← Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Christiane Amanpour Presents: The Ex Files
Q&A: Trump’s dealmaking “mastery”, capitalism vs democracy & do sanctions work?
00:21:11
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This is a global Player original podcast.
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A
The sleaze factor is absolutely huge. The inequality gap is horrendous right now and a moral decline 100% demonstrated by all the incredibly rich people who are in Trump's circle, running a government mostly for their own interest.
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B
Elon Musk spent an enormous amount of money helping Donald Trump be elected president.
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A
Elon Musk clearly said that Trump wouldn't have won without him. Glad we've cleared that up, Jamie.
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B
Glad we fixed American politics with those five questions.
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A
Hi, everyone, it's Christiane and Jamie, back with the Q and A episode of the X Files. I'm in Paris this week and Jamie, where are you?
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B
I'm in New York.
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A
Okay, so I'm going to ask you the first question. It's from Andy on Instagram. For all his talk about the art of the deal, is Donald Trump actually one of the worst negotiators ever? He's been saying the US And Iran are close or very good and very good deal for two months, but I'm not buying it. What's going on? Andy, I am with you because as a person who has her own show and has to talk about this every single day on cnn, it's become Groundhog Day. So I don't think he's a great negotiator and I don't think he knows how to get himself out of this because I think there are too many people in his ear telling him, oh, no, that's a bad deal. Oh, no, this, that, and the other. Jamie, what do you think?
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Well, I think you've hit the nail on the head. There's too many people who keep telling him it's a bad deal because there are what I call the remaining neocons who really do want to end the Iranian regime and somehow have them capitulate and somehow have persuaded Trump that the use of military power can cause them to capitulate, when in fact this particular war has not yielded that result because the Iranians have gotten some leverage out of it. Nobody expected in the Trump administration. The rest of us expected it. We all understood that it was possible for them to close the Straits of Hormuz and cause pain. So, no, he's not the greatest negotiator in the world. There are some things that have happened under Trump that are useful. For example, when he finally told Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop the war in Gaza, he sort of did for a while and slowed it down. He does have the ability to bring countries together in Africa who very much want the support of the United States and can advance the peace process. In those cases, I think he could, if he chose, probably have a real impact on Vladimir Putin, but he hasn't chosen to do that. So so far, the evidence is that there's no real seriousness to these negotiations on Iran. If the current reports are accurate, we're actually going to delay the nuclear issue down the road. Now, when saying that and pointing that out, it's worth pointing out that that comes after the destruction of much of those facilities by milit. There is a window we have where they are destroyed. It'd be very hard for them to be taken advantage of, and we can perhaps get a better deal. And so that destruction makes the situation somewhat safer than it was before, but not as known and understood as well as when we had the agreement in place under the Obama administration.
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A
Yeah. And Trump just keeps talking about the Obama accord that he pulled out of, which is why we're here today with this, with this completely crazy situation. And he keeps, in his mind's eye, he keeps trying to make something bigger and better than what Obama did. So I don't know whether that's possible, certainly not at this moment, anyway. But just to note, there's an organization, sort of a press organization, called Israel Hayam, and they had a very interesting report on this issue this week in which a secret branch of the Mossad was revealed. And it basically said that, you know, we're still at it, we are still going to be trying our influence campaign, and we are still going to try to topple this regime one way or the other and get the people of Iran to topple this regime. And it's quite detailed. I'd encourage people to go and read it. It's quite interesting. One other thing, the latest on the Iranian kilograms of highly enriched uranium suggested that a country like Kazakhstan might be willing to take it, and who knows what would happen to it then. But that's also an issue. Jamie, do you want to ask the next question?
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Yes. Amelia ON email Asks, what do you think of the French Navy increasingly boarding and intercepting Russian oil tankers which are trying to bust sanctions? Is this just for show and social media clicks, or is this something which could have a real impact on Russia if other countries started doing the same as the French?
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A
So this is something that I don't know a huge amount, but I do know that the French and the Brits and the others are all trying to figure out ways in, in which a, to crack down on Russian defying sanctions, but also trying to figure out how they can play a role in eventually opening the Strait of Hormuz. Certainly the Russians have been dodging these sanctions with their tankers for years, ever since the major sanctions were put on them after the full scale invasion in 2022. And there are many who are trying to make it not happen at the same time. And I don't know whether this is expired now, but for a, during the major conflict of this Iran war, when oil prices, as they still are, were very, very high, and certainly Asia, which gets 95% of its oil from the Strait of Hormuz or through the Strait of Hormuz, was hurting, Trump lifted some sanctions on Russian oil in those tankers and also unbelievably on some Iranian oil. So whether or not those that is still in effect, I'm not sure. But you know, in general, Europe does not want to see Russia getting more money for its ill gotten, you know, war. And we know that it's hurting. I just said in the main episode that the Financial Times has reported that Russia has overspent by $28 billion billion dollars on its, you know, budget for, for this war. Just I think in his latest budget. So it's not in, in good shape.
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B
Yeah. So look, cracking down on Russian oil revenue is a good way to put the pressure on Putin. Someday, some way, somehow, all of these sanctions, all of this pressure, all of this failure on the battlefield will come to fruition. And the weird part about sanctions is they don't work until they work. That it seems like forever. Nothing's happening, nothing's happening, nothing's happening. And then one day the system just decides that the combination of the damage done to their economy and the failure on the battlefield means it's time to negotiate. And we don't know when that day will come. I believe that day will come. I wish it would come sooner, but yes, the French Navy, other countries that are cracking down on this sort of shadow fleet of Russian oil tankers is a good thing. And the more the merrier so let me ask you the next question. Asa, on email. I often hear discussions about gerrymandering in the US but rarely about changing the electoral system itself. In Sweden, Sweden, proportional representation means votes translate more directly into seats, reducing concerns about safe districts and allowing multiple parties to complete meaningfully what proposals or debates exist in the US around proportional representation or other alternatives to the current winner take all system. I'm going to start answering that the best I can. Look, we are a presidential system, a congressional system, not a, a parliamentary system. So that's point one to Asa. Number two, there are different ideas on how to vote in local elections. There's weighted voting ideas for making sure that you don't just vote for one person, you vote for two or three, and then that voting gets weighed. They've done that in certain parts of mayoral elections. And states can run their own election systems. And so certainly states can over time make changes. But I think what we have to realize is the big problem, and this is going to come up in another question, is really not the way our system is worked. It's the money. In our system, the money is what has died.
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Yeah, yeah, but hold it for the next one. Hold that for the next question.
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And so, unfortunately, until we solve the money problem, I think it's going to be hard to change the problems that ASA is referring to.
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And there's some very eager people on megaphones outside my window here in Paris. I hope that's not distracting, but I'm going to just also toss in, yeah, there's two different systems. There's a presidential and the parliamentary. And the thing is, in our parliamentaries, you don't vote for a person. Right. So you vote for the party and then whoever gets the most seats, etc. In the United States also, you don't have multiple parties contesting elections. At best you have two. And maybe a pretend independent or something like that that never gets very far in Europe. And in other places that have parliamentaries, parliamentary systems, you have a lot more parties contesting and a lot more coalition building. And I think that's actually really, really interesting because in many of these places it takes the edge off the whole, well, you know, sort of diminishes the possibility of extremes in a lot of these places, although not in Israel, because it also is a parliamentary system to an extent. And in Israel, this last election, Benjamin Netanyahu did not win actually in Spain, Pedro Sanchez his election, but they managed to cobble together coalitions. And that's, that's, that's one way of doing it, you know, you can say that it's not, that's not the most healthy way of doing it either. So I think there's just, you know, my favorite, favorite recommendation would be from Australia, where they have mandatory election. You have to vote on pain of a penalty. It's not a very big penalty. But as has been explained to me by former Australian prime ministers, what this does is to an extent takes the money out of the picture, to an extent takes a lot of the special interests, a lot of the polarization, a lot of the micro targeting of potential voters. And what it does is by and large give you a center left, center right, almost in perpetuity. And I think that is really, really interesting concept. And I would highly recommend the United States in its presidential system actually tries to do that.
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Because I'm certainly thinking that, you know, despite our personal freedom obsession sometimes with people not being forced to do things, you know, you get a driver's license, you want a driver's license, you should be able to say, okay, you need to participate, vote. So there's ways to do it that say that you need to vote. If you want to keep participating in our system and getting the benefits of government.
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A
All right, I'll ask you the next one. So Tim, on YouTube, basically, Jamie, you started to address it, but it's really worth really going into this. Has unchecked capitalism contributed to moral decline in the United States? And what does Donald Trump's electoral success suggest about American attitudes towards character, values, and leadership. So, look, the answer is absolutely 100% yes. And as we started to say, unchecked capitalism, and thanks to the Supreme Court ruling several years ago, Citizens United, it was called, allowed corporations to masquerade as people and allowed them to put as much money as they wanted behind, or as whatever the legal limits are. But anyway, a lot of money behind whatever candidate they wanted. So I think absolutely 100%, it's contributed to a tarnishing of the democratic process, a huge rise and an exponential and ever increasing rise in the gap between the haves and the have nots, I. E. The inequality gap is horrendous right now, and a moral decline, 100%, as is being demonstrated by all the incredibly rich people who are in Trump's circle, Trump himself as well, running a government mostly for their own interests. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper every single day and see how. How this is happening. And the sleaze factor is absolutely huge. Absolutely huge.
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B
It's very hard for me to add anything to that other than to say that, look, I didn't expect Donald Trump to be able to take over the Republican Party when he became the first not, you know, in the primaries in 2016, I knew that he didn't believe in the same things as the Republicans I had come to know. And I've watched with, you know, some horror as he's taken over the party and forced loyalty and agreement to things that I know these people don't agree with. I know during government, my last round, when I worked for President Biden, often I'd meet with very senior leaders of the House and the Senate and talk to them privately. And they'd say one thing, very normal, very rational about Ukraine or China or whatever. And then under the influence of the Trump wing of the party, they would say something very, very different publicly. And I've never understood it. And people say it's because politicians just are determined to stay in office, but what's the purpose of being in office if you can't actually do what you say you want to do? And I've always tried to be someone who joined government with a purpose, not just to be in the government, but to have a purpose. And if you change your purpose just to stay in the government, then it doesn't seem to make sense to me, and too many seem to be doing that. And it's a sad commentary on our current politics.
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A
Yeah, it's noticeable that even the captive Republicans are very, very angry. And I don't know how to describe what they're feeling, but they don't like this $1.8 billion slush fund that Trump has just enacted. And they're trying to make sure that that doesn't happen to pay off or to compensate people who are his allies who say they feel victimized about this or that, you know, whether they're, you know, 1-6-violators or whatever it is. So I don't know whether you saw, Jamie, the judge also said that Trump has to remove his name from unilaterally it onto the Kennedy center and he's got to stop any attempt to close it down to, quote, unquote, renovate. I think people are very, and this goes to the heart of this question, frankly. People are very upset that without asking anybody, not the, the cultural institutions, not Congress, not anybody, Trump bulldozed the White House. A whole wing of the White House no longer exists. And the New York Times had a phenomenal expose on how his so called ballroom didn't even make sense. There were huge design flaws in it from even how do you get into it to where are the windows to what? And they had to go back to the drawing board. So money, you know, unchecked and unregulated in politics and in power and leadership leads to, you know, winner takes all and just no accountability.
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B
All right, the last question here from Dottie. Dottie on YouTube. Ashley St. Clair recently hinted that Elon Musk may have interfered with the 2024 election. Is there any credible evidence for this claim? And more broadly, how can democracies limit the influence of powerful individuals and foreign actors on elections? Elon Musk spent an enormous amount of money helping Donald Trump be elected president. There's no question about that. He participated in the campaigns. He was on the stage with him. He donated some hundreds of millions of his own money towards that end. That's not very democratic. It's legal, I guess. And what impact it had, I don't know. For a while there, I thought Elon Musk was not looking very credible. I think it probably did some damage to his own business, frankly, because I know that any Democrat I've ever heard about doesn't want to buy a Tesla for the rest of their life because they don't really like the result of Donald Trump's presidency. But, but nevertheless, we have a problem with money in our system and money is important. Having said that, Donald Trump didn't become the leader of the Republican Party or win in 2016 because of money for whatever reason. And I can't Explain it, and historians will have to explain it. He really didn't use the traditional money raising system to get elected. He got elected on his personality, on his reputation from television shows and other things and the way he behaved in the debates. He, you know, outperformed his colleagues. And it wasn't a big advertising campaign that cost billions of dollars that got him the nomination or the election, I have to say.
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And he was able to use lies and fungible truths.
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And in fact, one of his arguments was don't, don't vote for me because I don't need money to be. Nobody will tell me what to do. Now, of course, if someone would argue that's not true anymore. But the point I'm making is that money is a problem in our system. But occasionally, sometimes people arise, and I hope there'll be such a Democrat someday who come out of the system who don't need the money to be the key factor that allows them to come to the attention of the American people and to persuade the American people that they would be there. And I hope that happens.
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A
From memory, I can tell you that the notion that Elon Musk may have interfered in the 2024, I would say it's not interfere, it is actually out there. He said himself that all the money he put into the election, if you remember, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he put a huge amount, hundreds of millions of his own money to bring out the vote and do all that kind of stuff. So maybe that's what Dottie is referring to or Ashley St. Clair is referring to. Now, who is Ashley St. Cl an American influencer, political commentator. She also happened to have a child with Elon Musk. So she's one of his multiple partners and mother of one of his many, many children. Now, she was an outspoken proponent of conservative and anti trans politics. She has since denounced her previous anti trans activism. So that's how I can clear that up. But Elon Musk clearly said that Trump wouldn't have won without him. He said that. And maybe that's what she's referring to. And that was all about the money. Yeah. Well, glad we've cleared that up, Jamie.
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Glad we fixed American politics with those
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five questions, but it needs a lot of fixing and a lot of cleaning up, literally and figuratively as well. Anyway, thank you, thank you again for tuning in, watching our Q and A episode of the X Files. If you have a question for us, please do keep them coming. You can find us on all the major social platforms. Our handle is Manpurpod. You can email us our address is amanpur podlobal.com and as we keep saying now, maybe we'll stop saying it, but even if you don't agree with what we say in the main episodes or whatever, you don't agree with our line of thought or explanation. Challenge us, tell us what you really do think, and we'll be most happy to engage on all of those issues again. Thank you for listening. Our next episode will be on Tuesday, so don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. You can watch watch all our episodes. You just search. Christiana Monpour presents the X Files. I had to read it to make sure I got it right. Bye. Bye from Paris this week.
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Bye from New York. This has been a global player original production.