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Why is Donald Trump calling for Jimmy Kimmel to be fired... again?
00:31:40
Melania Trump called for ABC to “take a stand” against Jimmy Kimmel
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- [00:00]
Marianna
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
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Anthony
Yes, you can. A five minute quick and easy calorie burning workout. Give it a try. Come join our sweat sesh on TikTok.
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Marianna
Craving something specific? From global flavors to viral snacks, TikTok has it all. If you can dream it, you can make it right at home. Find your next favorite dish on TikTok.
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Sarah
The fallout is continuing in the aftermath of Saturday's shooting here in Washington at the White House Correspondents Dinner. It's reignited a feud between Donald Trump and the comedian Jimmy Kimmel. It's over jokes that Kimmel made on his show before Saturday's shooting. The Trump administration is now making threats to review Disney's broadcast licenses. So why is it that Donald Trump wants Kimmel fired? It was only a joke after all. And how far will they go to try to punish him? Welcome to AmericasT. AmericasT.
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Marianna
AmericasT from BBC News.
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Anthony
You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under
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Sarah
President Trump, we are finishing it.
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Marianna
This is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it.
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Sarah
This, this guy has Trump derangement syndrome.
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Jimmy Kimmel
I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.
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Sarah
Hi, it is Sarah here in the BBC's Washington bureau.
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Anthony
And it's Anthony, also in the Washington bureau with Sarah.
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Marianna
And it is Marianna, aka Misinformation, in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London. Brilliant to see you both this weekend.
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Sarah
Yeah, we were both over in London for Cast Fest, which was great fun, wasn't it?
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Marianna
So fun. Absolutely loved it.
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Sarah
And we were there with our sister podcast newscast. And while we're talking about them, we should point out that their episode today is going to unpack how King Charles's speech went down to Congress here in Washington. But we've got other matters to talk about today.
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Marianna
We're going to be talking more about the fallout of the attempted shooting at the correspondence dinner over the weekend because all sorts has been happening, first of all, starting with Jimmy Kimmel, the TV presenter, because there's been this whole row over more comments that he's made. Remember, Jimmy Kimmel has had aggro with Donald Trump in the past, which we'll talk about. And the Federal Communications Commission is now ordering an early review of Disney's television broadcast license after Donald Trump called for Jimmy Kimmel to be sacked over comments he made about that dinner.
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Anthony
If you remember, Jimmy Kimmel and Donald Trump at the White House had a dust up last year after Charlie Kirk's Killing, where Kimmel tried to lay blame at the feet of conservatives, at the feet of Republicans, and they took issue with that. He was pulled off the air for a couple of days, and then it kind of faded to the background. But here we are again. Before the White House correspondence dinner on this Thursday show, Kimmel made what he said was a light roast, kind of a joke about Melania Trump having the glow of an expectant widow. Now, in the context of this happening without anything else going on, it kind of faded under the radar. But then with the attempted shooting at the White House Correspondent's Dinner on Saturday night, by Monday, Melania Trump released a statement criticizing Jimmy Kimmel for saying that, saying it was fermenting violence and hate and calling for him to be removed off the air entirely.
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Sarah
Yeah, so we should explain what he was doing on his show. Normally, the White House Correspondent's Dinner has a comedian who makes a speech sort of teasing and roasting the President who's there, and then he can respond, usually with a funny speech as well. But in this particular occasion, with Donald Trump attending the dinner, there wasn't going to be a comic. There was what they called a mentalist, a kind of magician, mind reader act. So Jimmy Kimmel took it upon himself to play the role of mc. And so on his Thursday night show, he did a skit where he was all dressed up in black tie, kind of pretending he was the comic at the White House Correspondents Dinner. And this is the joke that he made.
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Jimmy Kimmel
Our first lady Melania is here. Look at Melania. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow. You know, Melania's birthday is on Sunday. That's right. She's planning to celebrate at home the same way she always does, looking out a window and whispering, what have I done?
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Marianna
The thing about this clip is that like, like you say, Anthony, it kind of went under the radar because these comments were made before that attempted shooting. But then obviously, in light of that, it's triggered all sorts of response, particularly from people who support Donald Trump and from Donald Trump himself, saying that Jimmy Kimmel should be, quote, immediately fired by Disney and abc. And then Jimmy Kimmel actually responded to Disney. The comments that Melania and Donald Trump had made during his monologue on Tuesday night's show.
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Jimmy Kimmel
And a call to fire me from our first lady, Melania Trump, saying I should be fired because of a joke I made again five nights ago. It was a pretend roast. I said, our first lady Melania is here. Look at her. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have A glow like an expectant widow, which obviously was a joke about their age difference and the look of joy we see on her face every time they're together. It was a very light roast joke about the fact that he's almost 80 and she's younger than I am. It was not, by any stretch of the definition, a call to assassination. And they know that I've been very vocal for many years speaking out against gun violence in particular. But I understand that the first lady had a stressful experience over the weekend, and probably every weekend is pretty stressful in that house. And also, I agree that hateful and violent rhetoric is something we should reject. I do. And I think a great place to start to dial that back would be to have a conversation with your husband
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Sarah
about it, because it's a pretty unrepentant there from Jimmy Kimmel. And this is not just an argument about whether the joke was tasteless, whether at the time or in hindsight. This is part of a pattern of behavior from the Trump administration to go after broadcasters whose coverage they don't like. We've mentioned already that in the wake of Charlie Kirk's shooting, Jimmy Kimmel was actually pulled off the air for a few days by Disney, who owned the network abc. We've had threats like this before as well. The chairman of the fcc, the body that hands out broadcast licenses, had told broadcasters to be careful of how they were covering the war in Iran when it first started as well, because he threatened to review their licenses then. And if they were to do this, it would be pretty out of the ordinary. These federal licenses have to be reviewed every eight years, I think it is, but it's several years before ABC's licenses would be up. So this really is. I mean, I think it's meant to have a chilling effect on broadcasters, whether that's comedians or journalists. I don't think they're hiding the idea that this is the Trump administration threatening to make life difficult for organizations who say things on air that they don't like the sound of in the White House. Is there another way to interpret it? Anthony?
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Anthony
I don't think so. There's some things to keep in mind here. First of all, is that these are the network broadcasters, and they're regulated by the government because originally and still they broadcast over the airwaves, which is a limited resource. And that allows the government to kind of control and regulate what goes out on the airwaves and that limited resource. The other thing that you have to keep in mind is that these networks, the big Corporate headquarters, they don't own all of the affiliate stations all over the country to 300. So that broadcast or on their transmitters, the network programming, they only own a handful of, of key broadcasting affiliates in places like Los Angeles and New York and Chicago, the big markets, the most money making markets. So what you're seeing from this threat from the FCC is that they are going to review the licenses for those few key affiliates that are owned by ABC to try to put the pressure on them. And if you think back to what happened with that Charlie Kirk incident, it was the affiliates that were causing some of the concern and raising their voices. And that's why Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off air so quickly, was because the network, ABC felt like they had to address the concerns of the affiliates. That's not the case this time around. So it's almost like the FCC is trying to prompt some of that by targeting affiliates for this. You also have to remember that back then, those affiliates, nexstar, one of the big owners of a bunch of affiliates, was looking to get government approval for a merger, which is one of the reasons why they were kind of upset about Jimmy Kimmel and were concerned about that merger being approved. There's not that kind of sideline drama looming over this this time around, which may be one of the reasons why ABC didn't pull Kimmel off immediately. They let him go on air. They let him issue his clarification, his defense. They seem to be sticking up for him this time around more than they did the last time around.
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Sarah
It's possible he does regret that joke about Melania looking like an expectant widow in the light of what then happened a couple of days later, which nobody could have anticipated. But I think it's worth saying that, you know, really, people said things beforehand that they might regret afterwards. Look at Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary. She was being asked by a Fox News correspondent on her way into the dinner, all dressed up on the red carpet what the President was going to be saying that night. And she was describing how punchy he was going to be with the press in the room, how critical he was going to be of all the journalists who were sitting there. And she said, there are shots going to be fired in that room tonight. This speech tonight will be classic Donald J. Trump.
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Marianna
It'll be funny, it'll be entertaining. There will be some shots fired tonight in the room, so everyone should tune in. It's going to be really great.
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Sarah
But nobody's calling for her to be taken off her podium as a result of that, you know, people use metaphorical language that, that when something like this happens can look extremely unfortunate.
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Anthony
It's always risky to joke about a president's death and to tread on that ground. So, you know, even in the best of circumstances, it's going to get people upset or it could step on some toes. And then, of course, in the context of this now with the attempted shooting Saturday night, it does put it in a different kind of light. But I don't think you can look at what he said on Thursday night as an intentional call for some sort of an attack on the president or for an assassination.
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Marianna
It's been really interesting because actually there has been a very, very loud clamor on social media. I mean, we saw it when there was the attempted shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. But it feels like each time one of these incidents occurs, and there have been sort of several now the kind of clamors of it was staged, it was a hoax, it was planned, become louder and louder actually on both sides of the political spectrum. And there are some MAGA supporters who have used Kimmel's joke to say, look, he had some intel, he knew this was going to happen. Which, I mean, when you actually think about it, then it would be pretty unwise for him to make that joke if he did know it was going to happen. And, and so on and so forth. But, but same on the left, people have, have also seized on those comments. You mentioned the Caroline leave it one saying, well, she knew it was going to happen, it was staged, it was planned. And a lot of that has definitely heated up or intensified the conspiracy chatter. One of the things that a lot of people have been, have been suggesting without any evidence at all is like, oh, this was staged because Donald Trump wants to improve his popularity ratings. His approval ratings aren't looking so good. And so he's done this or, or even this is part of a conspiracy to do all of his ballroom overhaul. And I think that it's important to kind of separate out the things that are without evidence at all and conspiratorial and then also real examples of where I guess off the back of this shooting, Donald Trump has decided to talk about specific issues like the ballroom, for example, and to say, well, hang on a second, this highlights safety, Stu. Both things can be true, like he could be using the situation to his political advantage. But that doesn't mean the shooting was staged in some way, as a lot of these social media accounts are suggesting. And for example, when we talk about him talking about the ballroom, there's this clip, he spoke to CBS news during a 60 Minutes interview on Sunday night. And this is what he said about the ballroom.
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Anthony
It's not a safe ballroom. I'm building a safe ballroom. And one of the reasons I'm building it is exactly what happened last night. We're building a room right there. If you walk out and move 20 yards to the left, you'll be right at the entrance to the ballroom. And that ballroom is being built on the safest piece of property in this country, probably one of the safest pieces of land in the world. I mean, I'm struck by how quickly he pivoted to making this about the ballroom. And it wasn't just him, actually, whether they were taking the lead from him or they were doing it themselves. A lot of conservative lawmakers in Congress endorse this as reason why the ballroom needs to be built. Conservative commentators said the same thing. There are some things to keep in mind. This is the White House Correspondents Association. Donald Trump is an invitee. The White House doesn't put on an event like this. He's invited to it. It's also a much bigger event. It's thousands of people, several thousands of people in that Hilton ballroom. Even with the massive size of the ballroom that Trump proposing on White House grounds, it would not have enough people to handle that capacity. And then there's the question of, well, is Donald Trump going to do all of his events in this ballroom? And presidents travel around the country and they give public speaking events and they hold fundraisers and they have other public appearances. So the ballroom is not the one stop solution to stop this kind of thing from happening. Although it does seem like what you're seeing is a bit of political opportunism here to try to use this to overcome the lawsuit that was blocking the construction of the ballroom and take down the political opposition and maybe even get legislation in Congress that would provide additional funds to supplement the private funds that Trump says he's already raised to pay for this.
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Sarah
Yeah, I mean, literally within hours of the incident on Saturday night, the acting attorney General, Todd Lunch, had fired off a letter to the group who are opposing the ballroom being built and who've taken that legal case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation. And he basically wrote to them saying, if you don't drop your case, you're putting the president's life in danger. I paraphrase a bit, but not that much. I mean, there was a really kind of not just speedy, but full court press coming from the White House to use this as a way to try and push the ballroom project through. Donald Trump's been talking about it more and more and more recently, and one of the things that he would have loved to have had a ballroom to do is to host the state banquet for King Charles and Queen Camilla. Normally, the White House, when they want to put on a large event like this, because they don't have a room big enough, they erect a marquee in the grounds. But Donald Trump absolutely refused to host British royalty in a tent. So instead they staged it in the East Room, a room Anthony and I are in quite often for press conferences and events and things which just isn't that big. So there was only 120 people at that banquet last night. You could have normally had about double that size if he did have the ballroom that he wants. And so, you know, it was on people's minds as they were there enjoying the banquet. And even King Charles himself, himself joked about the project when he was giving his toast after the state banquet last night. It is a particular pleasure to be
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Marianna
back in this wonderful building, the heart
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Sarah
of your democracy on this occasion. I cannot help noticing the readjustments to
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Marianna
The East Wing, Mr. President,
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Anthony
following your visit to Windsor Castle last year. And I'm sorry to say that we
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Sarah
British, of course, made our own small
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Marianna
attempt at real estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814.
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Sarah
I bet Donald Trump heard that as royal approval for his ballroom project. But in fact, all the King says was, I can't help noticing the readjustments to the East Wing. He didn't express his approval for it in any way at all.
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Anthony
You know, I was at the King's speech in Congress yesterday, and he had a bunch of jokes there which went over well, and I guess he decided to keep up with the comments comedy routine at the White House. But, you know, even among those jokes, you notice that the King didn't say he approved of the construction. He just said he noted it, which if you read between the lines, maybe there is also a little bit of a criticism there. But it is interesting to see that it is a topic of discussion even during a state dinner.
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Sarah
Anthony, we should probably explain a little bit about where we've got to with the plans for the controversial ballroom. So the East Wing of the White House has been knocked down. There's a big gap site there. They're getting on with constructing the foundations and a kind of security bunker that's going to go underneath, but not the ballroom itself yet. And the plans are variously revised. Donald Trump quite often turns up at events or goes to meet the press at the back of Air Force One with printouts of plans of it. He's very, very proud of the columns he's going to put outside and the huge, big windows and the steps leading up to it. But it's generally perceived to be far too large for the site. A bit overly gaudy, but, yeah, I mean, you know, too big, too blingy. Sounds like a Trump building. But it's not going down brilliantly with voters.
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Anthony
Is doesn't seem to be. I mean, the concerns are twofold. Right. As you mentioned, the concerns about the size of it, the gaudiness of it, the way it's going to kind of dominate the White House grounds and cast a shadow over the executive Mansion, the older parts of the building. But then there's also concerns about the process by which this was done. We talked about it in the past, but they didn't, Donald Trump didn't say anything about tearing down any part of the White House structure when this all began. Initially, people thought, oh, they're just going to pull down the fascia of the East Wing and then attach the ballroom onto it. And then overnight, practically the entire thing was raised to the ground and they started digging holes. And that's one of the reasons why this prompted a lawsuit that is ongoing. And a judge had temporarily put a hold on some of the construction, but not all of it. And he's still reviewing whether this can be allowed to proceed without congressional approval or not. And that is one of the things that has shifted now based on Saturday night's incidents and the calls for construction in the ballroom, is that members of Congress now have started to talk about maybe giving explicit approval for this that would, you know, cut the knees out from, from this lawsuit and maybe even giving some federal money to help supplement the hundreds of millions of dollars that Donald Trump says he has raised from private companies to, to build this construction. I think the, the, the concern is, Sarah, and tell me if I'm wrong here, but if this isn't popular from the beginning, do you think that Republican legislators in Congress who are going to appropriate or proposing appropriating hundreds of millions of dollars to build this ballroom, do you think that is going to help their standing with the public that is already concerned about the price of gasoline and the amount of money that the government is spending on other things? I mean, it seems almost a strange thing to focus on. It's going to open them up to political attacks from Democrats.
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Sarah
Sure. Now, of course, it was Lindsey Graham who came up with the idea, who will often come up with ideas that are very much in line with Donald Trump's thinking. And not necessarily every Republican in Congress will agree with. I mean, Donald Trump says he doesn't need the money in tax spare funds. He's raised hundreds of millions, as you say, from private individuals and corporations. And we're not even allowed to know who they all are or how much they've given, which is another source of controversy around the whole ballroom idea. If Congress were to approve it, as you say, then they could go ahead. I wonder, would that involve any more oversight, though, of the design of it? Because, I mean, I think it's fair to say that the White House probably did need a large space in which to do things like host state banquets. When you've got royal visitors. A ballroom isn't a bad idea. It's just the massive scale of this Trump ballroom that's so controversial.
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Anthony
The massive scale and the way he went about doing it without seeking any kind of approval from the commissions that are normally set up to manage these sorts of things. Congress could weigh in and Congress could change the law or give an exception that would allow Donald Trump to pretty much do whatever he wants with the construction of it. Whether they say, well, we're not going to have to look at the details of the plans, just go ahead and build your ballroom. Congress could, in theory do that. They're the lawmaking body that sets the rules, essentially. But, yeah, I think there has been a desire, and Donald Trump is right about this, a desire from presidents to find some sort of a way to host larger events that doesn't rely on tents set up on the grass in the South Lawn of the White House. There have been incidents where it's rained during these events and the tents have flooded. So it's, it is kind of something that is not a bad idea in theory. I think the objections to it, one is that just Donald Trump is doing this and people are going to knee jerk reject anything he tries to do to the style that he has put forward. And three, the means, the method with which he did this without any kind of a real advance notice or any kind of deceiving the breadth of this project until it was well underway.
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Sarah
Now, we've had a question about some of the things we're talking about here from Bethany in London. And she asked Dear AmericasT team, why is no one talking about how wonderfully convenient it was for him? She means Donald Trump, that the only correspondence dinner he's ever attended gave him an additional argument for his gaudy ballroom Am I also the only one who can't make myself believe the bullet wound after the assassination attempt? Has the unrelenting drip, drip of insanity infected my brain? Please share your honest thoughts and help me straighten it out in my poor head. Mariana, do you want to pick this up first?
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Marianna
Yeah, I think it's a really good way of describing it, this drip, drip, because that is essentially what has been going on since the dawn of social media, but in relation to the shooting specifically, certainly since the assassination attempt targeting Donald Trump that happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, before the election. And what was notable about the online reaction then is that both people who loved Donald Trump and hated Donald Trump were saying things a little bit like what you're saying there. Bethany. I, you know, I don't believe that the bullet wound was real. I think that you people who don't like Donald Trump very much thought it was part of some conspiracy without any evidence at all to try and get himself elected in the election that year. And then some of the slightly more out there MAGA supporters thought that it was actually part of a kind of conspiracy to wake people up. One of them I spoke to said, oh, you know, this is trying to wake people up to the danger that the world is in and Donald Trump is in and to essentially get him elected as well. Now, I think that because those conspiracy theories went, I wouldn't say mainstream, that might be too far, but certainly they started to infect people who I think would otherwise consider consider themselves quite immune to disinformation. And a lot of that was very emotional content. It was the kind of stuff that makes you go, oh, yeah, actually that's a bit odd. Or, oh, yeah, what happened? We didn't find out that much information about the shooter. People were asking legitimate questions, but then they were quickly spiraling into very unevidenced or kind of false realms. Now, this time around, it's like every time something happens, the same playbook, the same tactics get activated. So you see users posting, you know, this language. It was staged, it was a hoax, it was part of a conspiracy. And in a weird way, the more this happens and the more kind of like, not unusual it seems, the more people then start to believe the conspiracy theories. Because I think, you know, assassination attempts are such a. Such a big deal. To feel like they keep happening is like, what? Well, why does this keep. Why does this keep unfolding? I think it's not aided by the fact that because of social media, we can also, like, forensically comb through posts that alleged shooters have made. We can look at, at their content. Often there'll be like, supposed manifestos and other things circulating. And also this particular shooting, obviously, because it was the correspondence dinner, there were loads of people, like, filming, there were influencers posting pictures afterwards. I think all of that contributes to that noise that starts to make you make to anyone kind of question the reality of, of what's going on and why. But the facts here ultimately are that there was a shooting attempt. There's no evidence at all it was staged. I think if you looked at some of the reaction on, of, for example, Melania, actually, asides from all of the kind of, there's no evidence to say it was staged at all. Like, you can imagine actually how scary those events are for people, particularly in light of the very near miss that happened in Pennsylvania. And so it's important, I guess, not to get lost in the social media noise and forget what a big deal this stuff is. Like that question that was asked by one of the reporters in the clips earlier. Like, there are a lot of very, very important people in that room and if that shooting had happened, it would have had huge, huge, huge consequences. And so just because these shootings keep sort of being thwarted in some way doesn't mean that they're any less credible.
- [25:44]
Sarah
I wonder if, and I'm just kind of thinking out loud here, so this is not necessarily a well thought through theory, but I wonder if the way Donald Trump responds to these incidents fuels people's cynicism about it. So after the assassination attempt in Butler, when of course we saw that famous image of him struggling to get to his feet, putting his fist in the air, shouting, fight, fight, fight. There was blood pouring from his ear. That became a really defining campaign symbol for him. He leaned in heavily to the political advantage that there was in that. He absolutely milked it to the point where people were then looking at him saying, well, hang on, if this is so central to your campaign, if this is so politically advantageous, did you create these circumstances in order to profit from it politically? And also, we were just saying how incredibly quickly the White House pivoted to using the shooting attempt at the White House correspondence dinner to say, this makes the case for why we should to be building our big, beautiful ballroom again. You know, there's a degree of cynicism there about using the events to your advantage, such that perhaps that's maybe what leads people to look at it and think, well, hang on, did you create these events in order to use them to your advantage?
- [26:53]
Anthony
Yeah, I think you're onto something, Sarah. I think it kind of reflects a powerlessness and a lack of control that people feel when these events happen and that they are leading to developments that they don't approve of. You know, they see an assassination attempt and they see Donald Trump perhaps benefiting from it, or they fear that people are going to start supporting Donald Trump or forgive him for what could be past indiscretions or actions that they think he should be held accountable for. And it doesn't seem fair, and it doesn't seem just so you start thinking about, well, maybe there's some sort of a larger malign actor influencing this. And it all fits together in a way that is. Is more, more understandable than just random things happen. And sometimes random things happen and the people that you don't like benefit from them politically.
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Marianna
Yeah. And I think as well that all of this is the kind of product of turbocharged algorithmic feeds where, you know, you'll push stuff which comes from accounts and people that you agree with. On the whole, they often share the same political views as you, or you're kind of outraged by those posts and you very strongly disagree with them. But all of that creates, creates this, this world where you start to trust the people you agree with rather than necessarily the people with the correct information. And I think that you are under something, Sarah, which is that Donald Trump's ability to turn these events into something that could be positive is perhaps slightly the wrong adjective, but that could be beneficial in some way. I mean, he's kind of known for that, right, As a politician. So in some ways it shouldn't surprise people at all that he would stand up and put his fist in the air or that he would start talking about the ballroom. In lots of ways, that's completely in keeping with his character as a politician. And actually, in some ways, that kind of undermines all the constraints, conspiracy theories, because you're like, how would you expect Donald Trump to behave if he was shot at? I think the way he's behaved is very in line with what I would have anticipated. But nonetheless, I think that does add fuel to the fire. And people will then, will then decide to kind of push particular narratives. And I, and I think there is something about, like, trying to understand why these events keep happening and how they're able to happen. I think a lot of people can't really understand how it keeps getting so close. And a lot of that comes down to questions over the security services and whether failings are being repeated, made in terms of how these venues and events are kept safe. And I think that there's perhaps a belief, certainly if you're, if you don't exist in government or, you know, you're just the average person, like, how can this keep happening? Like, how can people get this close to the president? And I think, as ever with this stuff, it often starts with a kernel of truth or a legitimate question. And then when you're being drip, drip, drip, fed this push, push, pushed it, as Bethany says, you start to become more malleable, you're more open to it. And then you get to the point where you think, oh, maybe I, I, maybe I don't believe this happened or is true. Which is actually really worrying because, as I often say, if we can't all agree on a kind of shared concept of reality, we don't all share reality, we can't all agree the shooting happened. Whatever you think of it, then we're, we're starting to get into pretty sort
- [29:50]
Sarah
of tricky territory in this Trump administration, though, it's actually genuinely difficult sometimes to work out what is true and what not. I've already been confused twice this week. I saw a photograph of, of King Charles standing in the Oval Office handing him a copy of the Declaration of Independence with all those famous signatures of the Founding Fathers underneath it and his own signature in a big black Sharpie scrawled over the top of them. And the first time I glanced it, I thought, he hasn't, has he? And no, of course not. It's ridiculous. It's just a meme. It's just somebody's created it. He hasn't really defaced an original copy of the Declaration of Independence by signing it with a Sharpie. Penn. But then when I saw a story that he is adding his own image to American passports that are going to be issued this year to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the United States. And if you get a new passport, it will actually have an image of Donald Trump etched into the pages. Well, I thought that was obviously a joke, but it's not. It's real. So, you know, the atmosphere in which we live contributes to just not able to work out what's true and what's not.
- [30:57]
Marianna
And very helpfully, if Americasters want to know more about that, what's true and what's not, and all of the kind of conspiracy theory meme content swirling about the attempted shoe taping that happened at the weekend, we are going to be dissecting it on Top Comment, which is the other podcast that I present with with Matt Shea. Do go and give it a listen. It will be coming out on Friday in the top comment feed.
- [31:19]
Sarah
Yeah, we will all give that a listen but from americast for today we should leave it there. Just say bye.
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Marianna
Bye Bye bye.
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Anthony
All right,
- [31:34]
Sarah
Thank you for answering our call and continuing to send your messages to us. We do read every single one. We love to hear your thoughts, your feedback and questions as well. So please do keep them coming. You can send us an email. It's 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. And don't forget to subscribe. That way you will never miss an episode. Until next time.
- [32:07]
Anthony
Bye.
- [32:16]
Marianna
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- [32:53]
Anthony
Yes you can. A five minute quick and easy calorie burning workout. Give it a try. Come join our sweat sesh on TikTok.
- [33:10]
Marianna
I'm Kai Wright. I'm Carter Sherman.
- [33:12]
Sarah
Welcome to Stateside with Kai and Carter. We're a new show from the Guardian.
- [33:16]
Anthony
We're talking to big thinkers and the
- [33:17]
Sarah
best journalists just trying to understand the
- [33:19]
Marianna
world through smart conversation and honest reporting.
- [33:22]
Sarah
We don't have billionaires telling us what to say.
- [33:24]
Marianna
Stateside with Kyan Carter will come out
- [33:26]
Jimmy Kimmel
three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday starting May 13.
- [33:30]
Marianna
Subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.