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Americanswers...On 5 Live! What do Americans really think of Donald Trump?
00:33:07
And does Trump have a plan for Iran?
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Transcript89 lines
- [00:00]
Justin Webb
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- [00:07]
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- [00:36]
Angie Hicks
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- [00:54]
Justin Webb
Sarah Smith has gone viral. It was always gonna happen, Sarah.
- [00:57]
Sarah Smith
Why yes, I've only just discovered that there had been millions of views of me asking Donald Trump a question in a press conference on Friday afternoon, which was a bit of a bizarre affair and included somebody asking him about a pin, a little badge that he had on his lapel, as well as the American flag. He had a tiny little badge of himself of Donald Trump, which he said was a happy Donald Trump pin, even though he was never happy or satisf had given it to him and that was what he was wearing on his lapel. It was an odd afternoon, Justin.
- [01:29]
Justin Webb
Okay, we'll hear a bit more about it in a second. First, though, the two of us, plus Marianna have been on five Live. As usual, Matt Chorley talking about people's questions about Iran, about the fallout from what's been happening recently in Minnesota, and also an interesting question about how the average American feels about Donald Trump. After all the news from 2025, how do they feel at the beginning of this year? So we answer all of those questions. Let's get to it. Welcome to America Answers on five Live.
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Mariana
Ameracast.
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Angie Hicks
Ameracast from BBC News.
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Donald Trump
When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir, right away, sir.
- [02:09]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Happy to lick your boot, sir. We are the sickest country in the world.
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Sarah Smith
Oh dear.
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OrangeTheory Fitness Advertiser
Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the president supports peaceful protests.
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Mariana
What a stupid question.
- [02:20]
Donald Trump
Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
- [02:30]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
So quite a lot to Talk about on AmericansWers today. So let's get stuck straight in with this one. On Air Force One yesterday, Donald Trump was asked about his threat to strike Iran over its Targeting of protesters. Here's what he said when reporters asked about Iran's threats of retaliation.
- [02:47]
Donald Trump
Why don't they do that? We'll consider things targets that they wouldn't believe. If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they've never been hit before. They won't even believe it. I have options that are so strong. So, I mean, if they did that, it'll be met with a very, very powerful force.
- [03:07]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
So Mark on the discord asks, do you think Donald Trump can claim any credit for the current situation in Iran? More importantly, will it result in anything?
- [03:15]
Justin Webb
Yes, he can definitely claim it, but not necessarily because of the threat of force now, but of course because of what he's done to Iran since he came to power. So there was this nuclear agreement sign between European countries, including Britain, but also involving Russia, China, that gave Iran some reduction of sanctions in return for not carrying out their efforts to build a nuclear bomb. That was the deal. I think it was signed in 2015, something like that. Obama was very keen on it. Western countries, including Britain, were very keen on it. The challenge always was that if you allow Iran to develop its economy, what do they spend the money on? And one of the things they can spend the money on, of course, is repression and is all the things that they did abroad, including fomenting terrorism, according to the Americans, and plenty of other people as well. So Trump took the US out of that deal, basically closed the deal, imposed sanctions, and those sanctions, it seems reasonable to assume, have led directly to this day and to the protesters out in the streets, et cetera. So it's kind of irrespective of what he's threatening now, I don't think his threats now necessarily make a lot of difference to those very brave protesters in the streets. But the economic, the parlous economic state of Iran is at least in part due to him.
- [04:41]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
And, Sarah, how is all this, then viewed in the us And I know we've talked about this many times before, but the man who's got America first, no more forever wars, no more withdrawing troops, and just looking after America itself. Another front, if you like. How is the situation in Iran being viewed and Donald Trump's involvement or otherwise?
- [05:04]
Sarah Smith
Well, the involvement that he had in Iran last year with that incredibly successful bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities was celebrated by his base because, you know, Iran is the big bogeyman. And this was, you know, a fairly successful US operation that was carried out without any retaliation against US targets. So no American lives were lost, and it didn't cost A huge amount of money either. Because I think we have to understand there is a difference between the forever wars in the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan that Donald Trump railed against, in fact never supported in the first place, and these kind of short, sharp, targeted operations like he conducted in Iran last year or in Venezuela a couple of weeks ago, where you see American strength and military might being projected on the world stage, but without it getting embroiled in being stuck in the midst of nation building or trying to restore democracy to these countries at a great cost in lives and treasure. It's pretty clear Donald Trump doesn't care very much about restoring democracy in Venezuela. More interested in doing deals with the, getting American oil companies in there. And I suspect the same is true of Iran, that although these are anti regime protesters asking for more democracy, it's the fall of the current regime. Donald Trump's much more interested in, rather than meeting the demands of the protesters on the streets. But at a moment of weakness, he can see an opportunity to at least threatens striking against an enemy. And as long as he keeps it in this very targeted way, his base seem to be perfectly happy with it. As we're all learning to accept that Donald Trump is not an isolationist, as we possibly thought 18 months ago. He is somebody who wants to get very involved in the world stage, but just not in a way that bogs down American troops year after year.
- [06:44]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Mariana, obviously from your perspective, looking at what's happening online and trying to get a sense of what is actually happening in Iran, turns out if they turn the Internet off, that's really hard.
- [06:55]
Mariana
Yeah, it is. And it's really interesting because this is increasingly becoming a, a tool used by governments to try and sort of control protest movements, although often they will cite other reasons. We've seen it happen. I mean, we've seen it happen in Afghanistan in different ways. We saw threats about it. When you might remember there were those protests that happened in Nepal and there were kind of threats being made about social media being banned and that kind of thing that was slightly different to this. I mean, the, the Iranian regime is, is known for kind of doing these Internet blackouts, but this one feels certainly a lot severer and stricter. I mean, it seems to have cut off even some of the slightly sneakier ways that people would mobilize and coordinate. And that does make it really hard. I mean, not least because also it's hard to have journalists on the ground there as well. It means that trying to actually figure out what exactly is going on and what's Happening to who and everything else is very, very difficult. And I think from a kind of public opinion point of view, that is kind of interesting because the news is coming out obvious outlets like the BBC or wherever else. But if you're someone in the US who's scrolling on your social media feed, you might see some of the content, but you won't be seeing huge volumes of this stuff popping up on your feed. And that could affect how invested or not you are in it. From sort of Donald Trump's perspective in terms of how much credit he does or doesn't take.
- [08:12]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Well, it's a, it's a great question from, from Mark. And obviously it's an evolving situation, so we'll obviously keep an eye on that. But we've got many other things that we need to get to. Let's turn our attention to what's been happening inside America and in Minnesota. We have got Kev on the line. Hello, Kevin.
- [08:27]
Caller (Kevin and Matthew)
Hello.
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Where in the world are you, Kevin?
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Caller (Kevin and Matthew)
I'm in Stuttgart in Germany.
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Excellent, excellent. What is your question for the American.
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Caller (Kevin and Matthew)
Castus on the killing of Ms. Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota? Can the FBI, a federal agency, be trusted to investigate her killing in an unbiased and fair manner?
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
It's a good question, Sarah. Take us through the what's happened here and the role of the FBI and you know, in a way that we don't really see in the uk, law enforcement, justice judges and so on, you know, sheriffs being politicized. If you could sort of take us through that before we get to Kevin's question.
- [09:09]
Sarah Smith
Yes, of course. And yeah, and the other thing we don't have in the UK is quite as many different police forces and law enforcement agencies, all overlapping. But briefly, what happened last week in Minneapolis in Minnesota, There were customs, immigration, customs agents on the ground conducting immigration raids. And she, Ms. Goode had her car parked in the street. ICE agents told her to get out of it. Instead, she appeared to be trying to drive off. And in the midst of that, she was shot dead by one of the ICE agents in front of the car. Very, very controversial circumstances. And there are lots and lots of different videos all over the Internet and social media showing you different angles of this. When people have looked at it, they seem to have seen entirely opposite things. People in the Trump administration and their supporters see an ICE agent whose life was in danger, who took an action in self defense, shooting Renee Goode. Other people think that this looks like a murder on the streets of Minneapolis because he wasn't in danger at all. And he had no reason to be shooting at her. And it's become a very, very controversial issue. Obviously, it will need to be investigated whether or not the agent acted properly within his training, within the rules. The Minnesot state authorities want to investigate that. And the governor of the state, Tim Walls, we've heard of him before, ran as vice president with Kamala Harris. He says that he doesn't trust federal authorities to investigate this fairly because the Trump administration so quickly came out and took the side of the ICE agent and said that Renee Goode was in. Caused her own death, effectively, is what J.D. vance said.
- [10:46]
J.D. Vance
What you see is what you get. In this case. You have a woman who was trying to obstruct a legitimate law enforcement operation. Nobody debates that. You have a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that. I can believe that her death is a tragedy, while also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe, against our law enforcement officers.
- [11:13]
Sarah Smith
Normally, the answer to Kevin's question would be that the FBI is an independent agency who will, you know, look at this with within the rules. But Donald Trump has politicized everything so much that he's put in real political loyalists into the FBI as the director of the FBI. Cash Patel and the deputy director as well, are very, very closely aligned with the Trump administration, make very political statements all the time as well. So I think there is reasonable grounds in this particular instance to think that if the Trump administration wants the answer to be that the ICE agent acted within the rules, it's very likely that that is what they will conclude for political reasons.
- [11:52]
Justin Webb
But I suppose they do have to go to court eventually. And then you get to this business of whether it's a state court or a federal court. And it looks as if it would have to be because this is a federal agent in the commission of federal business, as it were, then he would need to be tried federally. And in order to stop that trial happening, he would have to claim that he was just carrying on his business and that he had reasonable cause to think that he was under threat, et cetera, et cetera. And it would be, I think I'm right in saying it would be a federal judge then. And this is the point that J.D. vance has made, that actually he says the state authorities don't have anything to do with this because it's a federal agent. So you think back, for instance, to Derek Chauvin was His name, wasn't it the guy who killed George Floyd, he was prosecuted for murder in the state, because murder is a state offense and he was employed by the state, he was a local policeman. This is a very different case because this guy, if it does go to court, this guy's a federal agent and he's involved in a federal law enforcement action. And he would expect, I think, to go to a federal court and to try to convince the federal court that he was acting self defense, in which case, I would have thought if the court agreed with him, that that's it. Actually, I don't think it goes any further. If the court doesn't agree with him, then he could be tried. And you know, to that question about whether or not, I suppose it goes to evidence, doesn't it, whether it's all been properly kept and all the rest of it. And there will be those who it won't be because the FBI is involved and the FBI, as Sarah was saying, is run in a very politicized way. But I think if you're an FBI officer and you actually interfere with this case, you're still running a risk and it goes for the same as a whole Justice Department and everything about the Trump administration, people say, oh, well, they're just going to do what he wants. Well, yes, you might, but you could then open yourself up to prosecution, really serious prosecution, and prison time in a later time when there's a different president.
- [13:50]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
And I suppose because it involves.
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Sarah Smith
Yeah, but you also get sacked if you don't do what Donald Trump wants.
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Justin Webb
That's right, yes. That's the invidious choice before you, isn't it?
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
But because this case involves a death, it's perhaps less likely to go away in terms of the attention on it and the focus on it.
- [14:05]
Justin Webb
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's not. It will go to court at some stage.
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Kevin, great question. Thank you very much for that and thank you for listening. Stuttgart, we've got Matthew with us. Hello, Matthew. Where are you?
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Justin Webb
In the world.
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Caller (Kevin and Matthew)
Good afternoon, Matt. I am sitting in glorious North Kensington.
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Very good. So not very far away at all. In fact, you're probably closer to us than Mariana.
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Mariana
I knew that you were about to say that. You've made that joke twice now.
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Helena Merriman
It was less funny the second one.
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Well, there's an easy way to go making it a third time, isn't it? Mariana, what is your question, please?
- [14:37]
Caller (Kevin and Matthew)
My question is very simple. What is the mass vote voter, the mass population in America, what do they think now of Trump? We outside of America. We're all aghast nearly every night at his actions and his unstatesmanlike behavior. And all the reporters on the BBC and ITV and other stations, it seems you report back from America in a favorable way. You can't speak out of turn. You'll get censored, you'll get thrown out the White House, whatever. What, what is the mass vote in America feeling about Trump? Are they starting to see some reality that it's actually maybe he's not that great?
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Matthew, I'll come to Marianne in a moment because I want to know what your imaginary friends on the Internet are saying. So just on that point about your ability to speak freely in America.
- [15:39]
Sarah Smith
Yes. So I do report from the grounds of the White House inside their security bubble all the time. And they don't listen to what I'm saying. Even if they did, it wouldn't alter what we were saying. And there are plenty of people there who are critical of the President. There are some people whom they've brought into the press corps who just applaud everything that he does because they work for right wing outlets that exist in order to applaud the president. But that is not the BBC. And there are no constraints on what I say. If you hear it, Matt, as sometimes positive, I mean, that's not what I'm there to do. I'm there to tell you what's happened. What I'm not is critical of every single thing that he says and does. And one of the reasons why we're not is that in many cases, policies, it's either what he was elected to do by the people who put him in office or it does appear to be supported by a lot of people. So for instance, this very, very controversial issue with the immigration officer in Minnesota, there's polling evidence that suggests that the mass of people in America, as you say, are getting more and more concerned about the tactics that immigration officers are using and they kind of aggressive raids that they've been conducting in some states. But there's still plenty of polls telling us that the vast majority of voters do support the idea that people who are living in the US Illegally ought to be found and ought to be deported. So, you know, whether you or we like it or not, that's what American people voted for. And we can't just throw criticism at every single thing that Donald Trump does. It's our job to tell you what he's doing and analyze what the impacts would be rather than to comment on whether it's right or wrong.
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
So Mariana, what do your hidden friends. Hidden friends, your imaginary friends. What are your imaginary friends?
- [17:21]
Mariana
My imaginary friends. Friends who are formerly.
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Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Explain. Explain to our listeners what you who your imaginary friends are.
- [17:26]
Mariana
My imaginary friends are my undercover voters fictional characters with social media profiles across the main platforms. And I think it's a really good question, a really interesting one, because I, as I bang on about, think that so much of, like, people are now primed because of what's on their social media feeds, the undercover voters included, to be receptive to certain narratives. And so this very same thing can play out through completely different perspectives in real time. That could be said of Minneapolis, that could be said of Iran, that could be said of Venezuela. And so people tend to be, as we know, in these echo chambers as the undercover voters are. So, for example, if you look at any of the events of the past couple of weeks on Britney's feed, she's very keen on Donald Trump versus, say on Emma's feed, who really doesn't like Donald Trump very much. These are the characters. It's like they're watching different films, like different TV shows. And most of the time they're just getting stuff from people that they agree with because that's how the algorithms work. They're pushing you. Stuff either that you agree with or that's provocative that you very strongly disagree with, because that's the stuff that gets the likes and the views. So I do think that, you know, a lot of the division in America can be at least partly explained by the way the algorithms work. And therefore that helps sometimes to better understand why people are seeing all of these things through. So I would say that it feels kind of split, like the people who like Donald Trump are still kind of liking him and the people who don't aren't. And then the people in the middle, which is our Gabriella, who is our undecided voter, she's been. Been getting more like a lot of the meme content. So meme content around Venezuela, I would say around, around Minnesota, it's been a little bit more split, like she's been getting both sides of it. So people saying, you know, that. Different views, it's just it, it's interesting.
- [19:05]
Justin Webb
Can I tell you something about Gabriella? She don't care about any of this stuff. She just, she goes shopping.
- [19:11]
Mariana
Justin famously loves Gabriella.
- [19:13]
Justin Webb
I love her. She looks after her family. She's got, you know, she's. She's got pets. I don't know, she goes to the beach. She will concentrate on politics. And I'm getting to Our question now.
- [19:24]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
She'S talking quite wistful.
- [19:26]
Justin Webb
She'll concentrate on politics when politics once again becomes sailing in her life, I. E. The next. Probably not even the midterms that obsess us on AmericasT.
- [19:34]
Mariana
And I guess also just the other thing that she has always been concerned about is sort of the economy and money. So as we've spoken about quite a lot, the only thing that she ever tends to get political content about, really. I mean, she gets funny memes and stuff.
- [19:46]
Sarah Smith
Stuff.
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Mariana
But that's because they're really viral. It tends to be about like, you know, eggs don't feel cheap or whatever. Whatever that is.
- [19:51]
Justin Webb
Yeah, yeah. She'll see a meme of Marco Rubio as Shah of Iran, which is one going around, or boss of Manchester United. I mean, there are all sorts of these things and she'll look at it. But I don't think politically. And this goes to our questioner and it is such an interesting question, this idea that there's this great mass of people in the middle in America who will eventually say, hang on, this guy's a loser. We're to going, going to get rid of him. It doesn't work like that. Right, we're off air with five Live. Matt Chorley has gone away, so has Mariana, but Sarah and I are still here. Sarah, let us talk now about your interaction with the president that has had these millions of views on social media. Let's start by listening to it.
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Sarah Smith
Why is it so important to you to own it when you have a military presence there, which you could expand to affect the security?
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Donald Trump
When we own it, we defend it. You don't defend leases the same way. You have to own it. If we don't do it, China or Russia will not going to happen. We are not going to have. And I like China, I like Russia. I love the people of China. I love the people of Russia. I get along very well with President Putin, but I'm very disappointed in him. I get along very well with President Xi. I'm going to go over to China in April, but I don't want them as a neighbor in Greenland. Not going to happen. And by the way, and NATO's got to understand that I'm all for NATO. I saved NATO. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have a NATO right now. But we're not going to allow Russia or China to occupy Greenland and that's what's going to happen if we don't.
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Sarah Smith
So just to be clear, Justin, President Trump's not a mind reader. I did start off that question by saying, you've already been talking about Greenland and on Greenland. Why is it so important that you own it? It's just that the women who were operating the White House microphones, they come running along to you with a microphone, didn't quite get to in time to get the beginning of the question. So this was a slightly bizarre experience all round, not least because as you can hear from Donald Trump there, that's a really long answer. And I was very, very keen to ask him a follow up because he interrupted with his answer before I got to say, you've said that you can do it the easy way or the hard way to take over Greenland. What would the hard way be? What would that involve? And I wanted to try and ask that as a follow up. So that meant throughout that long and rambling answer about China and Russia and NATO, I was having really sustained eye contact with them because I would desperately keep looking at so that he would allow me to interject with a follow up. But sadly, just before the end, as everybody else started yelling at him and shoving their hands in the air, he went off and took a question from the other side. But yeah, it's quite an experience, I have to say, as you're looking Donald Trump in the eye for a good few minutes.
- [22:31]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
Yeah.
- [22:31]
Justin Webb
And the fact that he took a question from you at all, did he know that it was the BBC, had it been prearranged?
- [22:37]
Sarah Smith
No, it hadn't been prearranged. I don't think he knows that I'm from the BBC. And I was thinking just to test the water with how he's feeling about the BBC these days because, you know, we had an interesting time with the White House at the end of last year and I was going to say Sarah Smith from the BBC and then asked my question, but about three or four people had asked questions beforehand and none of them had done that. And so I thought, oh, does it look a bit grandstanding to say your name in your organization? It would have been interesting to see the look on his face when I said BBC. But I don't know, maybe it would have stopped us getting an answer.
- [23:07]
Justin Webb
Yeah, well, look, it was a really good question. May I say fawningly, but I mean, I genuinely mean it because it's fascinating because in Britain, one of the big issues has been people saying, and I talked to the former Prime Minister of Denmark the other day, there we are. I'm name dropping as well, not quite as senior as Donald Trump in terms of world power stakes but there we are. She was saying, why on earth do they want it? They can do what they like anyway in Greenland. They've got an existing agreement that can put any number of military bases in Greenland that the Americans want to do. And indeed, it was their decision to effectively pull out of Greenland to the extent that they have. So they had loads of stuff there and loads of hardware during the Cold War, and they pulled it all back. Why not just stick it out there again? So it is one of those really interesting questions. Why does he think that he actually needs to own it? And I thought. Actually, I thought he answered it quite interestingly. In order to have a real stake in defending something, in his mind, you need to own it. It needs to be yours, whether you agree with that or not. I thought it was interesting to get it out of him.
- [24:07]
Sarah Smith
Yeah. It's a real estate developer's mindset, of course, and lots of people have immediately said that. I think. I think it tells you something about his views towards NATO, which we know he's not the biggest fan of. NATO, that's a pact entirely about defending territory as though it were yours, even if it isn't, because it's territory that belongs to one of your NATO partners. I think that tells you something about the likelihood of him rushing in to help a NATO partner if they are attacked. But there's no direct threat to the United States itself. Sometimes Donald Trump shows us who he is with the way he decorates the White House and some of the past presidents that he reveres the most that he's put portraits of in the Oval Office are the ones who expanded the United States, who made the Louisiana Purchase and sort of doubled the size of the United States. If he was able to add Greenland, just in terms of the land mass, it's enormous. But I think with that property developer's mindset, the idea that he could not just make America great again, but make it bigger as well. When he left office, he had increased the size of America, I think he would think was a very, very appropriate legacy for. For him. Yeah.
- [25:14]
Justin Webb
And he's rather given up on the 51st state for Canada, hasn't he? Or has he? I never. We don't sort of.
- [25:19]
Sarah Smith
He hasn't mentioned it for a long time.
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Justin Webb
Yeah.
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Sarah Smith
And he doesn't seem quite as desperate to take over the Panama Canal as he was a year or so ago, because he used to mention that in the same.
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Justin Webb
I've forgotten about Panama. Yes. They must be relieved.
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Sarah Smith
Yeah.
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Mariana
Yes.
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Sarah Smith
Yes. While he's concentrating on Cuba and Colombia, And Iran. You know, he's got plenty of other things in his sights at the moment, but, you know, I get the impression he is, he is more serious about Greenland than we had given him credit for when he first started mentioning it 12 months or so ago. So I think it's, it's every so often with Donald Trump, you realize actually you just have to listen to what he says and he is telling you what he's intending to do. It's just sometimes it sounds so outrageous we have trouble taking it seriously. But with, you know, with most of this stuff he tells us in advance and then he goes and does it and maybe we're the fools when we're surprised by what he does.
- [26:04]
Justin Webb
Yeah, I was talking to someone the other day who was mentioning this thing from the, I suppose the late 19th century that anarchists then used to talk of the propaganda of the deed, this idea that you speak to the world. You speak to your supporters and indeed your opponents. You speak to them by doing something eye catching often in those days from the anarchists, horrific, some sort of act of terrorism. But you do something that captures attention and you're not doing it separately, if you like, from messaging. It is part of the message. It is the message. And I, I think Donald Trump just again and again, the things that he does are. They are him in a kind of weird way that almost for any other politician or anyone acting in the modern democratic world, there is a separation between them and the things they do and say, not necessarily that they're hypocrites, but just that there is a separation. And with Trump, there's no separation at all.
- [27:06]
Sarah Smith
Yeah, he is entirely authentic. I think we can definitely give him that. And yeah, it's. He talks about peace through strength as basically being the fundamental tenant of his foreign policy. And he is demonstrating strength when he attacked Iran last year, their nuclear facilities capturing Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela. He's very pleased to project military strength around the world in order to show what he could do and maintain this threat of America's military might. And that he's in charge of the strongest nation on earth, which he thinks, thinks gives him the right to do whatever he wants to, essentially. I'll tell you one other really interesting thing, though, about Venezuela, Justin, being in that meeting on Friday afternoon when I was able to ask him that question, what it actually was was a meeting he had convened of about 20 of the biggest oil firms in America. All of their CEOs were sitting around the table with about half a dozen Trump administration officials as well 30 people in the room, two of them women, Susie Viles and the head of Marathon Oil. The rest of them are these guys who either own their own oil companies or are CEO' some of the biggest oil companies in the world. These are masters of the universe that are sat around the table very quietly, very meekly as they listened to Donald Trump talking about everything from Columbia to Iran to Minnesota. In fact, they were there as kind of window dressing essentially for him until you went around and tried to get them all to say something in front of the media about how enthusiastic they were about going into Venezuela to exploit the oil reserve. Because we've been talking, haven't we, for days, about how it was the oil that Donald Trump was most interested in. These guys don't want to go in there. They were saying it was uninvestable, unsafe, talking about the billions of dollars that they lost when the Venezuelan oil fields were privatized or nationalized rather, by Hugo Chavez, and how they basically don't want to go back in again. They don't think it's worth it right now with security guarantees that don't go beyond the end of the Trump's term in three years time. So it may well have been his goal that he thought this was a great opportunity for America to start extracting the oil from Venezuela and processing it in Texas. But the oil companies themselves, I have to say, did not look enthusiastic.
- [29:21]
Justin Webb
Yeah. And if anyone wants to delve deeper into oil, and it is absolutely fascinating why they might want Venezuelan oil, how difficult it is, et cetera, et cetera, and why oil matters so much also in the modern world, which really, in a sense surprised me when I did this interview. So there is an entire interview, an entire AmericasT. It's the last one we did. Did, which I did on my own with a real oil expert guy based in Austin, Texas. It's just fascinating what the stakes are. And exactly that point was one of the ones that he raised that actually you need an awful lot of guarantees to go in there, unless you're just risking your own money, but you can't go and risk your shareholders at the same time. Now, Sarah, it wasn't just about serious stuff, was it? And this is the reason why this has all gone viral. Let's listen to what Donald Trump actually said about this happy Trump pin.
- [30:08]
Host/Moderator (possibly Justin Webb or another presenter)
I do have a policy question, President Trump, but I'm having a hard time seeing here I see the American flag lapel pin. What is the other lapel pin?
- [30:16]
Donald Trump
Somebody gave me this. You know what that is? That's called a happy Trump. And considering the fact that I'm never happy, I'm never satisfied, I will never be satisfied until we make America great again. But we're getting pretty close. I'll tell you what, this is called a Happy Trump. Somebody gave it to me, I put it on.
- [30:38]
Sarah Smith
That was Peter Doocy, who's the Fox News White House correspondent. And it shows you just how chummy some of the more right wing broadcasters are with President Trump, that instead of asking a very serious question about democracy in Venezuela or something, he's able to go, hey, yeah, you know, before we get to that, Mr. President, just tell us about what pin it is you're wearing on your lapel. And he gets jokey answer from the president. You meet many different Donald Trumps in the space of a few minutes sometimes at these events, from deeply serious and threatening to extremely lighthearted and. Yeah. And you're with him if he likes your broadcaster. Yes. I mean, that's it, doesn't it?
- [31:16]
Justin Webb
Exactly what you say then. I mean, what other politician has that range, even in one sentence almost?
- [31:21]
Sarah Smith
Yeah. Yeah. And that's why the likes of J.D. vance, who was rolled out last week to talk about the shooting in Minnesota, or Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, who was talking about Greenland and basically saying might makes right in Donald Trump's world. The messaging, they say controversial things that are absolute catnip for the Internet that Mariana's voters will be seeing on their feeds, but they don't do it with any charm, personality or humor. It just comes across as really kind of one note, aggressive or hectoring. Whereas Donald Trump's always got a twinkle in his eye or a little joke of some kind. I'm sure it infuriates some people as much as it attracts others, but it means it's delivered in such a different way that you're right, Justin. He does and says things and is forgiven for it by people in a way I don't think anybody else could be. He was also fascinated looking out the window. We were in the East Room of the White House for this event and you could see out of the window. It looked right over where they're building the new ballroom, which we can hear all day, every day at the White House, the construction going on. And it was interesting. You've got all the of these titans of the oil industry sat around the table. And before President Trump came in, Marco Rubio, Doug Burgum and J.D. vance were more interested in looking out the window at the construction than they were talking to the oil executives. And then Donald Trump comes in and before he says hello to anybody, he's looking out of the window, pointing out some aspects of the construction. And then before he sits down and starts the meeting so you can tell where his heart really lies with this stuff.
- [32:53]
Justin Webb
Tis a White House like no other. At least no other rather in recent memory. We're gonna leave it there. Sarah.
- [32:58]
Sarah Smith
Bye bye bye.
- [33:04]
Justin Webb
Thank you for listening to another episode. It is you, the Ameracaster, that makes AmericasT the community that it now is. If you like what you've heard, please do subscribe to this podcast on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts. We always want to hear your feedback as well. We look at every single bit of correspondence that we yet. So you can send us an email americastbc.co.uk the WhatsApp is 443-301-239480 and you can get involved in the AmericasT Discord server. The link to that is in the description. Till next time, bye bye.
- [34:02]
Helena Merriman
If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, now we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcast.