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Americanswers…on 5 Live! “Chipocalypse Now”… has Trump declared war on Chicago?
00:34:42
And the story behind the largest deportation raid of Trump’s second term.
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- [00:00]
Matt
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- [01:16]
Mariana
BBC Sounds Music Radio podcasts.
- [01:20]
Sarah
Hi there, it's Sarah here and as usual on a Monday, along with Anthony and Mariana. I've just been on five Live with Matt Charlie answering the questions you sent into us, like why is Donald Trump threatening to go to war with Chicago? How might the new UK Foreign Secretary get on with the MAGA crowd in the White House? And might the biggest immigration raid in the US yet actually upset Donald Trump's economic policy? Thanks for asking all these questions for us and do please keep them coming. You can WhatsApp us 443-301-23-9480 or email americaazedbc.co.uk we really do read them all and try and answer as many of them as we can. Welcome to americancers.
- [02:03]
Mariana
Americast americast from BBC News.
- [02:06]
Anthony
You're gambling with the lives of millions of people. You're gambling with World War three.
- [02:11]
John
President Trump's message is very simple.
- [02:13]
Anthony
We are done being taken advantage of, Mr. President.
- [02:16]
Mariana
In the name of our God, have mercy upon the people who are scared now.
- [02:21]
Sarah
Are you supportive of these onesies?
- [02:23]
Anthony
I'm supportive of vaccines.
- [02:24]
Sarah
What is happening?
- [02:26]
Mariana
Like, this is not America. This is a terrible nightmare.
- [02:29]
Sarah
This is what victory feels like.
- [02:32]
Mariana
Yeah.
- [02:43]
Matt
First, an email from AJ McCormick in Galloway says, is this the end? Trump at the US Open men's finale. There's also been lots of discussion over how much Trump was booed at the tennis last night. There was also some cheering, to be clear. Let's listen to a bit of it. Right, Sarah, how significant is this moment?
- [03:16]
Sarah
Well, this does happen when Donald Trump appears in public. What I don't know is whether or not it ruined his appearance, which was this kind of attention grabbing and performance of him turning up at the event in the US where most eyes were focused and he had all of his coterie with him as well. Not just family members, but half the cabinet who have to appear by his side at lots and lots of these public appearances, leaving you to wonder when they get a chance to do any work at all. Because he's got the Treasury Secretary and the Attorney General and his Middle east envoy all accompanying him to watch a tennis match. But nonetheless, yes, if he's there to soak up the adoration, of course, being booed is not going to please him in any way at all. But with Donald Trump, he has a pretty really thick skin and I think being that being the center of attention is probably enough.
- [04:05]
Matt
How is this playing out online, Mariana?
- [04:07]
Mariana
Well, as you may expect, opinions differ. I think what's been most interesting about this is, you know, the White House came out quite strongly, quite quickly on X after Trump's sort of initial appearance at the finale. So not then when they came to him sort of at a later point again saying, look, actually this is, you know, this is fake news media. There weren't boos, whereas various reporters who were there were filing dispatches saying, well, there was some booing and they were trying to argue. No, no, no, there was cheering. And it, I mean, it felt like a bit like the crowd size arguments that we've seen happen before, where there's one version of events unfolding on X and then another in reality. And when it comes down to it, it's kind of a combination of the two. I mean, perhaps it's unsurprising that in a state like New York, at a game like a game of tennis, like that, there might be quite a few people there who, who don't like Donald Trump very much. I mean, that's not necessarily the demographic that he's been trying to appeal to. There'll be some people there who do like him. But it shows how, you know, if you weren't at that game and you didn' how possible it is to, to shift what happened to suit your interests either way and to pick clips or bits that point towards what you wanted to do it reminded me quite a lot of. And it was interesting thinking about the way this played out online versus, you know, Donald Trump popped up at the club World cup, if anyone was paying attention to that, where Chelsea won and.
- [05:24]
Matt
They'Re on the pitch.
- [05:25]
Mariana
Yeah, there were these pictures of him standing in front of like, Cole Palmer and all of the Chelsea team and Rhys James who were like, why? Why is the President still here? While they were like lifting the cup and everything. But that played out well because it was sort of funny. Like, obviously some people thought it was a bit bizarre, other people found it funny, particularly online. Whereas this, like, there weren't any funny memes. It's kind of just had the effect of saying, well, what was the point of this? Was this a stunt or not? And then also, I guess some people using it to say the media don't tell the truth about Donald Trump. They're always out to get him, that kind of thing, even when the evidence says otherwise.
- [06:00]
Matt
So, Anthony, I mean, rather than using a clapometer to measure the President's poll ratings, what are his actual poll ratings telling us?
- [06:08]
Anthony
The polls are telling us that Donald Trump is net unfavorable. I mean, it's a very rare politician to show up at a sporting event or any big public event and not get booed in this country. I mean, it's just kind of the nature of the beast because people. There is going to be a certain percentage of people who don't like that person will be very vocal about it. But the last few polls have a low 40s, low to mid-40s approval rating. The CBS News had 44 to 56, for instance. You can pick outliers. Like there was a Daily Mail poll that showed Donald Trump have a 10% positive approval rating. So I'd say overall, though, about where a lot of American presidents settle, which is unpopular, but at least at this point, not so unpopular that it is a giant red flashing light for, say, the midterm elections next year.
- [06:55]
Matt
We'll see if. And actually the one thing that made me think of it, media was obviously George Osborne was booed at the Paralympics, famously. Oh, yeah, they then went on to win a majority. So it doesn't necessarily equate to one to the other. Anyway, let's move on to the Department of War. Alan in Geneva has emailed americastbc.co uk he says Donald Trump has repeatedly said that we won the First World War, we won the Second World War, we won everything before that. And in between, as a justification for renaming the Department of Defense to the Department for War. I've yet to see or hear any corrections to Trump's overstatement. Why are his statements going uncontested by, by the media? Anthony?
- [07:37]
Anthony
Well, I mean, I guess if you look at it, the United States probably won the Gulf War in the early, early 90s, certainly dominated Iraq and probably lost the War of 1812 before when it was Department of War, although, you know, it was a Pyrrhic victory for the Brits. I mean, burned our capital down. But you didn't end up taking back the United States. It is a simplification, I think, but it fits in with what Donald Trump the way Donald Trump views American history, which is that the was better in the golden era, the 19th century when we had tariffs protecting our industry and no personal income taxes and the country was more self reliant. It is politics based on nostalgia and the idea that the golden age was once there but has been lost. It can be restored through Donald Trump's sheer force of will.
- [08:29]
Matt
So it's a bit weird because I thought Donald Trump's whole thing was that he wanted to end wars, get out of forever. He didn't like wars, he didn't like all the, the death and destruction of walls. So why would he so enthusiastically want a Department of War?
- [08:42]
Sarah
Well, he says that name shows the strength, the projection of American might, which in itself stops you from having to declare war or use any of your soldiers because everybody will be cowering in fear at the idea if the US were to get involved and bring their war machine against them. And that's enough to keep the peace, is the argument Donald Trump makes. But also, I mean, whilst you're absolutely right, he doesn't to send US forces overseas and get embroiled in any of what he calls these foreign wars, of course he wants to project strength for himself as much as for the nation. So he's got this, well, Secretary for War now, Pete Hegseth, who's always talking about restoring lethality to the American military, about a warrior ethos that he wants to bring in. So they want the American soldiers to look as though they're tougher and more dangerous than anybody else on earth so that they can, yeah, sort of, you know, practice in at home rather than having to ever use these skills abroad.
- [09:44]
Matt
Well, we'll see if, yeah, if the name change makes any material difference to what actually happens. Let's move on to, well, Chicago, Apocalypse Now, Chipocalypse. Could the boss of the Internet explain, please?
- [09:57]
Mariana
I was about to say that this, this could this falls into the bossing the Internet?
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Matt
Marianne, what. What is this picture? And then we've got Sarah, who wants to ask a question about it.
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Mariana
So this is an image, and I believe it. It looks like it's AI generated. It's kind of like an ill, but it looks like an illustration. I mean, it's obviously not real. And it shows Donald Trump in a cowboy hat. He posted it on. On Truth Social. He's in sort of like. Would you call that army gear? I don't really know what you call that. Like a jumpsuit thing.
- [10:25]
Matt
US Army.
- [10:26]
Mariana
US army jumpsuit thing. Yeah. There you go. There you go, Anthony. And it's. There's like town is on fire, Chicago's on fire. In the background, you've got smoke, you've got helicopters. And it says Chipocalypse now, referring to Apocalypse Now. And he says Donald Trump in his post. I love the smell of deportations in the morning. In quotes. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War in capitals. And I have to say, this is typical Donald Trump, like, he always does these kinds of. We often call them rage bait, like things that will obviously provoke a reaction which people will not like very much and are designed to be a talking point. I mean, in this case, it's about sending the military into Chicago to deal with crime and then the possibility of also using them to deal with issues around immigration, illegal immigration, and so on and so forth.
- [11:18]
Matt
Okay, so we have got Sarah on the line. Hello, Sarah.
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Mariana
Hello.
- [11:22]
Matt
Where in the world are you, Sarah?
- [11:24]
Sarah (Caller)
South Wales, just outside Cardiff.
- [11:25]
Matt
Very nice. And what is your question about Chipocalypse now?
- [11:29]
Sarah (Caller)
Well, given that meme, and there seems to be no decent opposition or way to oppose what Trump is up to, at what point do states like Illinois or California or Louisiana, given New Orleans is on his list, when do those states start thinking about secession and saying they just don't want to play at all?
- [11:51]
Anthony
Well, you know, we fought a war over secession, the Civil war in the 1860s. It didn't end well for the states that tried to secede. And I think that settled once and for all the legality, the possibility of states breaking away from the Union. So I certainly understand the sentiment. And that is a sentiment that a lot of people in places like California who feel very out of step with what Donald Trump is trying to do from Washington, feel. But in practicality, it would be legally impossible for them to do so now. They might take steps where they try to assert more independence within the United States, try to come up with their own policies that counter what the federal government is doing. I can think of one big one recently on vaccine mandates where states are banding together to certify vaccines and to make them more available, just as the federal government is changing their rules on them and making them less available nationally. So there are steps on the halfway point between totally breaking away from the union, which would be devastating, and, and possibly, you know, a war inspiring kind of a step. But this would be a way for them to try to keep their independence and hold what Trump and the Republicans in Washington are doing at bay.
- [13:06]
Mariana
Is it worth saying just Matt, about the picture itself? And to your point, Sarah, you know, there are exactly as you found. There are people who've reacted to this image who are really shocked by it, who feel like even for Donald Trump, it's kind of next step of almost suggesting, yeah, like civil war within America, like this idea that he's kind of against certain places or certain states. And they've taken real offense to it. I would say, though, as ever. And, and maybe it's just, you know, the, the way, and this is not necessarily a good or a bad thing, but the way that these images norm become, this becomes normal. It's like this becomes Trump's MO on social media. And so we all kind of go, oh, haha, it's Trump being Trump again. This is kind of what he does. And to some extent that's a helpful reaction because it is sort of rage bait. But on the other hand, it does start to just make this stuff kind of seem okay. Which if you'd said to someone like 10 years ago, by the way, the President's going to share a meme of shipopolypse now, whatever calling it, I can't say the amalgamation.
- [14:02]
Matt
I think the reason this one isn't going to take off is because the joke doesn't work.
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Mariana
Yeah, the word's not good because it's.
- [14:07]
Matt
Chicago and it's not chip. And I thought it was to do with chips, which obviously you incorrectly call fries Anthony. So it doesn't make any sense. What do you think?
- [14:18]
Sarah
Well, yeah, I just wanted to add into what Sarah was saying about it not being possible to oppose this. It is in fact in Illinois, in Chicago, where the governor is taking a really firm stand against Donald Trump and he's probably along with Gavin Newsom, who's playing a very good game on social media of annoying Donald Trump. J.B. pritzker, the Illinois governor, is probably the most prominent Democrat standing up to Donald Trump and telling him he can't do this. And it's a little bit different from Washington D.C. where he was able to send the National Guard onto the streets of where I am now. Because DC is not a state of its own and it doesn't have a governor. Illinois does. It was already ruled illegal in a court that Trump sent National Guard forces to LA against the wishes of the California governor. So there's gonna be a real battle over this which may all come to a head this week, which is gonna be really interesting. And in fact, Matt, this is one for you. J.B. pritzker. The governor said on social media, the President of the United States is threatening to go to an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. And as soon as I read that, I thought of you, Matt, of course, because that used to be your catchphrase, practically didn't when you were talking about Brexit.
- [15:31]
Matt
When I was writing about. Yeah, this is not normal. It was like, I don't know, a couple of Labour shadow frontbenchers residing and criticizing Jeremy Corbyn rather than the President of the United States declaring war on a state. Although we should say that Donald Trump has insisted he's not going to war. He says he was asked by a reporter at the White House yesterday if he was going to war with Chicago.
- [15:51]
Anthony
We're not going to war. We're going to clean up our cities. We're going to clean them up so they don't kill five people every weekend. That's not war, that's common sense.
- [16:01]
Matt
So that's. It's not war. It's not war. It's fine. Just Chipocalypse. Anyway, thank you to Sarah in South Wales for that question. Let's move on to John in. Oh, where are you, John?
- [16:18]
John
I'm in Adelaide, South Australia.
- [16:20]
Matt
What time is it?
- [16:24]
John
Not far off. Midnight. So it's well past my normal bedtime.
- [16:28]
Matt
You're very committed. Well done. What is your question that you've stayed up till midnight to ask the Americans?
- [16:35]
John
Okay, so it's actually about the midterms. There's a lot of talk going on about midterms at the moment, but as I understand it, it's not an election that will mean that Trump would be kicked out, so he's not being re contested. So who is exactly on the ballot and why is it so important or so significant to the Trump administration what's going to happen in the midterms?
- [17:01]
Sarah
So you're absolutely right. Donald Trump's name will not be on any of the ballots. They'll be electing all of the members of the House of Representatives and are the third of the Senate, as well as some governors races around the country. So without a presidential contest, it's often much harder to get people to come out and vote. And Donald Trump is going to be working extremely hard between now and then to get as many of his MAGA supporters out to vote for Republican candidates, even though he himself, his name's not on the ballot because it's vital to him to do well in this, partly because obviously it's a referendum on him and his first two years in office. And for that very reason, sitting presidents, their party tends to do not very well in midterm elections. And, you know, the whole future of his project and political movement will be being judged by these midterms. But also, crucially, if the Democrats get a majority in Congress, they can then start doing all sorts of things that will drive Donald Trump wild. Not only can they frustrate his legislative agenda and possibly stop him passing laws that he wants to, they can start investigations into things that he has done. They could possibly even move towards impeaching him for something after they have investigated him. This is what happened in his first term, of course, over what he calls the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. And then he was impeached a second time after January 6th. Only US President to have been impeached twice. That's what he really wants to avoid Democrats having their hands on the mechanisms of this kind of stuff which could really, really frustrate his last two years in office.
- [18:31]
Matt
Anthony, we often have listeners getting in touch and saying they don't see any opposition. Does it feel like that in America?
- [18:40]
Anthony
Well, I think the challenge for Democrats right now is they don't hold any of the levers of power in Washington, D.C. so they can be opposed, but they can't really do anything about it. And if they do take back any chamber of Congress, as Sarah mentioned, they will have a platform on which to oppose. And that's why, as we mentioned earlier in this program, it's governors, people like Pritzker in Illinois and Newsom in California who are becoming the face of the Democratic opposition. Because governors are do have a certain amount of power. They do have a certain ability to resist. You've also seen a few, as Sarah mentioned, lower court decisions that have tried to put a check on what Donald Trump is doing. His use of the National Guard in California being a big one of those. Although the U.S. supreme Court, the highest court in the land, has generally been amenable given permission to what Trump is doing at least on a temporary interim basis. The big court battles that are going to reach the high court aren't going to happen until later this year and into next year. But the Democrats are having an active debate right now in Congress about whether they want to cooperate with Republicans to avoid a government shutdown at the end of this month. That is something to watch because they were up for a lot of criticism back in March when they allowed the government to stay open, worked with the Republicans, and then Donald Trump kind of ran roughshod over them and ended up cutting a lot of the programs that they thought they had funded, agreed to fund back in March. So keep your eyes peeled for the next couple of weeks. We've got our next next big showdown in Congress happening and the spotlight will be on what the Democrats do.
- [20:07]
Matt
And then Marianna, the reason we had the disagreement last week about the phrase bossing the Internet was because I suggested that in the past the Democrats have been the party, particularly under Obama, that had been bossing the Internet and they'd sort of slightly lost away. But I mean, presumably the midterms as an event gives the Democrats something to sort of rally around.
- [20:26]
Mariana
It does. Although, you know, it obviously doesn't have the same, you know, there's not the same kind of cohesiveness of message often across the board really around something like the midterms, because it's not the same as a presidential election. But you're right, it kind of gives them something to work towards. I mean, one of the things that's interesting, and I know we chatted about this a bit when we had original bossing the Internet gate, but to what extent a lot of this is actually about individual politicians growing their own. Like actually it's not really about the message across the board. It's about the ability of politicians to almost do what Donald Trump has done and just build this whole kind of online brand and get, you know, inspire what we call organic content. So people making memes, videos etc and trying things that are different as well. Like maybe they try doing more kind of lives. Maybe they're popping up on more alternative podcasts. How do they engage with the alternative media? How do they figure out like what's the next Joe Rogan or what's the next streamer that they need to be involved with? I think that's the kind of key to the Democrats next bit. And the midterms is a good, I guess, practice ground for that.
- [21:32]
Matt
There you are, John. Was that worth staying up for?
- [21:35]
John
Oh, absolutely.
- [21:36]
Matt
Yeah.
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John
That's time for Bed now, though, I think.
- [21:39]
Mariana
True. Good night.
- [21:40]
Matt
Yeah, don't stay and listen to the end of the episode of America. Good to meet you. Thanks so much. That's John there from Adelaide. Cheers, John. Just finally then, to round off, Janet on the Wirral has emailed to say David Lammy is now Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary while Yvette Cooper is now Foreign Secretary as a result of Keir Starmer's reshuffle in the uk. Janet says how will this affect the relationship with JD Vance, who was said to be friendly with David Lammy or might have been the other way around. I don't think Yvette would have fished with Vance with or without a rod license. There was actually some speculation here, Sarah, that David Lammy got the Deputy Prime Minister job because then he's sort of the equivalent as Vice President, so he can continue to manage that relationship. But obviously there might be some. I'm not saying this is the case. Sometimes politicians over reg their connections and credibility. Who are the go to people for the Trump administration in the UK government, do you think, Sarah?
- [22:35]
Sarah
Oh, that's a good question. I mean, Donald Trump and Keir Starmer have such a good relationship. I mean, bizarre, puzzling, goodness knows what it was based upon, but it does seem to be absolutely genuine that Donald Trump likes Keir Starmer, doesn't agree with his politics on everything, but is able to to talk to him about trade. And yeah, that somehow works. And it was clear that David Lammy had put a lot of work into establishing some kind of similar relationship with J.D. vance. And that is precisely what you need to do with the Trump administration. Firstly, regardless of how aligned you are on policy, it's all about the absolute personal relationships face to face, one on one, and whether they feel that they can trust you and get along with you. If that's the case, then you don't have to be absolutely aligned on everything that you want to do, but they'll discuss with you, if not, no matter actually how much your politics are similar to what's going on in the White House. If they don't like you, they don't like you and they will freeze you out. So I mean, the first thing that Yvette Cooper has to do is, yeah, is probably get over here and start, start meeting some people. Of course, next week we will all, including the, the President and all of his team, be in the UK for the state visit. That's middle of next week. And so I assume Yvette Cooper will be involved in that and able to shake A few hands and maybe, maybe you never know, take Marco Rubio fishing or something. I mean, the one thing about Yvette Cooper is there's absolutely. She may not have fished with anybody with or without a rod license, but you just know she wouldn't do anything without a license, would she? She would have been all over knowing that you needed a fishing license and making sure she had one.
- [24:19]
Matt
Well, maybe, maybe she might, she might make a point of that. So you're coming over, Sarah?
- [24:23]
Sarah
I am, Anthony. Are you, Anthony?
- [24:25]
Anthony
I'm gonna be on holiday in Morocco. So, no, I'm not going to be paying attention. I know.
- [24:31]
Mariana
Also, another, another cruel twist here is that I'm actually going to be in the US I think in San Francisco for this BBC2 documentary I'm doing. So Sarah will be here and I.
- [24:41]
Anthony
Will have gone and I'll be in.
- [24:43]
Mariana
Africa and you'll be in Africa. We'll all be on different continents.
- [24:45]
Matt
Just I'll be here. I'll try and speak to you at some point. Sarah. That'll be nice. Maybe seaweed.
- [24:50]
Sarah
Yes, that would be brilliant, wouldn't it?
- [24:52]
Matt
We could discuss how to boil an egg off air correctly. Well, that brings us to the end.
- [25:01]
Mariana
That just landed. Not probably as you intended.
- [25:04]
Matt
No. These brilliant gadgety things, it's changed my life. I can. Boiling an egg, it's, it's an incredible thing.
- [25:19]
Anthony
All right, well, we've wrapped up with Nacho early. Mariana has gone back to her conspiracy land world. But Sarah, I wanted to talk to you about another big story that we didn't get to in today's episode, and that is the immigration raid on the Hyundai plant in South Carolina. About 500 undocumented migrants, according to the federal government, were rounded up. A big chunk of them, 300 plus plus, were South Korean nationals and has created a bit of a diplomatic incident between the two countries, South Korea and the US but also raising questions about what Donald Trump is trying to do with his immigration enforcement. What do you make of this story?
- [25:56]
Sarah
Well, I think it's fascinating for that very reason, because it's like Donald Trump's kind of two biggest objectives clashing here, isn't it? So this is the largest immigration and customs raid that they've actually performed since this big crackdown that Donald Trump has brought in. They went into this house, Hyundai, obviously, a South Korean owned firm factory, and as you say, arrested nearly 500 people and then got into a diplomatic spat with South Korea about this, who were extremely unhappy about the way that a South Korean owned factory had been targeted like this. Eventually they've worked out that 300 of these people will be deported from the United States and they will be accepted back into South Korea. And they've come to some sort of diplomatic agreement about this. But things like this Hyundai plant are exactly what Donald Trump wants to be happening in the US he wants companies to be opening manufacturing plants where they make things inside America in order to avoid tariffs if they bring goods made outside America to be sold in the American market. But if he's then going to be targeting them with immigration rates, that is not necessarily going to encourage other foreign companies to be setting that up here. And I think he's going to need a lot more of that sort of inward investment and job creation because we got new job numbers again, and they were not that favorable, were they, Anthony, for job creation and exactly how well the Trump administration is doing at running the economy?
- [27:23]
Anthony
Right. About 20,000 new jobs created in August. That was much lower than expectations, which were 70,000, I believe manufacturing jobs actually shrunk. And manufacturing jobs is, as you say, what Donald Trump has been talking about, wanting to boost with it his trade policies. And they revised the job figures from July and June, and the United States actually had a net loss of jobs during, I believe it was June. And it's the kind of trend lines that are very concerning for someone who is pinning his entire political future, his political standing on being the economic president, being the one that's going to grow and restore a golden age of the American, American industry. Now, Hyundai has said that these employees or these people who were rounded up in this raid were not direct Hyundai employees. They worked at a battery affiliated battery plant because this is an electric car manufacturing plant. So it's interesting to see what comes of this because as you mentioned, I mean, a lot of these investments that a lot of countries have talked about investing a lot of money in building factories, factories here in the US that will get around all of these tariffs that Donald Trump is putting up. But to build them, you need expertise and you need people to come over here and be able to work and set up these factories. And maybe there was some dispute over whether the South Koreans had proper documentation to work and to spend time in the United States. But that's something that's going to have to be ironed out because it is finding certain amount of the talent here in the United States to build a foreign factory here. It may not be as easy as Donald Trump makes it look, especially with.
- [29:03]
Sarah
These kind of high tech investments, which is what Donald Trump's very interested in bringing into the country. Yeah, you don't have a trained workforce here in the United States. And we know that within the MAGA movement, the idea of extending visas for people with special skills to come from abroad and work in the United States, that also is hugely contentious, actually, among a lot of Donald Trump supporters and advisors. So, yeah, I feel like this story is kind of right at the nexus of whether or not Donald Trump's entire plan can succeed, because we are. We were talking about the midterms earlier, weren't we, Anthony? We're 14 months away from them now, and Donald Trump has not turned the economy around yet. The stock market's doing all right, but I don't think many people feel much better off in any way at all. And it's not as though grocery prices have plummeted. So, yeah, if he cannot get some of these jobs and a feeling of some prosperity into the country before they go to the polls in November next year, he could well be in trouble, couldn't he?
- [30:00]
Anthony
Right. And the reality is that the tariffs, a lot of Donald Trump's tariffs, really haven't started to take a bite out of people's paychecks quite yet. Prices are only starting to go up because companies have been reluctant to pass on their expenses on to consumers. But they can't keep doing that. They're going to have to start raising prices. And some have started raising prices in order to reflect the greater production costs. So we could get into next year. Prices are going up, the number of jobs are not increasing, maybe even been declining. If the stock market starts to take a dip, that is not the kind of environment that incumbents want to run on. And I think that's one of the reasons why, as we talked on the program earlier today, one of the reasons why Democrats feel like they might be able to have an advantage in the midterm elections, even if they're kind of disorganized right now, even if they don't have one unified public voice just being the alternative to the status quo that could be their key to winning back control of at least one chamber of Congress and doing well in these midterms. November's a long time away, but it's still. It'll be here before you know it.
- [31:06]
Sarah
Yeah. And of course, it is worth saying, isn't it, that the opposition, the parties out of power, generally do well in those midterm elections because people are often frustrated about what the incumbent in the White House is doing. And it doesn't always necessarily mean that Democrats are are going to win the next presidential election. It's not really a kind of foretelling of that, is it, Anthony?
- [31:27]
Anthony
No. Generally it is an uphill climb for the incumbent party in midterm elections, particularly second term midterm elections, which is this is Donald Trump's second term, even though he had a little break between, between his two terms. But I think I said last week on one of our podcasts, I think a lot of eyes are going to be on this midterm election, even more than than most midterm elections, because of the changes that Donald Trump has brought. Changes to possibly mail in voting, changes to the way elections are run, changes to the amount of domestic authority he has. Is gravity going to reassert itself here? Is Donald Trump and the Republicans going to struggle here? Or is something fundamentally changed about this country where Republicans do well and the traditional political forces that operate in American elections are no longer applicable? And that is going to be really fascinating to watch it play out. And I think if things don't go Democrats way next year, there's going to be a real soul searching in the party and a lot of concern among Americans who don't support this president about whether he can be stopped.
- [32:32]
Sarah
Yeah. And I think some of the way in which Donald Trump is just front and center all the time and basically everything we have talked about this week, from his appearance at the US Open to these memes of him going to war with Chicago, I think some of that is about a strategy that if he is front and center so much of the time and then starts encouraging people to turn out and vote in the midterm elections, they won't see them as just an election for their local representative or if they live in one of the states where they get to elect a senator. I think he wants to insert himself right into the middle of this in a way that presidents aren't usually quite so focused on in order to try to make sure that he personally can get the MAGA faithful out to vote. Because I think he, he still thinks he is the party's greatest messenger now and forever.
- [33:19]
Anthony
Yeah, it's interesting because usually if a president is not super popular, is underwater in opinion polls, which is, as we discussed earlier, that's where Donald Trump sits right now. They kind of try to fade into the background during midterm elections and don't make the midterms about them and don't make them a referendum on their handling of this country. Donald Trump seems to be doing the opposite. And as you mentioned, the logic is because he wants to turn out his base. And if you look at at the past eight to 10 years, every time that Donald Trump isn't on the ballot, Republicans kind of take it on the chin. They took it on the chin in 2018 after Donald Trump won. In 2016, Democrats took back control of the House of representatives. They In 2022, when Democrats were running during the Biden presidency, Republicans, they took the House of Representatives, but they definitely underperformed compared to expectations. So is this going to be another instance where 2026 where Donald Trump isn't the name on the ballot so his base stays home and enthused Democrats show up and vote in the polls to send him a message and to wash the bad taste out of their mouth from 2024? And is it just going to be a washout for Republicans or is Donald Trump going to be able to get people to show up and cast a ballot for Joe Schmo running as a Republican candidate? It even though his name isn't Donald Trump?
- [34:41]
Sarah
Yeah. I can't believe we're talking about the midterms already. It's like, it's like talking about Christmas too soon. But we have committed that crime.
- [34:48]
Anthony
All right, on that seasonal note, we will wrap up and we will talk to everyone, all of our listeners out there in our next episode, which will come very soon. Bye, y'. All.
- [34:56]
Sarah
Bye. Bye.
- [34:59]
Mariana
Ameracast Ameracast from BBC News.
- [35:03]
Outro Announcer
Well, look, thanks for listening all the way to the end of today's AmericasT. You are now officially an AmericasT. 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 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 all later. Bye.