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Is Donald Trump building a ballroom or a bunker at the White House?
00:32:14
The former East Wing of the White House has been demolished.
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Now, it's hardly breaking news to say Donald Trump has done something that has shocked Washington or surprised the world, but he might have outdone himself when he took a wrecking ball to the East Wing of the White House. People are genuinely flabbergasted that he has just knocked down the whole of one wing of the historic seat of the American presidency. He's done it to make way for a grand new ballroom that he's going to name after the sitting president, one Donald J. Trump. And in the meantime, they're making renovations to the presidential bunker, the emergency operations center that is underneath the east wing. So he's obliterated 120 years of history in one fell swoop. And people are wondering, what's he really up to? Welcome to AmericasT. AmericasT.
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AmericasT from BBC News.
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When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes.
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Sir, right away, sir.
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Happy to lick your boot, sir.
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We are the sickest country in the world. Oh dear. Are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry? Of course the president supports peaceful protests.
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What a stupid question.
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Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?
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Hello, There it is, Sarah here. I'm actually at home in Washington, D.C.
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And it is Marianna back in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London.
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In a little bit, both Mariana and I are going to be talking to Katherine Sibley. She's a White House historian who specializes in First Ladies, and we want to talk to her about the East Wing of the White House, which, as I'm sure you know, has been rather suddenly demolished by Donald Trump. And that's where the first Ladies offices were traditionally housed. So we're going to find out what went on there and what's been lost, but there's plenty to catch up on. And what's been going on in the last week or so during that time, Donald Trump has rather suddenly demolished the whole East Wing of the White House. And he's done it to build what he calls a great big, beautiful ballroom. He's been wanting to do this for years and years, long before actually he ever announced that he was going to run for president. He's been saying that the White House needed a ballroom because there isn't anywhere to house a really large state dinner in the White House. If they have more than about 400 guests, they have to put a marquee up in the grounds. And he doesn't think a tent is anywhere to be having these kind of formal events. You can hear him making the case for why they needed a ballroom just this summer when he was at the White House.
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You know, when they have big events.
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You entertain the President of China or.
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The president of any place, and you.
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Have big crowds, they've always had to get a tent.
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And you've probably been to some of them.
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Bobby.
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When it rains, it's a disaster.
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And the tent's 100 yards. That's more than a football field away.
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From the main entrance.
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And people slopping down to the tent. It's not a pretty sight. Yeah. And that clip was before Donald Trump flew over here to the UK and attended that very glitzy banquet, which was at Windsor Castle, which I imagine might have provided a little bit of inspiration, not least because he absolutely loves the Royal family. And because this was in the summer, it was also before we saw the diggers move in and pull the whole thing down, which you can imagine some people, including the historian who we're going to hear from, were not feeling great about.
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It was pretty shocking. I mean, just firstly, to see a wrecking ball being taken to any bit of the White House gave everybody a start. They obviously knew that people weren't going to like it because hoardings got put up all around the building and to try and block the view. But there's lots of office buildings that overlook that bit of the White House, and any federal workers who were there who had a view of it were banned from taking pictures. And sharing them on social media. But that didn't stop pictures getting out and aerial views of it.
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And as you can imagine, social media has been full of reaction to this, quite a lot of it pretty critical of Donald Trump's decision here. There are people who obviously are very invested in the White House as this really important sort of historical institution that tells you something about American politics and democracy. So, for example, the. The National Trust for Historic Preservation wrote this letter to the White House saying the construction, quote, would overwhelm the White House itself and may also permanently disrupt the carefully balanced classical design of the White House with its two smaller and Lower east and West Wings. And then Hillary Clinton, famously, not a friend of Donald Trump, posted on X, it's not his house, it's your house, and he's destroying it. So there's been quite a lot of that kind of narrative, just in terms.
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Of the history and the architecture of it. I mean, I think it is important to say he's not the only president who's made radical changes over the years. Ever since the White House was built, lots of presidents have done some pretty dramatic things to it in. One of the most famous views of the White House is if you look at the south side of it, where you've got that big semicircular balcony on the first floor where you often see the first family waving to people, the fourth of July and times like that. You see all those famous balcony shots. It's a bit like the balcony at Buckingham palace when you see the royal family appearing there. Well, that was President Truman that put that up there halfway through the 20th century. That wasn't there when George Washington was in the White House. So, I mean, it is constantly being changed and modernized and updated. And the East Wing is not as old as the rest of it. I mean, it started in 1902, but the building that's actually been knocked down, that dates to the 40s when Franklin Roosevelt put it up. It's not as though this was born with the republic and hundreds of years of architectural history have been destroyed with this. It was a relatively modern building that's being replaced with an even more modern building. Now, a lot of people don't like the look of the huge, big structure that Donald Trump wants to put there, but that's a slightly different argument, and.
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We should probably chat a bit about what it's going to look like, because that was kind of Donald Trump's main point, like, this is going to be this amazing, brilliant place. We've got this picture in front of Us which is kind of like a, it's like one of those kind of architecture painting type things that depicts this incredibly golden, a very bright, brightly lit hall, banquet hall with lots of tables and chairs and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and columns. A little bit Grecian, might we say, Sarah.
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It's very fancy. There's gilding on the columns and on the ceiling, huge floor to ceiling arch windows and a marble floor and of course, as many bits of gold furniture as they can squeeze into it as possible. If you imagined in your mind's eye what Donald Trump would think a big, beautiful ballroom would look like, this is almost certainly what you would come up with. Actually, the pictures that the White House put out that we're looking at now were a rendering of a ballroom to hold 650 people, which is what he announced originally. They've now upgraded that to 999. People are going to be able to dine in the structure that gets ever bigger every time they talk about it. So, yeah, it's not dissimilar to what Donald Trump has done to other bits of the White House. I'm sure amerracasters have noticed every time you see him doing a little press conference in the Oval Office, when he sat in front of the fireplace with another world leader beside him, there are more bits of golden gilding have appeared on the fireplace, on the mantelpiece, on the walls around him. Literally every time you see him there is, they've crammed some more gilt somehow into that room. And yeah, there's plenty of it going to be attached to this ballroom as well.
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There was this executive order that Trump issued in August which was called all in capitals as ever making Federal architecture beautiful again. And in it he says President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson consciously modeled the most important buildings in Washington D.C. on the classical architect of ancient Athens and Rome, which it's kind of giving Ancient Athens and Rome, if you've never been to ancient Athens. And we also know, don't we, Sarah, that Donald Trump thinks that he's, he's, he announced this plan, didn't he, to, to build an Arc de Trump, like, like the French Arc de Triomphe opposite the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the country's 250th anniversary next year.
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Yeah, he showed us little models of it when he had a dinner inside the White House to thank all the people who had donated money to pay for the ballroom. Because that's not coming out of public funds, that is. Initially he said he was going to pay for it. But in fact, he's managed to get lots and lots of rich donors to pony up about $300 million to cover the costs of the ballroom. And as he was entertaining them, he announced his next plan. And he had these little scale models of something that does look just like the Arc de Triomphe, but of course would be called after Trump, like a small, medium and very, very large one. And of course, he told them all he fancied the really big one just to be a bit controversial. I don't think this is the worst idea in the world. Now, it depends whether he's going to write Trump on it like he does on the front of the towers. But there is a spot near the Lincoln Memorial on the bridge. As you come from Arlington National Cemetery over the bridge into dc, there's an empty spot in a big kind of traffic circle. There's no reason in the world why it shouldn't have a big arc in it. And it is the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States next year. It's exactly the sort of thing that other presidents would do and it wouldn't be considered so wildly controversial. But because he's made it all about himself, and because it's going to be the Arc de Trump, that's why some people are up in arms about it. I've felt myself being quite conscious all through this argument about the arc and about the remaking of the White House to remind everybody that just because Donald Trump is doing it and you might not be a fan of Donald Trump, that doesn't mean it's an outrageous thing to do. He can do perfectly sensible things. And some people maybe can't see that because they're just so outraged by the fact that the name Trump is attached to it.
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I think what's worth saying, though, Sarah, as well, to your point about there are some people who just really don't like Donald Trump. And so whatever he does, they will find fault with it, but not just that, they will find conspiracy with it. And I think that gets us into quite an interesting territory. One of the questions we've had is from Jenny, who said to us, could the people giving donations towards the ballroom really be buying their places in the bunker being built below the ballroom? Thank you. Now, this idea of the bunker is a conspiracy theory that's gone really, really viral on social media, suggesting that actually the reason for rebuilding the ballroom is because there's going to be this kind of nuclear bunker, and it's an end of Days type thing.
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Thing.
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And Donald Trump wants to build that. That's actually why he's doing this. There's not evidence to. To support that idea, but people are drawing on, you know. Well, although.
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Yeah, well, Marianne, as you often say, there's often a thread of truth in some of these things. So there is a fortified underground bunker underneath the East Wing, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. In fact, that's one of the reasons why there was the East Wing was there at all. That was one of the things that was put in first over 100 years ago. It has been upgraded occasionally. It was used after the 911 attacks, for instance. That's where the vice President was taken. And there is reason to believe that it's being upgraded. And why not? Especially if you're doing this construction anyway, it is the sort of thing that you would need to keep upgraded. You can see why people then suddenly might start to think that there's something suspicious in that. And of course, I hadn't heard before, but it's a neat idea from Jenny that the reason you would give to the ballro is in fact to buy your place in the bunker. But I mean, there's no way that people are giving the tens of millions of dollars that they are for the construction of the ballroom without expecting some kind of quid pro quo. And there are people, I think, perfectly legitimately more concerned about the lack of transparency around what these donors are getting in return than they maybe are about the construction of the ballroom in the first place. After a bit of an outcry, the White House have actually published now the list of everybody who gave money. But they haven't told us, you know, what they were expecting in return, what they might be getting in return. And these are big businesses, many of them in the tech sector, who could expect favors, or maybe they're trying to avoid punitive punishments from the Trump administration. But, you know, it is not for charitable reasons that they're paying for this ballroom.
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You mentioned the tech companies, Sarah. So people like Apple, Amazon, Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, Google, Microsoft, they are just a few of the big tech companies that are happy to contribute to the project, as per this list of donors. And I have spent a long time on this podcast and many other podcasts banging on about the impact of the social media companies and how they almost function. Some of these companies, Meta, for example, like governments now. And so you can see how it is. It is hugely beneficial to them to make sure that they are staying in Donald Trump's good books, not least because he's the person who can make decisions about regulation and other things. He can also decide to take legal action against them. And we've seen various controversies, particularly after the January 6th Capitol riots, where, you know, he was not so fond of the social media companies. Now he is much fonder of them.
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Yeah. And on that topic, we've got this voice note from Ray, who says he lives in the original Washington, so presumably that's in the northeast of England. I have a question about the redevelopment of the White House. President Trump has said that he's going to be paying for this, but he's actively working all of his very wealthy friends for contributions. The estimated cost was $300 million. I would like to know all these contributions audible. It's not inconceivable that more than $300 million could be raised.
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Where would this money go and how would we know?
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Thank you. I love your work. Yes. How would we know? Extremely good question, because there are very, very few details about how much money has been given by these people, and I'm pretty sure it's not auditable. Donald Trump has said that if the costs overrun, he'll make up the difference himself, but I'm sure he would find a way to get it from somebody if there's money left over. He has said that that's going to go towards the Arc de Trump that we were just talking about before the Ceremonial Arch he wants to put up opposite the Lincoln Memorial. And, of course, what another wonderful fundraising opportunity for him to get his friends back into the White House and for them to write more huge checks and to leave us wondering once again what it is that they're getting in return.
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Yeah. And from everything we've just been chatting about, Sarah, you can see why this has become such a focal point for discussion, because in lots of ways, it. It feels symptomatic of both. Things people really don't like about Donald Trump's presidency this time around and things people do like about it. That kind of need to assert and be proud of the American identity and to be a bit glitz and a bit glam and a bit sort of making everything great again kind of thing, which has appealed to a lot of Americans and that kind of slightly bullshit approach that he takes. And then the flip side of that being, well, hang on a second. Are we comfortable with what some people would perceive as a lack of respect for history and tradition and how politicians go about things? And one of the things that a lot of people loved about Donald Trump when they were voting him in to be president this time last year was that he's not like a traditional politician in that sense. It feels like he doesn't always respect the rules, and they like that about him. But the not respecting the rules and traditions is something that quite a lot of people also find quite difficult to deal with.
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So we're lucky now that we've got a guest who can tell us all about what is being lost in the east wing. Dr. Catherine Sibley is a professor of history and Director of American Studies at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia. She's also a historian with a specialism in first ladies. She's written a couple of books about that and currently is writing one about Michelle Obama. Catherine, thank you so much for joining us.
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Thank you for having me.
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So the East Wing has historically been linked with first ladies, of course, and that's why we want to talk to you about it. It tends to be where the first lady has her offices, and it may be one reason why perhaps not as many people are as outraged about the demolition of it as they would be if it was the West Wing that was being destroyed. Is it of equal merit and importance?
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Oh, yes, absolutely. You know, a lot of people are actually quite outraged. I don't know if you've seen the polls. It's something I read this morning. About two thirds of Americans polled are pretty upset because they see this as an attack on the White House itself, which it really is. The East Wing is an integral part of the White House, for instance. Well, I can just tell you it's been around for a long time. The first sort of gist of it, 1902, not Franklin Roosevelt, but his cousin Teddy or Theodore made a plaza there. And then during World War II, and there were, you know, it was sort of a walkway to the White House at that point. During World War II, Franklin Roosevelt wanted to build a bunker. So for the war. And a lot of people thought, you know, that was sort of controversial, but it was important. And so what he did was he put the East Wing over it. And it's a beautiful building. I've been there myself. And the East Wing, of course, became, with Eleanor in office then, and then successive first ladies as really the home of their staff. So. So it wasn't until later the first lady herself moved in there, and we can talk more about that. But it has been indelibly linked with the first ladies, really, since World War II, and the first lady herself, not just her staff, since the 1970s. So I think it is a key piece, and it's really very devastating to me and many first lady scholars that this building has been eradicated because it was the site of much great work.
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C
And we really want to get into the work that so many First Ladies did there and why it was particularly important. But just in terms of the East Wing's architectural or historical value, I have to be honest, I think quite a lot of Brits, many of whom listen to this podcast, are a little bit. I mean, you might think it's snobby about post Second World War buildings. Anything put up since 1945, we don't tend to consider to be a significant historical national monument, that we would be heartbroken if it was to be knocked down. It's not as though it was the residence of the White House, which has, you know, been there for a couple of hundred years, just in terms of the architecture has very much been lost.
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Oh, yes, Actually, it was built technically before 1945. It was built in 1942. And also it was a beautiful building and remains, or remained so, a classic building, really designed beautifully. I mean, I've been inside it. I'll tell you a little bit about that. I went in there. I've been in there a couple of times, but most recently was in torrent 2018, when our current president was in his first term. And it was an event called the Presidential Site Summit. And a number of us who were interested in presidents and first Ladies, people who work in museums, people who work, for instance, at first lady homes or presidents homes, we were all there, and it was a really exciting moment that we got music and lots of lovely cocktails and this and that. But mostly we saw the East Wing. That was always and has always been the entry point, at least since it's been built, for the public to come into the White House. So it's a very, very gracious, or was a very gracious building. What I noticed when we came in was this was already a year into the first Trump administration, and there were many pictures on the wall of the Obamas that were still up. So I think that shows how this house, this. Well, I think of it as a house, but of course, it's, you know, the annex to the White House. But this East Wing was the home of first ladies. And even that then the current first lady, still, now the current first lady, did not just take away the old pictures. She had some of her own. Of course, Melania Trump, there was this sense of continuity, right. For all the First Ladies, this had been where they had worked really, you know, officially as their offices. Since the time of Rosalynn Carter, but even earlier, their staffs, you know, going back to Eleanor Roosevelt. So it's a very gracious building. It's a beautiful building. And I. I assure your audience that they would have loved to have visited, and I'm sure many of them did. This was the public entry point, and so it was a beautiful, beautiful sight to kind of enter and come into the White House.
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A
I was reading a little bit before we chatted to you about the different ways that First Ladies have used the East Wing. And I was reminded of. I'm sure you've probably seen those clips of where people do, like, welcome to my home for Vogue or for other publications like Come Inside. It feels like Jackie Kennedy was perhaps the original version of that, wasn't she? Because she invited people into the White House for this TV show. We've actually got a clip that we can play where she's explaining how important the preservation of history was for the White House.
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Mrs. Kennedy, every first lady and every.
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C
Administration since President Madison's time has made changes greater or smaller in the White House.
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B
Before we look at any of the.
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C
Changes you've made, what's your basic plan? Well, I really don't have one because I think this house will always grow and should.
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B
It just seemed to me such a.
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C
Shame when we came here to find hardly anything of the past in the House, hardly anything before 1902.
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I know when we went to Columbia.
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C
The Presidential palace there has all the history of that country in it, where Simon Bolivar was, every piece of furniture in it has some link with the past.
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I thought the White House should be like that.
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What do you make of that, Catherine?
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B
It's beautiful. You know, just. Just hearing her. Her lovely voice. Right. And in fact, she set up the White House Historical association, which you're. You may be familiar with. And they have been absolutely fantast, saving pictures and artifacts from this building so that even though it's demolished now, we will not lose what it looked like. And at some point it will be recreated, I have no doubt, in some form, hopefully in not too long. And what I think is really interesting about her is by setting up the White House Historical association, by creating a booklet for people who came to visit, by also working as well to make the White House a museum, she set the stage for all successive First Ladies, including Melania Trump, who continued to basically maintain, keep up the decor, freshen it up, replenish. We have people like Pat Nixon, who I think many people don't recognize, did quite a lot bringing in this sort of Americana theme to the White House during the time of the Vietnam War. And first ladies have been incredibly interested in preserving and enhancing the inside of the White House. And I think Jacqueline Kennedy's really kind of started that. And now 65 years later or so since she made that historical association happen. And then shortly after her video, we have the legacy of that with us. And this is why this is so heartbreaking, what's happened.
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A
And if we fast forward to the current first lady, Melania Trump, Sarah, we get loads of questions, don't we, about Melania and what's going on and what her role sort of is really in this administration. We had this voice note from Jules, for example. This was one of the questions. Hi, I have a question about Melania.
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C
You recently did a revisit to under the Radar, and I think think has she slipped under the radar?
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A
Don't really hear much about her anymore, although there was a lot of chatter in her first term.
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C
Does she still live at the White House? Is she responsible for any project?
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A
In fact, what does she actually do? Thanks.
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C
Well, Jules, that is a question that a lot of people in Washington ask themselves. We very occasionally see Melania either in the White House or accompanying Donald Trump somewhere, but not often at all. There's no official record of how many nights she spends there and how often she's in New York or in Mar a Lago in Florida instead. But she has one of the lowest profiles of any recent first lady, and we see even less of her than we did during Donald Trump's first term. It's quite unusual, Catherine, isn't it, for her to be so far under the radar, as Jules put it?
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B
Yes, you're absolutely right. And your caller is right as well. We have not seen much of her. I don't live in Washington, but my understanding is that she's been there maybe a total of about two weeks over the course of this nine months or so that they've been in the White House this year. She was there more last time, I think. And another telling piece of that is, you know, we talk about the East Wing. This is the home of the first lady and her staff as far as their work goes. And she has a very tiny staff, apparently only about five people. And to put that in context earlier, first ladies like Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, et cetera, had, you know, 20, 25 people. They had a really active presence. They had a lot of work to do, whether it was calligraphy or media relations or obviously policies and programs. And we haven't really seen a lot of that. I Melania Trump tends to kind of parachute in for events like Halloween or the Easter Egg Roll, but she's not really there. And that is unprecedented. No question about it. That is really an unusual step. And of course it is. You know her, right? She wasn't. Nobody elected her to fill that role. She can do what she likes. But I think it is disappointing because for me and for many first lady scholars and journalists and others who follow this story here, we feel that she could do a lot more because it's a very powerful platform. And it's a platform that has empowered women for decades to do really important work for the American people.
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C
And of course, one imagines that if you did have a first lady who was using the offices in the East Wing, it would be less likely that the president would get away with simply knocking it down. It can't be a coincidence that Melania is hardly ever there and it's her husband that has demolished it. There's a running controversy on AmericasT. I'm gonna introduce you to Catherine, one of our co hosts who's not with us at the moment. Justin Webb did suggest in an earlier edition that Melania is the first real feminist in the White House, which intrigued some of us when we were thinking about Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt. Can she be called a feminist, do you think?
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B
Well, it's really interesting. And yes, I mean, I think one could say that she is sort of the illogical outcome of the feminist movement for liberating herself from a responsibility that she never really. I mean, I guess she did sign up for it. She is married to him and he was elect, but she's kind of going her own way, which is. Yes. I mean, wouldn't. Don't all women want to do what they want to do? Right. They don't want to be just because their husband has a job. They have to, like, serve that position. I mean, I could see that argument. I really could. But where I don't see it is apparently she did say that she didn't want the East Wing. I mean, I read a little bit about this, not a whole lot. She didn't want it demolished. But as you said, she's not really there. So she probably wasn't really listened to. Obviously she wasn't, if she fairly felt this way. And I think also we have a situation where to put the other turn on the feminist argument. This was and has been, as you said, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush. These have been very strong women who have promoted active Roles liberating other women. For example, Laura Bush was very interested in education of girls in Afghanistan and it's hard to imagine she could have done as much if she hadn't been First Lady. Hillary Clinton similarly talking about women's rights or human rights, speaking around the world, Michelle Obama also speaking in your country about let girls learn. I mean, I mean these are very feminist and forward thinking policies and practices for women and girls and you can't really do that if you're not in the White House. So, you know, I get the feminist argument. In a way, she's emancipated, great. But on the other hand, the longer term, I think interests of women's rights have really been served more by these recent First Ladies. And you know, I applaud them for that.
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A
I love Sarah. When you said that, I was thinking which of the presenters could you possibly be talking about who might have said something controversial? Could it be Anthony? You've yet to meet Anthony and Justin, but if you had, Catherine, you would know exactly what Sarah was talking about. On this point though, about the action, particularly social justice initiatives and other work that First Ladies have tended to do in the past. Do you think that the loss of this place, a physical place, that was where a lot of them would root that work they were doing, like Michelle Obama for example, do you think that will change the role of First Ladies going forward? Like, how do they deal with it next time around?
- [29:58]
B
Oh, it's a great question. Yeah. I mean I, people have asked me this and I think that even though the term east, you might think, oh, East Wing is now obsolete, it's been erased. But no, I mean the East Wing lives on in our. You know, there's a wonderful magazine, it's a substack newsletter called East Wing Magazine. I recommend it to your readers and I don't think they're changing their name because when we think East Wings, we think of the first lady. And that's not a direct answer to your question. But now I'll proceed to address it more closely, which is that, no, I think after this, obviously the current First Lady, I don't think she's going to suddenly become really an activist. But in future, whoever it is, First Lady, First Gentleman, we have no clue. We hope there will be some change in the genders at some point soon. They will certainly, I think, take on these roles again because. And maybe they'll be better supported, which would be very good, like have more professional staffing, et cetera. They've always had to a little bit worry about their staff because they always get some kind of focus about, oh, well, you know, who elected you? Why do you have this big staff? But they have a professional staff. They've had one since Rosalynn Carter's time and even before that, some of the staff were. So I think what you're going to see is this will be rebuilt in some fashion and future first ladies, or first gentlemen will take on this role of activism and care for the American people, which has really been a signature piece of what the first lady has been about. And it's what really has drawn me to this field, thinking about the work, the good work. And I actually study an earlier first lady who didn't have an East Wing. So activism can happen even without an East Wing. This is Florence Harding, and she was certainly an activist in the 1920s working for women's political roles and also defending the rights of prisoners, female prisoners and animal rights. Very interestingly so I want to mention that with or without the building, the work will go on and hopefully the building will return in a new form just as good or better.
- [31:53]
C
Katherine, thank you very much for that. I love the idea of the first, first gentleman just taking over the big, beautiful volume and turning that into his office instead. You never know what will happen in the ever evolving White House. That's been fascinating. Catherine, thank you so much for joining us and giving us that insight into what there was inside the East Ring for those of us who never actually managed to see it.
- [32:14]
A
Thank you so much, Catherine.
- [32:15]
B
Thank you.
- [32:17]
A
Right, that brings us to the end of this episode of AmericasT. Thank you so much for listening as always. See you later. Bye Bye.
- [32:27]
B
Ameracast, ameracast from BBC News.
- [32:31]
C
Well, look, thanks for listening all the way to the end of today's AmericasT. You are now officially an AmericasT.
- [32:37]
A
It is, of course, a ride, a.
- [32:38]
C
Wild ride navigating the US News, particularly in the IT era of Trump. But you have made it.
- [32:44]
B
If you have a comment, a question.
- [32:45]
C
About the things we've talked about or.
- [32:47]
B
Anything at all, actually, get in touch with us.
- [32:49]
C
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.
- [33:09]
B
We will be back with another podcast very soon.
- [33:11]
C
So until then, see you later. Bye.
- [33:23]
B
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- [35:25]
C
America is changing and so is the world.
- [35:29]
B
But what's happening in America isn't just.
- [35:31]
C
A cause of global upheaval.
- [35:33]
B
It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, DC.
- [35:39]
C
I'm Tristan Redman in London and this is the Global Story.
- [35:43]
A
Every weekday we'll bring you a story.
- [35:45]
C
From this intersection where the world and America meet.
- [35:49]
B
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.