, you know, paper bag and money and what did he do with it and did he take it? And also one where they think this administration hasn't given enough answers and could be politically damaging.
- [27:06]
Sarah
This is going to be an ongoing theme, isn't it? The Justice Department, these prosecutions, these investigations, Pam Bond is somebody Americaster is going to get to know pretty well, I think.
- [27:15]
Anthony
Yeah. And if Democrats take control of either branch of the either chamber of the Congress next year, you can expect even more investigations, even more subpoenas and even harsher questioning as they start being able to exercise some of that power.
- [27:29]
Sarah
Plenty of material for AmericasT, but that's it for this episode. We'll see you all very soon.
- [27:34]
Anthony
Bye, bye, bye.
- [27:37]
Sarah
AmericaSt.
- [27:38]
Matt
AmericaSt from BBC News.
- [27:41]
Podcast Host
Well, look, thanks for listening all the way to the end of today's AmericasT. You are now officially an ameracaster. It is, of course, a ride, a wild ride, navigating the US News, particularly in the era of Trump. But you have made it. If you have a comment, a question about the things we've talked about or anything at all, actually, get in touch with us. The email is americastbc.co.uk the WhatsApp is 033-01-239480. We answer your questions every single week, actually on the podcast, so keep them coming. You can join the online community as well on Discord. The link is in the podcast description on your app. We will be back with another podcast very soon. So until then, see you later. Bye.