¶ Intro / Opening
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This is a Global Player Original Podcast.
¶ Trump Threatens NATO Alliance
The consistency to his hatred of NATO and to his fact that America first means sod the lot of it.
U.S. withdrawal
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Yeah.
Владимир Путін і сам the best day of his life right now.
Nato yw'r ysgrifennol mewn gwirionedd yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw'r yw. Um secondly that uh whatever the pressure on me and others, uh whatever the noise. Um I'm going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions that I make. And that's why I've been absolutely clear that this is not our war and we're not going to get dragged into it.
but I'm equally clear that when it comes to defence and security and our economic future, we have to have closer ties with Europe.
That is Keir Starmer this morning extolling the virtues of NATO and what it has done and what it has brought and the stability it has given. But the noise is coming from the other side of the Atlantic.
Trump told the telegraph this morning when asked if he'd reconsider the US's membership of NATO, oh yes, I'd say it's beyond reconsideration. Is he actually about to pull out? Welcome to the news agents.
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The news agents.
It's John.
It's Maylus. It's Goodall. Louis Goodall. Since we're doing sun, eh? Well I think a bit of both actually.
We're all a bit shaken this morning, frankly.
Okay, well James Bond would struggle to rescue the situation that we currently find ourselves in because Donald Trump overnight has kind of gone further than he's done before. In just saying that he thinks that NATO is nothing, it's a paper tiger, it doesn't step up when America needs it.
leaving to one side that this was a defensive alliance that's only ever invoked Article five once and that was when America came under attack after nine eleven. And Donald Trump is clearly positioning America to pull the United States
Out.
of NATO, which is extraordinary. It would require legislation. It's a treaty obligation of the United States, so there would have to be legislation passed through Congress to take America out of NATO. It's not a simple we're out, we're off. Given the fact that Donald Trump rules over Congress and they daren't do anything to stand up to him, it probably would happen.
Yeah. I mean look, this follows hot on the heels of him lambasting his allies yesterday with those famous sort of Arnie words, I'll be back, I won't forget this, I'll remember. And it turns out that Trump loves his vengeance served hot. So it's not a question of whether he's gonna, you know, forget or remember. He's actually talking to the telegraph now and saying, This is coming. This is coming down the line at you. And if you want to get a sense, I mean, I was trying to work out like
What w what are people thinking about this? What is what is at the heart of this? And I I clicked on a article this morning called What Does NATO actually stand for. And it just said North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's not wrong. It's not wrong. Which is maybe where we ought to start because we do bandy around a lot of these terms and we talk about defence and I guess it is helpful to understand the sort of construct of NATO broadly, which is
thirty two countries, I think thirty two member states, thirty of them are European, and then there's the US and Canada, right? So it is a North Atlantic treaty organization, and the whole purpose of it is to come to the defence of each other In the face of yeah, war or opposition or attack, exactly. It was looking to contain the Soviet at a time when things were very, very precarious towards the end of the Second World.
Yeah, and and it has been the cornerstone. It's no exaggeration to say I mean Starmer's right, it has been the most effective security alliance in the history of the Western world, the history of the world.
arguably. And um it has been the cornerstone of Western security, our security since the end of the Second World War, initially as you say Emily, against the Soviet Union, but also obviously NATO, it's coming up in the context of Iran now because Trump Trump as we were saying yesterday is so peak. that in his mind, we've not been there for the United States. Why should he and they be there for us? But obviously he is deeply embedded
in the Ukraine war, because one of the origins of the Ukraine war is that NATO has been expanding eastwards since the end of the Cold War. It has taken in many of the old states of the former Warsaw Pact in or adjacent to The Soviet Union. Many of those countries like Poland, for example, the Baltic States, are now in NATO. And Putin has long argued that that is encroachment.
on his borders and on Russian borders, and that is one of the origins of the Ukraine war because Ukraine, Zelensky wanted to join NATO. So a US withdrawal, they are the linchpin of the alliance. They provide the bulk
of the military power, a US withdrawal would defang NATO. It would be a truly enormous moment in the history of post war Europe. Because for the first time since the end of the Second World War and really Really since during the Second World World War, since American entry anyway into the Second World War, Europe would be be without the US defence umbrella.
And there is therefore be a massive question mark as to whether Putin would choose to use that moment, this unique moment, when he knows that the Americans are not gonna be there for us. to try and pressure or puncture or make an incursion somewhere else on the EU's or a NATO state's eastern frontier, the Baltic states or wherever it happened to be.
And just y you know, you talked about the success of NATO and it just is worth underscoring that that since the Second World War, you know, f from kind of nineteen forty five onwards There has been peace in Europe on a continent which has seen endless war.
in the previous hundred and fifty years, the Napoleonic Wars and then the Franco Prussian Wars, all of that, and the First World War obviously, and then the Second World War. And the carnage that brought. And the only thing that you've had within Europe until the Russia invasion of Ukraine ymwneud â ymwneud â ymwneud â ymwneud â ymwneud â ymwneud â ymwneud â ymwneud â ymwneud â ymwneud â
And NATO came to the rescue then?
Yeah, and NATO did come to the rescue to a certain extent in terms of, you know, forces in Kosovo and and the like. Then you come to the present day and The sole ambition of Vladimir Putin is to undermine the solidity of the Western Alliance. And look at what's happening. I mean it's just if you're Vladimir Putin and you're sitting in the Kremlin today and you're seeing the price of Russian oil go up because of Donald Trump's war in Iran and you're thinking, Happy days.
And you're seeing Donald Trump saying, I'm gonna bust up NATO, even happier days. Vladimir Putin is having the best day of his life right now with the stuff that Donald Trump has enacted and is saying and the direction of travel right now is just every Russian dream come true.
We used to laugh at all the kind of conspiracy theories that suggested that Trump was actually a Russian agent because of all the Putin compromat. And I'm not gonna go down there as to the veracity of that. But if you look at where we were a year ago. More when Trump came into office and said I'm gonna end The Ukraine war on day one, right? That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna be the peacemaker, I'm gonna be the one that tells Putin to end his war with Ukraine. And you look at where we are today.
Arguably, Trump could not have done more to weaken the entire Western hemisphere. And to embolden. Putin. I mean it's as simple as that. If you are looking at the world one year on, he hasn't created peace, he has created war and he's left all of us more vulnerable. And I just think, is that actually a legacy that he would be Happy to go away with and would would those around him would would the rest of America be happy with that?
Because yes, okay, at the moment Putin's on our doorstep, right? He's on Ukraine's doorstep, he's on Finland's doorstep, he's on Poland and and Estonia's doorstep. But actually If Putin is then emboldened to a place where it's Putin and China organizing the world because America's just left the scene, that's not so great for everyone else.
¶ Europe Reconsiders US Alliance
The thing is, is that th I mean I've felt this for a while anyway, but I think the Iran war has has taken it to a place where it's even more certain than even more black and white.
Everyone's talking now is he gonna withdraw from NATO. Does he have the legal power to withdraw from NATO? You're right, John, he can't actually do it alone. Or the US Constitution is pretty murky on whether he can do it alone uh anyway. It's a treaty obligation. Congress would probably have to get involved. And actually I I actually think just
uh in terms of the votes, I don't actually think he would even be able to get it through Congress if he actually tried, even though he does have tremendous power over the Republican Party, I think the numbers in Congress are so dicey that there would just about be enough resistance within Congress to withdraw it. But he doesn't have to do that.
He doesn't have to do it because ultimately Trump can destroy NATO with a single sentence, which is he just says look, whatever the co whatever the con the the legal position If a uh if a Eastern European state, a NATO state, were to be invaded, I ain't gonna be there. And he is basically there already.
He said that funny enough, he said that. I don't know if you remember, but in twenty fifteen and it was an interview that the New York Times did when they asked him if he would respect Article Five and and which has, you know, come to the He well they they put it very clearly. W would you come to the defence of a Baltic state? And I think he said no at the time. So there is a weirdly, there is a consistency to his hatred of NATO and to his fact that America first means sod the lot of.
There there absolutely is and that's the thing, this is not coming out of nowhere and and you know, this has been going on for ten years now. This was a uh a a a huge point of concern during the first Trump administration. I remember Theresa May going over and her first visit and
coaxing him to say pr Mr President, well you're you're supportive of NATO. So th this is definitely building on a very, you know, long running, consistent point of scepticism that Trump has had. But this is clearly taking it one step further because as we were saying in a show yesterday, Trump's contention has long been that he thinks that this is an asymmetric deal, the sort of deal that he loathes, which is basically he's there for Europe, but Europe's never there for us.
He thinks that this current crisis is proof positive of that. Now, as we were saying yesterday, that is illogical because in this situation, he's not Ukraine, he's Putin. He's the one who is launched. illegal war or the special military operations uses exact term, right? But nonetheless, that is how Trump
sees it. And so I just think that if you're at the point now where he's basically saying it is beyond reconsideration, I think that this just brings us to a point to which we have long been coming, which is whatever the legal situation is. Who in Europe now, who you know, us at here Sat in Europe or if you're sat in Eastern Europe or whatever. Do you seriously think if if if Putin were to launch uh an invasion of Riga or Tallinn or Helsinki tomorrow, who seriously believes?
That Trump is a hundred percent certain, ninety percent certain, fifty percent certain, twenty five percent certain to come to those countries' aid. And as soon as you're asking that question, then it's over anyway. NATO's over anyway, at least for the time being.
And and and I think what is so striking as well is Y you would have thought that in normal circumstances European leaders would have been thinking, oh my god, actually we're now gonna we're gonna have to get behind America. We're gonna have to do what they say because if we want NATO to survive, we've got to be with them.
And instead of which I sense that and that European leaders are moving further away from America the more this goes on. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, was on Jeremy Vine's show on the BBC uh this morning. They listen to her language.
Uh we now have that stability which has enabled inflation and interest rates to come down. I'm angry that Donald Trump has chosen uh to go to war in the Middle East, in a war that there's not a clear plan of how to get out of. It's why we didn't want to enter this. Yes, it will have implications for our economy. I get that. We are monitoring very closely what's happening, trying to bring the oil and gas into the UK, um uh so that those uh supplies are there and to try and get the prices uh down.
that the British government used, the ministers were using day in, day out, to describe the Trump administration in the first year. The idea that you would have a minister stay sa standing up and saying, I am angry about what Donald Trump has done. I mean, if you think of what Rachel Reeves has had to contend with in terms of tariffs, she would always say, Oh no, it's well it's for America to decide what it wants to do, we're going to try and look after Britain.
Never tried never offered a word of criticism. Now the British Government is saying we're angry at what Donald Trump has chosen to do.
Yeah, I and if you look at the sort of trends in the forecast from the spring statement you see why she's angry. But I would say there's this weird kind of silver lining emerging for parts of the government that are EU focused. because Starmer has come out and said I think in the strongest language that we've heard so far, we need stronger ties now with the w he said Europe, not the EU.
It's increasingly clear that as the world continues down this volatile path, our long term interests requires closer partnership with our allies in Europe and with the European Union. So there will be some who are kind of hailing this as a blessed relief, frankly, that the blinkers have gone off.
those members of government who kept on going, Oh, Trump's fine, it's fine, it's all gonna be fine, he loves me, he fancies my wife or whatever, you know, was the sort of the narrative of the first year. We've got this, don't worry, we'll be fine.
And now they're kinda going, Hello, like Trump has left the reservation as one sort of former uh NATO person said to me last night, that is the feeling. Trump has left the reservation. In other words We're on our own and this is when you really need to work out who your allies are, and right now that's Europe and possibly the EU.
¶ Hurdles for European Defence
It does feel like, both for Britain and for European governments, that this is a sort of new stage in uh a decade long story of handling Trump. Because I think we'd say right up until this crisis, the prevailing view we talked about it a lot last year is that you basically do whatever you can, you ignore him when he's sort of sounding off against you, you hold his hand and you
Yeah.
You do the state. Yeah, exactly. I mean that was tr I mean you know, you remember all of last year, right up until very recently, Star More was repeatedly asked this question about uh tr US or Europe. And the his fundamental contention was there is no choice. It is US and Europe. You wouldn't hear him say that now. And likewise with European governments
And by the way, I don't necessarily think that's a failure on Starmer's part. I can understand why he tried and they tried because the Americans are so fundamental or have been so fundamental to European security for ten years now, during the first Trump term and now that that has been the approach. Now you've got a situation where the Italians, the Spanish
You know, other European governments are now outright denying the use of bases to the Americans. You see what Rachel Reeves has said there. It feels like that it is a real fork in the road. My question is, is whether the Europeans, ourselves included,
Yeah.
What could be an opportunity out of this crisis, which is to finally get real about pan European defence? It probably will take a crisis like this to do it. But you've still got two big problems. One is the same problem that there's always been, which is the old Henry Kissinger problem, is who do I put?
Yeah.
When I wanna speak to Europe because the fact is we're so many different competing Member States who even with when we were in the EU found it difficult to sort of reach consensus on foreign policy matters and defence matters. That's number one. Number two is we've gotta do this. At a moment when Europe is heading into the worst energy crisis since the nineteen seventies and possibly ever. Right now the EU Ursula von der Leyen yesterday, the EU Commission president
was talking about needing to have energy conservation measures throughout Europe. In Europe, in Brussels right now, as they are talking about in Australia and in East Asia, they're talking about almost energy style lockdowns. You know, having to in i to impress.
Today if you want to drive tomorrow.
Work from home, all of this sort of stuff. So to deal with that problem and potential economic tsunami and then get serious about pan continental defence, that is a that is a scale of challenge we haven't seen in a decade.
Just before and I I know you're gonna route this, but I was speaking to one uh EU f foreign minister about a month ago and I said, Is it time for, you know, your countries and others to start pivoting away from America to Canada?
And like everyone laughed, right?'Cause it's like Canada's got no military, they've got no nuclear, they're not a substitute for America. But then after the laugh he kinda went, Well, yes, I think that is where we're looking now. So I think to your point, it's not just Europe on its own with defence. There are other You know, there is a strong Canada under Mark Carney. There is kind
Australia.
Australia, even Japan now, you know, I mean there are places where you can rethink a body that is about defence that maybe doesn't focus entirely on America.
But all that European army stuff don't sound too bad now, does it?
But that th this is the ridiculous position that Britain now finds itself in. You know, ten years after Brexit, here we are with a crisis having having bet that we would have the close relationship with the American
Yeah.
And that there would be free trade that would, you know, be our great supporter in all of this. Neither of those bets have come right. And we're out of the European Union. Therefore we're struggling to get European defence agreements. And America doesn't love us anymore and sticking out two fingers.
It was a chlorinated chicken. Turns out it was slightly bigger.
Do you remember all those people who told us that uh Donald Trump would be our best friend? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even I'm old that Donald Trump would be our best friend would be great news for Britain and Joe Biden hated us. Here we are.
What's early days?
Three years ago.
¶ UK Illegal Children's Homes Exposed
Well, in a moment we'll be back with a special investigation uh by Andy Hughes from the crime agents on a terrifying story about unregulated children's homes. And what little is being done to clamp down on them.
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We wanna bring you an investigation right now that Andy Hughes of the Crime Agents has been working on for What nearly four months now, Andy, and this This goes to a big question which is about kids in care. At any one point in the UK there are an estimated hundred thousand kids, young people living in care. It's too big a number in the first place. And it can be all types of care, it can be uh homes, it can be uh accommodation, it can be quite often accommodation that is not fit for purpose.
But the stuff that you found out takes this whole question and this whole predicament of children in care onto a totally different level because you've discovered what, eight hundred care homes operating illegally completely illegally.
That's right. It was um back in December where I spoke to a contact who works in the care system. And he told me that um he was aware of illegal care homes which are unregistered and unregulated. Most care ho well, all care homes have to be um registered with Ofsted. So Care homes that aren't are illegal and it's a criminal offence to run one. And he told me that many of these homes are employing convicted criminals to care for the children, which obviously absolutely horrified me.
So I started off on this journey and the first thing I did was reach out to several people who work in the care system as well as local authorities. Now I contacted several local authorities to to ask them, did do you know about this experience? They came back to me, every single one of them said no, w we're not aware of any illegal care homes. So, um I teamed up with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism
And what we did was we looked into this and we've discovered that there are more than eight hundred illegal care homes in the UK. And then
Andy, can I just ask you, I don't understand how they get their money. If they're illegal and they're not offstead regulators How do they h where do they get the money from to run?
They are getting their money from local authorities, so the demand for t vulnerable children to to be homed is so vast. that there aren't enough registered care homes. There's not enough space. So what they're doing is they're shipping them out to pop up care homes, that's what they are. Unregulated and they're exploiting a legal loophole where a child can only be sent there for a maximum of twenty eight days. But
I've heard many stories where a lot of these kids are going into these care homes and they're just being lost in the system. No one's checking up on them. No one's checking if they're gone by day twenty nine. They're just there. And what we've found out is that these illegal care homes, they're dotted absolutely everywhere. What I wanted to do was find out who was actually looking after these kids. And then I heard from someone who told me about a horrific case in the North East.
And this was a care home in a small sleepy village in County Durham. So I went up there to find out more. And what I discovered was that this was just a normal home, just on a normal street. looked entirely unfit for purpose. And I discovered that a fifteen year old girl who was shipped there three hundred miles away from her home in South Wales because her report said she was at high risk of sexual exploitation. She was moved into this home
And in this home there was two carers there who looked after her. And these two carers were ex military and they both had criminal convictions for violence, one of them um for violence against a woman. And what these two carers did was they drugged this young girl and they assault sexually assaulted her over several several hours, leaving her with horrific injuries. Now what happened was these two carers they were arrested
And then they were later jailed for a combined total of twenty years. But what I wanted to find out was who was running this care home and who it employed them. And I discovered that documents showed that this care home was being run by a company called Map Adventures.
¶ Systemic Failures in Child Protection
And the person running this company was a man called Paul McCrory. He is also an ex um serviceman. So, um what I wanted to do was find out where he was. I discovered he was in Cyprus. Frankly, the plan was to travel to Cyprus. and what we call doorstep him, confront him about this. But legally what you have to do is you have to reach out to them and offer them uh a right to reply, an interview.
And to my astonishment he replied and said, Yeah, I'll do the interview. So he popped up on this video and the first image I saw was him swigging a pint of beer. And um he was in a bar in Cyprus. And here's how that conversation went. Stephen Hurst Had two convictions, one for a fray and one for battery. One relates to beating up his wife.
Liam Ramsey, two offences of assault occasion actual bodily harm, drink driving and growing cannabis. Does that sound to you like a C V appropriate for caring for vulnerable children?
I have friends that were sent to jail in there in my regiments who are now serving captains and majors, one's an Apache pilot in this modern day. Um if you're gonna go down that route then everyone's gonna be on employment.
Yeah, but Paul Paul Paul Paul, these two men went on to rape, drug a young girl and y you seem to be excusing yourself for employing them.
The only apology that I'm gonna give is that they didn't get they they were held in remand.'Cause if they were released, they were they were gonna get removed. And I was gonna deal with them personally.
Thank you.
And my justice would have been swift. I tell you.
What do you mean by that? Well why don't why don't you enlighten me, Paul?
Swiftly dispatched.
Do you take any responsibility for what they did to this young girl?
I didn't interview them. I didn't and this is not passing the back in any any thoughts.
Sounds like it.
Uh I was three thousand miles away. when this thing happens, because I left away.
Um
Yeah, but you're responsible for this care home, Paul, aren't you? The bug stops with you.
I asked him on the inquiry and I said, was there anything I could have done to stop this? And he said, no.
I'll tell you how you could have stopped it. Looking into these and not employing two convicted criminals to look after the most vulnerable children in society. That's how you could have prevented it, Paul.
I mean I I've heard the rest of the interview actually. He he says if I didn't employ anyone with a conviction, then where would I be? Essentially, right?
Yeah, he s he he said um th you know, the the the country wouldn't run if you couldn't um employ convicted criminals. But the point is the the there's a difference between being a lor lorry driver and um caring for the most vulnerable kids in society. And I did ask him, I said, Did he do any checks?
So I i th the whole thing is just incredible. The idea that you know I wish I'd have got my hands on them'cause I'd have beaten the shit out of them, is what he seems to be saying in that interview that you play. But what about the council? That has paid over the money or the councils that have paid over the money to this guy's company, he is not a fit and proper person to be running care homes.
And they're turning a blind eye, or they're not asking the right questions or what?
Well, they're not doing anything by the sounds of it. Um, if they'd looked into this care home they would have seen that this place was employing employing uh convicted criminals. People and then well I spoke to one of the neighbours when I was there.
And she told me that all the men there, they were all big, middle aged, kind of military looking men. It's it's clear that this place was just employing them. But the thing is, a lot of these places They're they're seeing this as a way to make money because every child that gets sent there it th they make ten thousand pounds every single week for one child that goes to these cars.
So they could they could be sending them to the Ritz, right? She would actually have been safer if she'd just been sent to the Ritz on taxpayer money.
But th the other thing about this that again I don't un I mean look, I mean years and years ago as a student I worked in a care home one summer. And it was tough but it was incredibly tightly regulated. It was council run. I wouldn't have thought that ev anything that was a children's home would have to be have that badge on it. And today If you want to go into a school. To spend a day helping kids with their literacy classes.
You have to have a background check that you haven't got any conviction and that you haven't and yet everybody is just saying, Is it because the system is so broken? Mm-hmm.
It is, it is. And and the thing is, these um illegal care homes, they are effectively just private companies. So they can employ whoever they like. Because they're unregistered and basically illegal, offstead Can't regulate them. They can't. So this
What do you mean? Why not?
But because because they're unregistered they are not an official care home. They're just sneaking under the radar. So the whole system needs to be a good idea.
But they must know, Andy, that they exist because they're sending kids to them and they're paying them money. That's what I don't understand.
No, exactly. And then when I've when I put this we put this to Kafilli Council which was the council that sent this young girl and they refused to comment on this case, saying we don't comment on individual cases. That's that's all I've got.
Four months.
All I've got is we don't comment on individual cases.
And what about in government? Because presumably there is a you know, there is a a children's minister or people who are responsible for the most vulnerable kids in our society.
Well, it's Ofsted's job to actually prosecute illegal care homes. In the last five years, guess how many prosecutions there's been? Zero.
Round number.
Not one. And I I I directly asked them about this and then they said, Oh, we take um we take this issue very seriously. We are working hard to investigate these and now we have started several prosecutions but we can't talk.
You hear so much about county line scam.
Yeah.
where kids are being kind of vulnerable kids are being told what they've got to do. That they've got to sell drugs across another state another county line, all the rest of it. This sounds like it's an absolute recruiting sergeant. The most fertile ground you could possibly find to get your young drug dealers Because they i they're in a totally unregulated space. They're highly vulnerable people.
You're absolutely right. That's exactly what these places are. They were described to me by someone who works in the care system is a feeder for groomers. Is a feeder for grooming gangs. And not only grooming gangs, for usually the girls are sexually abused and the boys are criminally abused.
So are you getting any feedback now from government who say right this is gonna go the
Well yeah, exact the thing is, right, and this is what drives me nuts when I do these stories, is this is something clearly that the authorities must have known about for years. I think it was your former parish newsnight that first did a story on unregulated... twenty one. Absolutely.
And then only now when I present the findings of our investigation to them do they go, Oh yeah, no, we're now playing loads of money into this and we're now doing we're now gonna take this seriously. But this is too late for that fifteen year old girl. This is too late. Mm-hmm.
Andy, thank you so much and obviously if you want to hear more on this story, do tune in to the crime agents.
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The news agents.
You can catch up with more of Trump's positioning v. NATO, via the Iran War. We're going to be speaking to a senior, a ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Jim Hines, on the NewsAgen USA.
We'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye.
Bye. Bye.
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