12 days to Trump

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Can you assure the world that as you try to uh get control of these areas, you are not gonna use military or economic coercion? No. And can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? You're talking about uh Panama and Greenland. No, I can't assure you on either of those two. But uh I can say this we need them for economic security. The Panama Canal is vital to our country. It's being operated by China. China!

And we gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn't give it to China because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like and it would also be much better for national security. Don't forget we basically protect Canada. But here's the problem with Can So good news for Canada, you're not going to be invaded. Bad news, Greenland, and indeed

You might be. It is twelve days to go until inauguration. It already feels as if Trump is president. And today we're gonna take you through some of the key moments of that press conference and we're going to be hearing from two sides of the Republican Party, MAGA and Traditional. And decipher What Trump is really gonna get up to as things kick off. Welcome to the Newsagents USA. The News Agents USA with Emily Major.

John Sopor. It's Emily, and well, our favourite Mar Soupul is still bouncing around down under, but sending thoughtful notes each day, so that's nice. And here we are, less than Two weeks out from Inauguration Day, the twentieth of January. It already feels

As I was saying, as if Trump is president, partly because the stage has been almost spectacularly vacated by President Biden. It does feel like he has exited already, and partly because There is a sort of familiarity, a genuine gut or muscle memory of what those 2016 years felt like. What it's going to be like all over again. Well, yesterday in a press conference at Mar-a-Lago, just the second actually, since.

he won the election. He opened it up to the floor for an hour. He took questions on anything and everything. And it was a sort of reminder for many of us listening as journalists or reporters, that we are going to have to try and distinguish What of these statements is saber rattling? What of these statements is potentially gonna happen? And what are the statements that are just about Trump liking the sound of these Strongman phrases that somehow

give the perception to his voters that he's about to do stuff even if it will never happen. He was asked about Greenland. We should clarify, he's not going to invade Greenland. He's not I don't think, going to invade Panama. He may be trying to send a message there to China, to Russia, to superpowers about getting their own hands off territory that he thinks they're interested in. But the fact that His failure to rule out military intervention. provoked another question on Canada.

I think tells you a lot. Have a listen. Mr. President, if you were to work under the assumption that you're serious about making Canada fifty first state of the United States, the leader of the Conservative Party in Canada said under no circumstance he'll never be the fifty first state of the United States.

To David's points, you had suggested but Sir real fast, you're said you were considering military force to acquire Panama and Greenland. Are you also considering military force to annex and acquire Panama? No. Economic force. Because Canada and the United States, that would really be something. You get rid of that artificially drawn line and you take a look at what that looks like and it would also be much better for national security. Don't forget we basically protect Canada.

But here's the problem with Canada. So many friends up there. Uh I love the Canadian people. They're great. But we're spending hundreds of billions a year to protect it? I mean, let's put this in context. We've already seen this week, just as the year's beginning. The Canadian Prime Minister stepping down. He knew he'd got on the wrong side of Trump. That's not the only reason he went. He'd also been in the job nearly a decade. He was very out of favour in Canada.

But there is a sense when Trump talks. that he is playing God. He's deciding who the Canadians might be about to elect next. And he's talking about the need for economic cooperation not with Canada but from Canada, all related to his tariffs. as a way of getting a country that is not his own, that he does not rule to do what he wants. And that is The context in which many of these questions are now coming, Greenland has already hit back saying it's not for sale.

Panama, we're gonna wait to see what happens there. But Trump is now back in full flow and he's throwing out a couple of bits of red meat. We do most of the work there and it's ours. We're going to be changing sort of the opposite of Biden where he's closing everything up essentially getting rid of fifty to sixty trillion dollars worth of assets. We're gonna be uh changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

Which has a beautiful ring that covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name. And it's appropriate. So there you go. Absolute genius, actually, banking a load of cost free wins by deciding to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. I think that's a red meat win. The Mexicans Presumably we'll still carry on Corley at the Gulf of Mexico if they want.

uh Americans, Magro Americans can call it the Gulf of America if they want. And Trump speaks to his audience. It's kind of brings the America First agenda, the nationalist agenda, the Patriot agenda to the fore.

without really doing anything at all. It's it's quite a cheap shop, but possibly quite an effective one. What was More alarming, I think you could say, was his description and threat to the special counsel, Jack Smith. An employee of the Justice Department. Have a listen. They brought this moron out of The Hague. He's a mean guy. He's a mean, nasty guy. His picture was perfect.'Cause you look at his picture you say that's a bad guy with his robe, his po purple robe.

And he executes people. He shouldn't be allowed to execute people because he'll execute everybody. He's a nut job. But we want all of those uh cases with him. And uh I mean I don't know the judge in Florida, but we had a brilliant judge in Florida that saw right through it. And we won the case. Okay. So quick fact check here. So the person he's talking about there, Jack Smith, used to work at the Hague

he was a criminal prosecutor. The Hague is where they try people for war crimes. He has not executed anyone. You cannot execute anyone. At The Hague, you can hand out sentences of up to thirty years. And the other fact check we should make is that the Trump's lot didn't win all their cases with him. But Jack Smith was made to withdraw some of those cases because he realized that Trump would simply throw them out when he came into office.

And I think this speaks to something that is much more alarming, which is a threat to employees at the Justice Department. And Jack Smith will now be thinking very seriously about his future because Trump is able to punish, to meter out punishment. to him, to his deputies, in a way that is making some think that he will probably leave the country. This is not a state of affairs which is

particularly healthy or particularly encouraging for Americans to view their own rule of law. There's a lot to unpack in that press conference, and the person we're turning to to help us.

is Doug High. Now he's a veteran Republican strategist. He is, we should say, a Trump sceptic. We're gonna speak to a Trump fan a little bit later. And Doug, I'm assuming you watched what happened last night. Give us your sense of What w what impression it it really left on you? Well, it's a lot. And it starts with the reminder of This is what the first Trump four years were like. Out of nowhere he dominates a news cycle and quite often it's on topics that

Nobody was really looking at or thinking about things that just sort of come out of nowhere. And I'm reminded that while he is in a honeymoon period with House Republicans, Senate Republicans and You know, even some of those voters who didn't like Trump and didn't like Harris but voted for him, that when this comes along, things like this, it can create problems for him. You know, he doesn't necessarily have a mandate, which is a word that I think is overused in American politics anyways.

But clearly the issues of uh the economy, inflation and the border. were one and two of why Donald Trump was reelected. What do you mean he doesn't have a mandate? You know, we say in in in American politics if you win by a certain margin, the voters sent me here and I'm gonna accomplish X. Well what the voters said last year was we don't really like either of these candidates.

But we're scared of the direction of the economy and we don't like the situation at the border that seems to be just wide open and causing problems, you know, then throughout the country. And, you know, what happened in the election, I think it sort of gets lost because Donald Trump is Donald Trump. And we have to view everything through that lens, whether we want to or not. What happened in the election was that an unpopular incumbent vice president of an unpopular incumbent president lost.

That's what's supposed to happen. You know, that's that's normal. I I think that's gonna be a really hard thing for many Americans to hear. Because actually he did win, Doug. He won the House, he won the Senate, he won the popular vote. He managed to make inroads even in very blue democratic areas. It sounds like sour grapes if you don't accept the fact that this guy, hands down, won the election.

Oh, he absolutely hands down won the election and he overperformed in a lot of communities that Republicans had had struggled with. I don't think there's any doubt about that. But it's not, I don't think, a broad mandate to then do whatever you want. Because if you look at the electoral college. Huge margin. And he's you know, he won remarkably all of the swing states. Every state that was in question, Trump won.

But it's not a s that he won it in a slam dunk running away. And if you look at what the popular vote margin is, it's now less than 50%, which he doesn't want to acknowledge. And the margin was about 1.46 is the last that I saw. So look, his support is an inch deep.

It's also miles and miles wide. It doesn't mean though that those voters whether you're a Muslim voter in Dearborn, Michigan, or a suburban mom in Raleigh, North Carolina, two swing states that Trump won, you know, Scottsdale, Arizona, that you said Yeah, I want Donald Trump to take over Greenland, to start a war in the Panama Canal, and to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. That's not what people were voting on. And I think Trump would be smart to, you know, remember

what this election was about and to focus on those two things and not get in his own way and he has a tendency to do that. Don't you think we're just falling for the language? Whereas actually what a lot of people heard in that press conference will have been him trying to project

A sense of America and a sense of strength. We know he's not going to invade Greenland. We know he's not going to invade the Panama Canal. He can rename the Gulf whatever he wants because it doesn't cost anything and the Mexicans can carry on calling it what they want to carry on calling it. This is all about projection and perception, and that's the job that he's done. Look, that's a big part of it. And to me, Donald Trump often plays the role of a matador.

And he waves a red cape and everybody follows the red cape and then says, gosh, what what happened? It's one of the things that I and I'm reminding myself now that Trump is fully back, reminding myself not to sort of fall for that trap. But we had a long press conference where we didn't talk about those things that Trump needs to do to address The questions that voters had.

that helped get him into the White House. And, you know, very clearly with a very slim House majority, the Senate majority is, you know, at 53 is fine. On the House side, and we're losing a couple because of, you know, going into the administration, Elise Stephonic and so forth. Getting things done is going to be very tough. Just to clarify, what you're saying is that because he's replacing some of those House representatives into bigger jobs.

he's then gonna have a tighter margin of people in the house to get things done. Yes. So do you think I mean we've just seen the speaker secure his position by this very minimal margin of I think two votes. Do you think he's gonna rub up against his own party in Congress? Um in some ways, yes. And some of that is again completely normal, because of Donald Trump being who he is. We judge things always through through a different lens. There are normal politics at play. So

You know, the House has said we want to do one large reconciliation package. The Senate has said we wanna do two smaller bills. And you know, that is normal. The House and the Senate fight regardless of you know, what party is in power in in either case. But given these slim majorities. And what we saw in the speaker vote as a reminder that to Trump and to Republicans that success is not guaranteed.

Especially if you're going to have to vote on things like, you know, a debt ceiling and so forth. It it's a very tough road ahead. And I think Trump would suit himself well to stay out of his own way when it comes to issues like this.

So stay out of his own way means just talk about the economy, just talk about immigration. I mean he gave a press conference and I guess he was just asked a lot of questions. Yeah, and and then took things into very weird and different areas. Again, this is what this is what Trump does. This is not new. It's just the latest, you know, variation on that theme. But if you look at at presidents, Trump and past presidents. They usually get

They're one big thing through, right? Obama got Obamacare through. That was basically it legislative. Trump with the tax cuts. Same thing. Biden, you know, with the Inflation Reduction Act. You know, you get your one big ticket thing in, and given the very, very slim majority that Trump has, especially in the House. I'd focus on that and pretty much only that. So do you think he will get mass deportation of what, fifteen

million immigrants done. Is that what you expect to see? I don't, and with the caveat that if I am you know, if I am wrong on this, then I will, you know, me a culpa with you immediately. My expectation is that we'll see Trump do something that is sort of similar to what he's done in the past. If you look at when Trump would sign an executive order. What was in the executive order was almost secondary to the larger issue around it. Sometimes the executive orders didn't really do anything.

But he would talk about the issue, let's say it was immigration in the border, he would sign it in front of everybody, and then he would hold it up and say, Look what I just did. And It was very shrewd of him to do it in that way. And I expect on this, we're not going to see, you know, a lot of reports of all of a sudden groups of 50, you know, or or 75 people in 20 communities in America have vanished.

We may see one or two of those where there have been, you know, issues of crime and so forth. But I expect, or I would also recommend if I were advising him, to find some of the real examples. The drug lord um who crossed the border illegally and then caused other crimes. You know, the person who did commit capital crimes after crossing the border here, whether they came from Mexico or Venezuela or Honduras or whatever.

And have a press conference and say, I just got these four people, these eight people out of the country. There's virtually no American who would oppose that. I think it would help Trump a great deal. And it's it's interesting because I always thought when Donald Trump won. That if he were the great deal maker that he sort of built himself to be, that Donald Trump, given the strength that he had with his base,

Could cut the deal on guns and on immigration. That, let's say, if Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush had won, the Republican base would not have allowed them. Trump didn't do that. It's also why he didn't get an infrastructure deal. So that ship has sailed. So he now has to talk about this, I think in in a way that convinces voters

that he's doing a good thing for them. And I think this would be a smart way to do it. Let me ask you about the relationship that seems to be right at the center of this administration. Elon Musk.

And Donald Trump, we are finding our own politics has been weirdly interfered with by Elon Musk in the kind of first week of this year. Do you think the relationship is sustainable? Well what we've seen is the relationship with Donald Trump isn't sustainable for a lot of people.

And, you know, I say that having worked with Reinz Privus at the Republican National Committee, and he was left on a tarmac and was told he was fired. Find your way home. The press secretary there was Sean Spicer. He followed me at the RNC. He was dumb.

And that seems to be a very consistent theme that you you know, in in politics you always serve at at the pleasure of the politician. In theory you always have a sort of Damocles hanging over you. It's it's not really that negative, but it's there. It's very different with Trump. You know, he constantly talks about who's nice to him and who's not. And as Democrats are trying to create a wedge between Trump and Musk, they clearly see an opportunity there. But Musk could be a first among equals.

And as we've seen some of the tech community move towards Trump in a way that they sure didn't, uh if we're talking in January of twenty seventeen. Perhaps Musk can stick around longer. And it also makes what he said being a sort of a nerd of of British politics. What he has said about now Nigel Farage in the past week or two, really interesting to me because

I just got invited to a reception around the inauguration that Farage will be at. I remember being invited to one in twenty seventeen and Farage has I think very skillfully woven himself into sort of the Trump community. And so this move was a little bizarre to me by by Musk. Do you think that Farage is

out of favor for good now? I mean what is your sense from the reception you think he's getting? Well, he's not out of favor within Trump world. Obviously Musk has now, you know, throwing a little bit of a of a wrench in that. But one of the things that we know with Donald Trump is, you know, Donald Trump's not somebody who gives points. He only takes them away one at a time.

And as long as he thinks that you can do something for him, and I still don't understand the value of having Farage speak at a rally in twenty sixteen and say Alabama, not sure what voter that delivers, but he clearly sees a use for Farage. And look, everybody who's I've met Farage a few times. Anybody who's been around him, he's fun and jovial. You like being around him. That's a factor as well. Even if Nigel's having a pint and Trump certainly won't. But

Trump may want to keep him around for you know his alternative purposes. The question with Musk I think you know becomes a bit interesting. And just sort of as a side note, after the elections, I spoke to folks at the British Embassy here and and the French Embassy as well. As they're trying to get a sense of what the new political realities were. And I said to both of those embassies.

I said, well what do you do if Donald Trump has a state dinner for Kier Starmer and he invites Nigel Farage? What do you do, French Embassy, if Trump has a state dinner for Macron and he invites and invites Eric Zamor and and That's a reality that they have to face with. And it's interesting because I'm reminded, I just looked at this the other day.

So I was in London over Christmas of 2016 and I remember walking down a street in South Kensington and there was like a bank or an insurance office that had a poster of Donald Trump in the window and it said Come find out what this mins. when what you didn't plan for happens or or something like that. Um and I was so struck by it. It's six weeks after the election and a British company is advertising using Donald Trump as an example. And I think that's a lesson that

people in American politics can certainly take. And if you are one of our allies who have real questions, I think that speaks to it. Doug High, great to speak to you. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us.

We're gonna be back in a moment hearing from our favourite, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Dan Cox, who is a Trump supporter, a MAGA fan, on what he's been learning this week about the UK.

I I find it absolutely appalling that any leader of a country would protect rapists, especially people that rape children. Um I I can't imagine that they would allow this to continue and and they should they should rein it in. The people that belong in jail are the ones That's an elected representative from the House. From Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Green, showing just how wilfully ignorant of most facts in the UK many can be. She's one of several MAGA folks.

Who have been pushing a false narrative about Keir Starmer's involvement in what Elon Musk has called the rape of Britain. And we're going to speak now to Dan Kock. Who curiously got in touch with me.

Well joining us now is Dan Cox. He's a former member of the Maryland House of Delegates. Um he stood for the Maryland Governor in twenty twenty-two. He's very much from the MAGA tribe, solid backer of Trump and Dan, I think we should take our listeners behind the curtain because you got in touch with me because you'd been seeing stuff on social media about the UK and N all credit to you. You wanted to fact check it. So

Give us a sense of what's hitting you there. We heard some news reports about some uh potentially some members of Parliament that were appearing to defend regarding the migrant issue, defending um something that uh kind of took us by surprise this this uh rape gang uh issue that seems to be, as you pointed out, um a a longtime issue, um, coming back to the surface. So One of the things I want to start with is how much Americans love Great Britain. We we literally come there um and we we love

our mutual identities. Uh we love traveling there. In fact I remember uh taking my son there and uh seeing uh at the the tower there in London uh one of the Uh w one of the beef masters asked, How many people here in the crowd, about fifty in the tour, whatever it was, uh how many are from America? And I think Probably neither forty pr uh I I would say forty maybe forty people raise their hands. Dad, we call them beef eaters. We're very carnivorous here.

But it didn't it didn't surprise me because back home here, you know, we have this mutual identity and what were you actually hearing on social media about the UK over the new year?

What came to the surface was this uh rape gang issue and Uh, frankly, it surprised me simply because I heard there were a potential um backlashes happening against those who opposed it, particularly parents and To also hear that while a a parent might be going to jail, I think a father was arrested twice for trying to rescue his daughter. uh in a place called Rushdale. I don't know if I'm saying the town name right. Arrested twice to try to rescue his his underage uh minor daughter from a

uh alleged uh gang rape incident. He goes to jail and yet somebody like uh Khari Abdul Ralf and this is I think related to what I might have reached out to you about um, who was convicted ten years ago and deported or ordered to be deported. And yet here he is still in uh one of your cities. I think it's Rotterdam or something. But in any case or not Rotterdam, I'm sorry, R um Rotterdam.

Run. I didn't say it right. I apologize. That concerned us because we actually send our children to university in England. We love England. And um obviously as someone who loves very much President Trump and the incoming administration, we want to have the best. relationship that we can have with our our friends there in the UK and um

A any way that we can move the ball forward to advance law and order is something that um I think we're all on the same page for. It's it it's confused a lot of British people because the scandal that you're talking about Horrendous, horrific, is over twenty years old. And there have been in those years. ten different inquiries and reports into the grooming gangs. And the sense here is that that issue has been dragged up by Elon Musk because he is trying to exert influence

to depose the democratically elected Prime Minister of the UK. He doesn't like Keir Starmer, he's made that very clear. And even though Starmer was the prosecutor at the time over many of those convictions in the twenty tens, he wants Starmer to go. I I just wonder if you're

sense of what you're discussing is altered by an understanding of the the rancor that Elon Musk has for Keir Starmer. Well I'm not familiar with that obviously I've never actually met Elon Musk but I can tell you from The reason I follow and so and like what he says, two things that we know about Elon, he loves his family and children. and he loves uh freedom. What what would happen if if a if a British businessman started calling

uh for your politicians to go. Well interestingly, as a member of the legislature, um I was called out in the British UK Uh in the British media, um because of a a couple speeches I made to protect children, um I referenced I believe it was the um international standards of human rights and mentioned how Children and parental rights need to be protected. Um and without getting into the details of the debate, um

I was vilified at at times with certain American media. Uh very few obviously most people support uh the the concept of protecting children, but it but I mentioned this because when the British media picked up in uh you know, the the the issue. Uh I received some really great encouragement as well from leadership in England. They would em they emailed me saying, you know, what you're saying is spot on. And um, you know, thank you for speaking up. So

I I I don't see it as a threat. I think it's actually more of a support. I mean, you I think if you could understand if if England and Britain could understand how much We actually do love and care about our Western societies and how much

we care about the world because we do believe that democracy and the and the opportunities for freedom is the answer to the cultures that um we want to positively influence. Let me pick up on that then. So when you're talking about democracies and freedoms Um last night we heard Donald Trump, president elect, talk about His refusal to take the the idea of military action off the table for invading Greenland or the Panama Canal.

How does that tie into your perception of democracy and freedom? I think if you listen to him as you did, um I I listened and I loved the speech because what he was saying very specifically was a warning to China. And I think we all can agree on this. When you have China running the Panama Canal, you will probably very quickly in a national security situation could lose Shoot you know. Severe liberty. I mean China I don't think is the model of

Democracy and freedom. Dare I say that China could have heard something very different from that and said, Oh well it's fine for us to invade Taiwan, it's fine for us to take back, take parts of Siberia that at the moment they don't control I mean why would China assume that that message didn't invite them to take similar military action? I think because very clearly it's a warning. China is already

exercising uh sovereign dominion over some of those areas. And it's very concerning to the democracies in those areas. Um, for instance, We've got um military bases springing up everywhere, uh nearly on the month. Th there are a lot of people though who heard in Trump's campaign and message that he didn't like interference.

He didn't like foreign wars. He didn't want to start sending US troops into places w how on earth do you reconcile what he's now talking about? Well, I totally agree with you and that's why we love him here. Uh generally speaking, I can say for a for a for a per down to the person of Donald Trump supporters and of the new government coming in, war is

the the w one of the top issues of what we do what we we are disgusted with. I mean I I think it's an appropriate thing to look at the history of the last twenty years of American involvement uh in uh international wars and say we could do better. And that's the goal. And I think when you have a strong president Who is asserting the willingness to use strength properly if needed to defend our freedom? It makes most of this go away.

for many of Trump's supporters, which is basically that whatever he says, you're fine with. If he says I don't like foreign wars, you cheer. If he says I don't mind invading Greenland if I have to. You cheer. There is an inconsistency because whatever he suggests, you say that's fine, that makes sense to me. It doesn't make logical sense to want both things at the same time.

Uh uh well he never said he was going to invade Greenland. That's a misnomer. I think what you're you're pointing out is a a question of Oh, you know, are are we just blind um following the the leader? No, that is not who we are. And uh President Trump actually does does not value anyone in his administration who blindly follows. In fact he wants a vigorous

and positive yet loyal approach to uh interaction. For instance, he he doesn't want uh game sayers, people that want to go down there and and be their own star and try to run their own show, make a book and make themselves famous. No, he truly cares about the country and he wants people that are gonna provide uh real opportunities, real discussion on how to do that.

and and and not uh constantly, you know, bad mouthing everybody that's trying to get that done. So it's a new day in America, it's a new day in Washington. Now that he's coming in the second term. He's determined to truly help and to make this uh this leg this legacy of the the Make America Great Again actually be something that benefits and blesses uh the UK and the world and it's exciting to see it.

Dancox, great to speak to you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, Emily. God bless and God bless the UK. Before we go, this is shaping up to be quite the week for the far right in France. What do we mean by that? We have seen the death of Jean Marie Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, as was, the father of Marine Le Pen, he died at age ninety six, earlier this week. But the invitation to President Trump's inauguration

has not gone to his daughter, Marine. It has gone to the man on the right of Maureen Le Pen, the firebrand Eric Zamore, the man who makes Marine Le Pen look centrist. It is shaping up to be quite the cars list, indeed quite the inauguration party, and we're going to be looking at what we can expect. Who we can expect in more detail on next week's episode of the NewsAgency USA. We'll see you then. We're both back.