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S3 Episode 6: Trump’s first days in office
6 Plays3 months ago
Today John and Dejan are discussing Donald Trump’s first days in office. Available now on all platforms.
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Transcript
Trump's Media Strategy and Immediate Actions
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Debatable Discussions podcast.
00:00:04
Speaker
Today we're talking about probably the biggest news that has happened the last couple of days.
00:00:09
Speaker
which is obviously Trump.
00:00:11
Speaker
Trump came to power fairly recently and he's already done quite a few extraordinary changes, you might say.
00:00:19
Speaker
But John is going to tell us more about those.
00:00:22
Speaker
So, yes, I think everyone will probably have noticed that Trump has dominated the headlines recently.
00:00:29
Speaker
I think he's probably quite enjoys it.
00:00:31
Speaker
He likes to see himself at the front of every news website, every newspaper.
00:00:36
Speaker
100%.
00:00:36
Speaker
And he's done quite a good job, in fairness to him, because, I mean, it's sort of every single minute there's a new announcement.
Biden's Pardons and Trump's Initial Moves
00:00:43
Speaker
He's announcing something new.
00:00:45
Speaker
So, Diane, firstly, just to sort of go through this, what happened straight after Trump's inauguration?
00:00:52
Speaker
So he got inaugurated now a few weeks ago by the time of recording, and it was obviously a huge event.
00:01:01
Speaker
Not only has all this grandeur, but what happened?
00:01:05
Speaker
Well, a couple of things happened, actually.
00:01:08
Speaker
But first, I'd like to go ask you what happened before the inauguration.
00:01:13
Speaker
It doesn't have to do anything with Trump, but it kind of does at the same time.
00:01:17
Speaker
So Biden, in the car ride before the inauguration, apparently pardoned a couple hundred people.
00:01:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:26
Speaker
Unidentified people.
00:01:28
Speaker
He's pardoned his entire family.
00:01:30
Speaker
And Trump has sort of replicated...
00:01:33
Speaker
that in some way, as he's pardoned a couple of the people that have been responsible for the infamous January 6th incident.
00:01:43
Speaker
Yeah, it was actually about 1,600.
00:01:44
Speaker
It was, yeah, a huge number.
00:01:48
Speaker
So 1,600 pardons for people who've basically attacked law enforcement on the Capitol and vandalised one of the premier buildings in Washington.
Executive Orders and Controversial Decisions
00:01:58
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:59
Speaker
So that's one thing that's happened.
00:02:01
Speaker
Now we've seen all these sort of nominations, RFK, one that always comes sort of back and back.
00:02:10
Speaker
They're going through now, so the nominees for Cabinet.
00:02:15
Speaker
Another big thing, in my opinion, that's happened is that TikTok got unbanned.
00:02:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:02:23
Speaker
I know it might seem quite trivial, but I think it's...
00:02:28
Speaker
sort of again back in the trump agenda he wants to dominate the news and he wants to dominate everywhere including where young people are so i think he's keeping kick-tock open um elon oh yeah always in the news in the cup last couple of days the last couple of weeks actually following some risque dodgy arm movements yeah um
00:02:56
Speaker
And I can't really think of much more.
00:02:59
Speaker
I'm sure a lot more has happened, but what else have I missed, John?
00:03:02
Speaker
So, yes.
00:03:03
Speaker
So Trump had this sort of fixation on his first 100 hours.
00:03:08
Speaker
And in these first 100 hours, we saw him go to the Capital One Arena in Washington.
00:03:14
Speaker
And he also did it in the Oval Office, but he signed all these executive orders.
00:03:18
Speaker
So you mentioned a few there.
00:03:20
Speaker
Some other sort of pretty big ones was that he ended diversity hires in the federal government.
00:03:25
Speaker
and he actually put all diversity hires on leave.
00:03:30
Speaker
On those lines of diversity, he also federally established only two genders.
00:03:37
Speaker
This is quite a big blow to members of the LGBTQ plus community and lobby.
00:03:44
Speaker
but it's very in line with his Republican conservative right-wing views.
Influence and Symbolic Actions
00:03:50
Speaker
He also pulled out the Paris Climate Agreement, signed a deal to unleash gas and oil in Alaska, as well as some also more trivial things I think you could say.
00:04:03
Speaker
One of these was renamed Mount Denali, which is the tallest mountain in America.
00:04:09
Speaker
Mount McKinley, which was actually its previous name, named after former US President William McKinley.
00:04:16
Speaker
Another one that, I mean, I wasn't the biggest fan of, was that he renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.
00:04:24
Speaker
I mean, is it that big a deal?
00:04:27
Speaker
I think for him, yeah, he loves names.
00:04:30
Speaker
He loves MAGA, putting the American name on everything.
00:04:33
Speaker
So for him, yes, I think it was quite a big deal.
00:04:38
Speaker
But I think, I mean, I'll ask you this question as well, Jan, but I think it's quite interesting just to think that he really wants to put his mark and his own Trump brand on office.
00:04:47
Speaker
And that's what, in my opinion, he's done in these first 100 days.
00:04:51
Speaker
Yeah, I fully agree with you.
00:04:52
Speaker
I mean, I think that takes me actually to the sort of declarations about Greenland.
00:04:57
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:04:58
Speaker
Taking over Greenland, taking over Canada.
00:05:01
Speaker
So if Trump wants to expand, I don't know if he actually wants to, or if he's just like, I'm going to take over Greenland to get a bit more coverage in the news, because he is basically a
00:05:12
Speaker
would do anything for publicity.
00:05:15
Speaker
He would genuinely sell his soul in children to be in the news for a couple more minutes.
00:05:19
Speaker
That's my opinion, at least.
00:05:22
Speaker
I think there is something else that has happened that was quite big that I'm trying to think about.
00:05:29
Speaker
It's escaping me, but... The tariffs.
00:05:34
Speaker
The tariffs.
00:05:35
Speaker
Yes.
00:05:35
Speaker
And, and, and I definitely think another of the big things that he has done in the last couple of weeks is pull out of the WHO.
00:05:46
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:05:49
Speaker
Which actually today Argentina's leader Javier Malay followed.
00:05:53
Speaker
Oh, wow.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:55
Speaker
So Malay has also withdrawn Argentina from WHO, making it now that two countries are not in the WHO, both the USA and Argentina.
Global Political Shifts and Trump's Role
00:06:05
Speaker
I think that was quite major.
00:06:07
Speaker
And that has, I think, some really negative implications on healthcare.
00:06:12
Speaker
So coming from a more science-y background, I do think that is incredibly pivotal.
00:06:20
Speaker
that the WHO remains a strong organization because they've done so much to promote this sort of equal healthcare all over the world and bring up health hygiene standards everywhere.
00:06:33
Speaker
And the fact that one of the biggest countries in the world and probably the biggest economic powerhouse, which is the USA, they've pulled out of it is just a very negative signal, in my opinion.
00:06:46
Speaker
I see.
00:06:46
Speaker
That's quite interesting as well, what you mentioned about Javier Millet pulling out, because I didn't know about that.
00:06:51
Speaker
But that idea of Javier Millet following Donald Trump is very important.
00:06:56
Speaker
because it does show this idea of this new world order under Trump.
00:07:01
Speaker
We've got Beijing, Russia, India in the East, and we've got this quite conservative right-wing movement forming over in the West.
00:07:13
Speaker
So we've got Trump leading this new world order, but we've got people like Javier Malay of Argentina following.
00:07:19
Speaker
Well, it's not really known about the Canadian elections, but is it Pierre Colivare?
00:07:25
Speaker
a right-wing candidate who's quite popular there.
00:07:30
Speaker
So we can sort of see this... Victor Orban.
00:07:32
Speaker
Victor Orban.
00:07:33
Speaker
So we can see this sort of new world order forming under Trump.
00:07:38
Speaker
And I think, I mean, I think the UK under Starmer, despite David Lamme having said some comments about Trump, I think we will see ourselves aligning with Trump as he almost does try and further isolate the world into these two world orders.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, I fully agree with you.
00:07:57
Speaker
I think that is going to be both interesting but also incredibly dangerous.
00:08:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:08:03
Speaker
So fragmenting, this is fragmentation Trump wants to achieve.
00:08:08
Speaker
We don't really know what he's going to do with NATO.
00:08:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:11
Speaker
I think there's a lot of speculation, which I don't really like to go into because I do think most of it isn't.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:36
Speaker
Because if not, then that changes the chessboard very rapidly.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, NATO is an interesting one for Trump.
00:08:42
Speaker
And that's purely because Trump basically props up NATO.
00:08:48
Speaker
So for NATO, there's a defence requirement for a certain percentage of your GDP to be spent on defence.
00:08:53
Speaker
The USA meets this.
00:08:55
Speaker
Several other countries in Europe who have upped their defence spending since the Russian-Ukraine war have started to meet this as well.
00:09:02
Speaker
The UK meets it as well.
00:09:03
Speaker
I think it's 2% of your GDP spent on defence.
00:09:06
Speaker
Two and a half now, I think.
00:09:07
Speaker
Is it two and a half now?
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:09:09
Speaker
I think they've raised the, yeah.
00:09:11
Speaker
But the issue is that for the US, this means that they are committing far more money and defence towards NATO and they are solely propping up NATO.
00:09:21
Speaker
So Trump's got a fair point in his defence when he thinks that countries aren't really playing their role because he sees the US, this huge army, tons of money they're throwing towards defence.
00:09:33
Speaker
And then there's countries like England, for example.
00:09:37
Speaker
You know, we've got a weak army, not a weak army, but a small army at the moment.
00:09:43
Speaker
All our armed forces lack enough money.
00:09:45
Speaker
And that's similar with many countries across Europe.
00:09:49
Speaker
So I think for Trump, his issue with NATO is that he feels that it's too almost reliant on him.
00:09:55
Speaker
And for him, he's not even too sure whether he's interested in Europe, and he should be.
NATO and European Defense
00:10:00
Speaker
So I think to sort of remedy this NATO problem, in my opinion, countries in Europe need to understand they need to spend more on defence.
00:10:09
Speaker
And that's to get America's support.
00:10:12
Speaker
And that's also for their own defence as well.
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:10:16
Speaker
I do think you've made a really good point there, that we don't really know that if Trump's interested in Europe... Yeah.
00:10:22
Speaker
We're beginning to see less and less interest, actually, I think, in Europe from the great world powers.
00:10:29
Speaker
I think the time where Europe was the sort of premier continent of the world is kind of gone.
00:10:37
Speaker
And unless everyone is careful, we are going to become a tourist attraction very quickly.
00:10:45
Speaker
Um, because number one, I don't think we've got the proper representation at the highest level because right now the most powerful leader in Europe in a sort of paradoxical way is probably Emmanuel Macron.
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:00
Speaker
He represents Europe at these sort of high meetings mostly, but the problem with Emmanuel Macron is that he doesn't have support of his own country.
00:11:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:11
Speaker
So because we've lost, who I think is probably the most important European leader in recent memory, Angela Merkel, because she's now gone from politics, Europe has kind of lost a bit of that clout.
00:11:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:26
Speaker
We don't have someone with a really strong position, both economically and politically, who can just basically say, look, you've got to make sure that we get cut in on the deal as well.
00:11:38
Speaker
And now you've got these people like Macron, Macron,
00:11:41
Speaker
Olaf Scholz, Giorgio Maloney, who frankly can't really do much.
00:11:49
Speaker
They're not really big international figures.
00:11:51
Speaker
Macron is the biggest international figure and he's no Angela Merkel.
00:11:56
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think the issue, as you said, there is for Europe at the moment is that we are literally sandwiched between the two economic titans of the world, the USA, China.
00:12:09
Speaker
And countries like the USA are doing sort of quite well growth wise, whereas Europe at the moment is stumbling, to be honest.
00:12:16
Speaker
We see it with the German economy, the British economy.
00:12:19
Speaker
They aren't really performing quite nearly as well as these Asian economies and as the USA.
00:12:26
Speaker
So the Europe is in a very difficult position at the moment.
Middle East Strategy and Gaza
00:12:30
Speaker
Politically, that is seeming that we're not sure what Trump's going to want to do with Europe.
00:12:35
Speaker
and also economically.
00:12:37
Speaker
Moving on though to Trump's policies around the world, a big one that has dominated the headlines is Gaza.
00:12:49
Speaker
Obviously Gaza has been actually for a while.
00:12:51
Speaker
So Diane, could you give a sort of a brief run through Trump's policies or ideas for policies in Gaza?
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah, well,
00:13:00
Speaker
Well, I think number one we need to mention is that Trump has met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu the last couple of days.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:11
Speaker
I think that, number one, brings a very important question, which is that Netanyahu has a couple of outstanding warrants from the ICJ.
00:13:18
Speaker
Basically, for the obvious who don't know, the ICJ is International Court of Justice in the Hague, and Netanyahu is to be tried at the Hague for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
00:13:28
Speaker
He has a couple, I think there's seven, seven or eight outstanding warrants about war crimes.
00:13:33
Speaker
So technically, Netanyahu is to be arrested once he leaves his home country of Israel.
00:13:39
Speaker
Trump has not...
00:13:42
Speaker
abides with this decision.
00:13:44
Speaker
He has completely ignored it.
00:13:46
Speaker
And no one can do anything about it, basically, because the ICJ at the moment is quite useless.
00:13:54
Speaker
They haven't really had a couple of big convictions from, you know, the Yugoslav wars when they've tried people for war crimes.
00:14:02
Speaker
But recently...
00:14:06
Speaker
There are many, many people comparatively without signing wars from the ICJ.
00:14:11
Speaker
Benjamin Netanyahu being so suspect number two after Mr. Putin.
00:14:16
Speaker
But you can't arrest Putin because he's not leaving Russia.
00:14:18
Speaker
You can arrest, on the other hand, Netanyahu because he's not in Israel at the moment.
00:14:22
Speaker
He's in the USA.
00:14:24
Speaker
But Trump has willingly and knowingly decided to ignore this.
00:14:28
Speaker
So this, to me, is very telling of his policies.
00:14:31
Speaker
He's very pro-Israel.
00:14:33
Speaker
He's going to fund them.
00:14:34
Speaker
He's going to give them bombs.
00:14:36
Speaker
And basically, he's going to allow Netanyahu to carpet bomb Gaza, which is what I think, at least.
00:14:41
Speaker
So, yes, I mean, Trump's policy is for when this fighting in Gaza stops.
00:14:47
Speaker
for Netanyahu to basically hand him the Gaza Strip and for there to be a US takeover of the Gaza Strip.
00:14:56
Speaker
And so he would redevelop this region, sort of resettle Palestinians into it, bring it bring US stability to the region.
00:15:07
Speaker
and yes it's it's basically a planned u.s takeover of the gaza strip uh and it is almost as ridiculous as it sounds obviously there are huge logistical problems with this obviously the palestinians themselves don't want it to happen anyway as do kind of neighboring countries like saudi arabia they don't want it to happen and it does show his pro-israel alliance but it's quite interesting in a way um
00:15:35
Speaker
I mean, I think a year ago, the exact quote from Jared Kushner was that Gaza's waterfront property could be very valuable.
00:15:43
Speaker
So it sort of created these sort of ideas that he could be involved in Trump for a while has been thinking of a Gaza Strip takeover by the US.
00:15:54
Speaker
I mean, I've got to say, I don't think it'd be that long term planned, but it is nevertheless, I mean, just quite bizarre at the end of the day, because we do have a US president almost wanting to create what could potentially be the 51st state in a way with him taking over this US territory with this territory.
00:16:15
Speaker
Yeah, no.
00:16:16
Speaker
So again, what I think we need to again, come back to is this thing that Netanyahu is sort of has a couple of outstanding ones from the ICJ and ICC.
00:16:34
Speaker
And Trump has willingly decided to ignore this.
00:16:38
Speaker
Now, this isn't the same as saying, I will meet with you over the phone.
00:16:44
Speaker
This is saying you can come here and this is a safe place for you.
00:16:48
Speaker
And I think it is sort of, this is the U.S. imperialism we were talking about earlier in Greenland, Canada, which I think are a bit of a joke.
00:17:02
Speaker
However, I do think they are sort of prepping the way that
00:17:07
Speaker
for a US takeover of Gaza.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:10
Speaker
I do think that's a possibility.
00:17:12
Speaker
I think there's a lot of interest there because of the geographical position, which is in the middle of the world, basically.
Second Term Ambitions and Tariffs
00:17:21
Speaker
And you're quite next to some powerful Arab states, which Trump will definitely want to negotiate with for oil.
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:28
Speaker
um so yeah i i do think that's a possibility yeah i mean i think it's uh you know anything is a possibility uh and i think he he has definitely in these recent days shown an interest towards it uh yeah and you know this the gaza strip is an utterly destroyed region um because of this war uh
00:17:50
Speaker
And unfortunately, it has gone through just many years of instability.
00:17:54
Speaker
And so there does need to be a large international response and plan for resettling Palestinians into the Gaza Strip.
00:18:03
Speaker
I think his slightly more...
00:18:05
Speaker
The way in which he does it is probably not right.
00:18:10
Speaker
But then at the end of the day, for me, though, it does come back to this thing.
00:18:15
Speaker
And that is that there's quite a large difference between what Trump says and what he actually does.
00:18:21
Speaker
I mean, you mentioned it.
00:18:22
Speaker
Canada being the USA's 51st state, a takeover of Greenland.
00:18:29
Speaker
I mean, these are all things he's talked about in the past.
00:18:33
Speaker
And he's talking about a US takeover of the Gaza Strip now.
00:18:37
Speaker
But as you said there, Dan, I think it does have a slight more sense of credibility.
00:18:42
Speaker
And that purely is just because Netanyahu does want it.
00:18:47
Speaker
Yeah, I do think, again, I think...
00:18:50
Speaker
we need to be very sort of attentive and very analytical in what Trump is doing in the next couple of months.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:00
Speaker
Because I think now is the time he will want to sort of build on this sort of his foundation for his presidency.
00:19:08
Speaker
He's got a five-year presidency with no re-election pressure.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:11
Speaker
Which we need to keep in mind.
00:19:13
Speaker
So basically, instead of having sort of
00:19:18
Speaker
a three quarter presidency because the last quarter spent campaigning.
00:19:23
Speaker
As well as this, you know, if you go fight for reelection, you need some policies.
00:19:28
Speaker
He doesn't have to worry about any of it.
00:19:30
Speaker
What Trump is going to do now is exactly what he wants.
00:19:32
Speaker
He's going to do his agenda because number one, he's got majority in everything.
00:19:36
Speaker
and there's no pressure for him not to there's no risk he can't run again anyway so you might as well try and get stuff done um and this is why i'm making my prediction now i think this will be a more eventful presidency than his last one although you know that's it's hard to beat his last presidency but i think he will manage
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you there.
00:19:57
Speaker
I think it would definitely be more eventful just because he's gone through presidency.
00:20:01
Speaker
He's gone through a first term.
00:20:03
Speaker
He knows what it's like and he'll now know how to sort of get things done.
00:20:07
Speaker
So perhaps the final point of discussion to quickly touch on is a long term impact he would like to bring.
00:20:14
Speaker
And that is US tariffs.
00:20:17
Speaker
So these tariffs are going to, in particular, these are all the ones he's announced so far, be on China, Canada, and Mexico.
00:20:26
Speaker
So he's already announced a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, and he's just delayed, I think it was a 25% tariff on Canadian and Mexican imports.
00:20:37
Speaker
So, Dan, what do you think are the impacts of this on a sort of a geopolitical scale?
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:44
Speaker
I'm going to talk more about the Canada and Mexico tariffs because I think me, I don't really know that much about the impact on the Chinese economy, which I'm sure will be significant.
00:20:56
Speaker
But I am not sure that you'll actually implement those two tariffs on Mexico and Canada.
00:21:02
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:02
Speaker
I think there's a sort of political pressure.
00:21:05
Speaker
that Trump is using to get other stuff done with the Canadian and Mexican government.
00:21:10
Speaker
And he's sort of using that threat of tariffs, that threat of economic instability.
00:21:17
Speaker
He's basically, you know, waving like a bomb and saying, look, I've got it here.
00:21:25
Speaker
If you don't play nice, I'm going to throw it.
00:21:28
Speaker
And that's what I think is happening.
00:21:32
Speaker
I don't think those actually get implemented unless, again, to make sure that backdoor deal is done about something else.
00:21:40
Speaker
Immigration from Mexico, something like that.
00:21:43
Speaker
So that's what I think about those two.
00:21:46
Speaker
I think the Chinese tariffs, I think they're in a different category.
00:21:50
Speaker
I think there's a purely sort of an economic war between the USA and China, which has been going on for years.
00:21:57
Speaker
a bit under the radar, not directly, but it has.
00:22:01
Speaker
Now I think Trump is sort of bringing it more into the light.
00:22:03
Speaker
He's like, look, we cannot allow the Chinese economy to overtake ours, to be more powerful, to have sort of great to say.
00:22:10
Speaker
And now he's trying to put these tariffs and trying to damage the economy as much as he can.
00:22:15
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you there.
00:22:16
Speaker
I think, firstly, the Canadian and the Mexican tariffs are basically a threat on two fronts.
00:22:25
Speaker
The first one is immigration and the second one is fentanyl trafficking.
00:22:29
Speaker
And he has said, if you can't reduce these two things, which they haven't really been able to, well, I'm going to put tons of tariffs on you.
00:22:40
Speaker
And I think we're already starting to see people like Trudeau say, well, wait, I'll do something instead to make you not do these tariffs.
00:22:49
Speaker
So I think it was Trudeau has announced a billion dollar or a billion pound it was plan to sort of almost like a sort of a border plan to sort of up border security all around the US Canadian border.
00:23:03
Speaker
And that is with the aim of primarily stopping this flow of fentanyl, sort of an opioid, which is sort of soared in popularity in the USA.
00:23:13
Speaker
And I think the Mexican government will also do the same.
00:23:15
Speaker
And that's just because Mexico's biggest trading partner is the USA.
00:23:20
Speaker
And they realise how detrimental these tariffs can be.
00:23:26
Speaker
I do think, though, as you said, there are two fronts he's fighting on.
00:23:31
Speaker
And I do think, in my opinion at least, I do very heavily think that he'll be successful because I think the threat of a 25% tariff from both the Canadian and Mexican economy, which are more or less reliant on the US, would be so damaging that both Mexico and Canada are actually going to get their act together and solve the issues that Trump needs to solve.
Closing Remarks and Listener Engagement
00:23:56
Speaker
Yeah, no, I completely agree with you there.
00:24:00
Speaker
Thank you very much, everyone, for listening.
00:24:02
Speaker
I hope this has been an informative episode.
00:24:06
Speaker
And as always, please do feel free to go back to listen to our previous episodes on this topic.
00:24:13
Speaker
We've had the Trump series going on for quite a while now.
00:24:17
Speaker
And again, we hope to see you next week.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:20
Speaker
So thank you everyone for listening.
00:24:22
Speaker
Thank you, Dan, as well.
00:24:24
Speaker
We've got some very big episodes coming up.
00:24:26
Speaker
So do please follow us, give us a five star review.
00:24:29
Speaker
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