Prime Minister's Legacy and Defense Consensus

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Kia Movement that insspires. Call eight hundred threety three four K for Details hostaf free event and seven hundred six twenty six to dealer for warranty details Hello Alex. Hello James Bibles. Watches Trainers Fragrances G Hang on, I wonder why you go with this. What do these have in common? They weren't purchases by the SN andP's former chief executive Peter Ml. What do they have in common? It sounds a little bit like that game you play at Christmas when you list what you bought in the shops. I mean, what do they have in common James? stuff you can buy Sehand online? I don't know. They are stuff you can buy that is Trump A They are all examples of Trump themed items that helped the president amass four point seven million dollars last year in addition to the more than a billion dollars he made from business dealings and cryptocurrency. And we're going to be discussing what we learned from the president's report, the report on the President's financial dealings on this episode of newscasts Ncast Newscast from the BBC. I will resign as leader of the Labour Party. And what will you do stare it at aw. Humanity's next great voyage begins. You know I like my busses. I'll come ono them. It's supposed to be me as a doctor.. Thinking about it like a panter helped. Do we play music now or what do we do Hello, it's James in the newewscast stududio. And it is Alex in the Westminster stududio and we are joined by Gary O'Dullahgh, Chief North America correspondent. Hey Gary Hello to you two, my favourite people, obviously. A, the feeling is mutual, of course. So Gary, we're going to talk in a minute about the president's week in the Supreme Court because there's been a fair bit going on. But first before we get to that Overnight, we've had the President's mandatory financial report for twenty twenty five. So this is something that every president has to publish with their kind of financial dealings in it. And this one about President Trump showed that he made more than O billion dollars last year. businessus dealings in cryptocurrency. canan you just talk us through it? What was in it, what it said, what the headlines were Yeah, it's kind of mind boggling. In fact, overall, he made over two billion dollars while being president last year. but one point four billion that came from various aspects of his ventures into cryptocurrencies. A few years ago, Donald Trump dismissed cryptocurrency as a place for scammers, a place for illegal activity, a place for drug dealers, but he's utterly embraced it since just before the last election And essentially what's happened here is he set up and his family set up an organization called World Liberty Financial. that itself issues cryptocurrency tokens There were various other things that they did, including launching a meme coin, the Trump meme coin' a sort of collectable Trump coin the vast profits from which go to Donald Trump and and his family But which has now plummeted more than ninety percent since its high point. So it's now under two dollars at one point it was seventy five dollars and the people who have shoulder that that loss are retailers, retail investors or retail buyers, if you like So he's made about six hundred million from the meme coin. he's made hundreds of millions more from the sale of that stake in World Liberty Financial, and he's made a bunch of money on the cryptocurrency issued by World Liberty Financials. So He's doing pretty well. I mean these are revenue figures. so we don't necessarily know what the profits are, but you can I think probably assume that the profits are pretty hefty. And of course now this is looks like his biggest earner by some way, not just property and running hotels Presumably, I mean, obviously, this raises at the very least, questions about ethics, questions about his relationship with some nations, including the United Arab Emirates, which is involved in some of these ventures questions about who he has doing certain jobs, given that Steve Witcooff, his envoy special envoy is involved in some of these business ventures as well, Gary. what is the debate there in Washington about the ethics of this? and just how unusual is this? I mean we've just never seen anything like this, have we No we haven't. And I mean, for example, people have connected. there was also a pardon issued to a cryptocurrency a guy who's incredibly rich one of the richest fromry cryptocurrency in the autumn which the Trump organization has some involvement in. There have been other decisions, liberalization cryptocurrency market. So he is a player and also a sort of rule maker in this space. And of course Pe say, well, that's a conflict of interest. The presresident in the past said the President can't be subject to rules of conflict of interest. Indeed, the White House spokeswoman, Anna Kelly has issued a statement recently saying, you know, just denying there's any know conflict of interest whatsoever. So you know, they just say no, C I just tell you one tiny anecdote. I remember after the twenty sixteen election, sitting in a hotel room in New York wrriting a piece for the BBC about how, you know, there's going to be all sorts of questions. Donald Trump owning the Trump hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue just by the White House, the old post office, and also being its landlord, outrageous. You know, he was the landlord and the leaseholder at the same time. How could that possibly be allowed I feel that that feels quite quaint compared to now Yeah, it's kind of extraordinary. And you mentioned that the White House has kind of put out a statement about it. I mean, I'll read what they said in full. So it was from the Deputy press Secretary Anna Kelley, who said in this statement that President had proudly made the US the crypto capital of the world. neeither the president nor his family has ever engaged or will ever engage in conflicts of interest And it goes on to say all actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people and any so called reporters pushing otherwise are recycling the same tired false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade. I mean Gary, there's the cryptocurrency issue in the questions that you've pointed to that are being debated in Washington. But then there's also other income from real estate and Trump themed items branded watches and branded Bibles and trainers and fragrances and goodnesss knows, whatever else. I mean, it just sort of It seems like there's now a president or that anecdote you were mentioning about what did seem quaint compared to what this has revealed about the president's finances, who's like openly embracing that kind of money making business side of himself For good or for ill in the way that people perceive that in a way that you just haven't seen from previous presidents. No, I mean, it makes me r I think that, you know, whatever it was fifty, sixty years ago Jimmie Cter said he was going to put his peanut farm into a trust so there couldn't be any kind of question about his financial d de and you kind of think, yes, things have definitely changed. And I think the reason for that is because and this is you know, this will sound slightly banal, I guess, but And's a political scientists have a word for it and I can't for the life of me remember it is, but the the sort of the point of of what's normal has shifted you know, so the politics have shifted in such a way they have pushed the boundaries in such a way that this stuff kind of flows over a little bit. Now not for everyone, of course, and not for Democrats or for some more independent minded voters here. but There isn't the the level of outrage outside of you know the places you would normally expect to find it about this kind of thing. So is a successful political achievement, is it not if you're in Donald Trump's position and his family's position, that you've made this stuff kind of feel kindind of normal Yes, and to that You mentioned the Democrats there. The White House mentioned the Democrats Gary in that statement Are they then not being able to land blows on Donald Trump with this. Do they have a coordinated message? I mean, from what you're saying there, it sounds like they're not really making the political hay that you might imagine they could make with this You would have thought, wouldn't you in a two party system that if one end of the seesaw you know, is having problems. The other end kind of swings up It doesn't work like that here becausecause of the sort of fractured nature of political opinion as opposed to the structure of political parties, it either leads to apathy or for people to go off into sort of fringe activities or fringe beliefs So no, they're not. And of course the problem is that they M. are having their own internal battles, their own internal ideological battles. We saw those victories for Democratic Socialist Party, people in primaries in New York this week. There's a tug of war for the heart of the Democratic partarty going on, which makes it hard for them to focus on or what you might call their real opposition target because there's so much invighting going on. And that means a unified message is always hard because one part of the party wants to really focus on, you know, C bread and butter stuff, perhaps other parts want to focus on Trump and beating Trump and all those things come out as a bit of a mush So they don't really benefit. I mean, obviously in November, the midtbs will be a real test ofist. and that could be their wake up call ahead of a presidential election in two years time because Everyone, you know, every sort of opposition party in midterms is meant to do well and that the The majority in Congress, for example, particularly in the House, is so narrow that if they don't take it, it willll be regarded as a massive defeat for them It's going to be interesting. And just to talk about something else regarding President Trump and what happened this week and that's with the Supreme Court, because it has been a really big week in the Supreme Court. and may maybe the most significant ruling came on Tuesday when the Supreme Court ruled that babies born in the US have a constitutional right to citizenship. Gary just al us through what that means and why this was being contested in the first place. So if you if you come here as, you know, if you're here as foreigners, you know, and you're a couple whether you be illegal migrants who have come over the border, whether you be you know, business people who are working here. I mean, the whole spectrum of foreiders here. If you have a baby in the U.S, that baby is an American straight away. automatically, no arguments That's what birthright citizenship is. And it's been the case since just after the Civil War, in fact, just after the civ W war in eighteen sixty eight All right. a constitution the Cstitution was changed to say that you know, everyone, everyone born in that way was an American. and it was, as Trump says, rightly designed to ensure that the babies of slaves were citizens in this country. Now thirty years later the Supreme Court reaffirmed that in a case completely unrelated to slavery or babies. and it's been the settled law since the end of the nineteenth century. Trump tried to overturn that. He's railed against what he calls birth tourism. He thinks people are doing it. He calls them anchor babies in a rather offensive way and he has, you know, sought to overt it to it and thought he could And the Supreme Court on this particular occation six to three because it has this conservative majority, but three of them went against him It said, no, the fourteenth Amendment protects people, done deal game over. The only options Trump has is to try and sort of restrict things through cononggressional sort of acts and that's, you know Congress is always gridlocked at the moment. So he does have one option here, which is potentially changing the Cstitution But that's incredibly hard. it's a non starter. So the last time an amendment was passed to the Constitution was back in the nineteen nineties and that was something to do with congressional pay. wasn't even It terribly consequential. Only eight amendments to the Constitution have been passed in the last hundred years. You need two thirds of Congress and three quarters of the states to agree. It's a complete nonstarter What does this mean for him then, Gary, given how Immigration has been central to the president's agenda right from the outset when I was in the States with you and he was actually running for the presidenies, talked about immigration as being completely central to his political ideology. I mean, this might have been a lot of lawyers regarded trying to overturn birthright citizenship as a real stretch, given as you say goes back to eighteen sixty eight. But what does this is this a big blow for him or not then it's a big PR blow because he was so invested. This was an executive order he signed three hours after he was inaugurated So it's a big PR blow, but he's been laying the ground a bit for it in the sense that he's been saying he thought he would lose, even though he went there in person to hear the oral arguments. first time a president's ever done that So there hasn't been the kind of vitriial towards the judges I was expecting that we got for example, example, when he was defeated on tariffs That may y yet come, but it hasn't happened yet I think the more significant measure will be deportations in the long run because it's proved a lot harder u to do that in the kind of, you know, crazy numbers, the millions that we were promised. It hasn't kept up with that. you know, the system can't can't deliver that. And of course, industry and farming has pushed back on that because it relies so much frankly, cheap labour, much of which You know, at times in certain industries is undocumented migrant labour. And they have pushed back very hard on that. So there there's not just the practical difficulty to doing that. Now What you will hear is that it's been a huge success and administration and Donald Trump in particular just says, you know, black is whitite, you know, yes is no when asked about these things you know, the question is can The Democrats or anyone else frankly land that message at a point in time where it really counts that all these these promises on immigration aren't materialising on the scale they were promised You just mentioned there, Gary that this was an executive order, this order on birthrightights citizenship. So one of those things in my mind, when we saw President Trump first take office for the second time and he signed loads of things with a big pen in the Oval Office. But so that's just President Trump effectively saying, I want this to happen and therefore I'm making an order that this will happen. How does it then get to the court? Do I mean? Do someone have to like call it in or challenge it or say ourt, have a look at this, please Yes, you can you can, you know, executive orders are subject to judicial review the way other things are as well. So yes, it was challenged. U and usually, you know, a coalition of get together, you know, with money, effectively, finds a case or an individual thenber in sense becomes the front of that case So the detail of the individual case whilst probably incredibly important to them is not really central to this. But yeah, that's exactly what happens. These things can be taken up courts, they bubble up through the federal courts at the district level. They end up at a sort of a reg kind of regional appeal court, which all this did And then you know, you can appeal right up to the Spreme Court. The Spme Court doesn't have to hear it. But you know, this was such a central constitutional question that you thought, well, you know, Supreme Court chooses to punt on this one, then what's it for? You know But it didn't Well left to pnt Well it was also not the only thing as we mentioned that the Supreme Court's been up to this week. There have been other significant rulings. Can you give us a quick rundown Yeah, a quick rundown. So there were a couple involving President Trump's power to fire people in the executive. In other words, you've got this problem in America. The executive is one part of three parts of the governing system along with Congress and the courts But the executive also contains these so called independent agencies If they're part of the executive, does Trump have the ability to fire people on them or are they independent That was one of the things it was decided. And in one case with the Federal Trade Commission, it agreed with him. he could fire someone. But in another case, it said, hang on, you can't fire someone from the Federal Reserve, the central bank because they hadn't had proper due process and they sent that back to the court. So they sort of carved out this Federal Reserve case as opposed to what now will appear the case with other executive agencies can do that The other big one this week was transgender people transgender women playing in women's sports in schools and colleges. and they came down. this wasn't a Trump administration case. This was brought by two states that had bans on transgender women playing in college and school sports. Those bans were upheld. There are similar bans in twenty five other states So they are effectively upheld by that, but they don't impose that on other states that don't have those bans, if that makes sense. So you've got a country where Half of the states say if you're a transgender woman, you can't play in sports for women and half of the country that doesn't have such a ban. againg, a big example of the cultural divide in this country And that wasn't even everything. There was a campaign finance ruling that is broadly regarded as being favorable to the Republicans as well. But we can't get into everything. We cannot get into everything. Gary, you need to go you're a busym and also well, you're a football fan as well.'s one of the reasons that you have to get out of here so quickly so that you can enjoy the football. later. it's what twenty past two in the afternoon here in the UK and England are playing at five. Are you looking forward to it? Yes, Noon, yeah. yeah. I am excited. I'm sad for Scotland, of course, James, veryery sad Thank you but no genuinely. As half Scottish myself, so I am sad for Scotland But yeah, I'm very excited. Although you know, I'm not sure that's mirrored in the general population here. I felt utterly underwhelmed by the reaction here too to the World Cup and And so yeah,'ll we'll be cheering along at noon Oh, I feel sad. I just imagine there was going to be, you know, just flags and joy everywhere. Not not flag inside. Do know what, Gary, acccording to your Wikipedia page, you played football for England I'm ashamed to say that is true when I was about eighteen years old. Yes, it's true It's true. It was a bit of a Yeah. Amazing Well, it was in the very early days of the England blind football team. and we played I certainly played a tournament in Spain for them And I don't have very many memories of it other than we got beat quite significantly. but I do remember it was the first time playing football that someone had ever pulled my shirt and I was completely outraged As a teenager That is incredible. That is great. That is great. Well, thanks very much Gan. It's lovely to talk to you as always. Thank you. You too guys. You too Bye Now we're just going to rewind a little bit, Alex, because on Tuesday you and I talked with Frank Gardner about the dip, the dip, the defense investment plan. and we were talking to Frank and Chris about it. And as we were talking, you rightly pointed out that the numbers didn't quite add up and that's a bit of an understatement because there's quite a big funding gap, a commitment gap here What have we learned about that this morning? Because Luke Pllard, the Minister for Defense Procurement's been out talking to all the media on what they call the broadcast round talking about it. Do we know any more about what this gap is and how it might be filled, if at all? Yeah, Well I think what he did was spell out what we'd identified on Tuesday's episode, really, which was the fact that they've identified where so I mean there's so many numbers kicking around about this. I think it's just worth reminding people what the numbers actually are. So what the Prime Minister announced on Tuesday was what he said was fifteen billion pounds extra for defence investment and sets out all of the new priorities that the government thought that they needed to focus that money on then kind of emerged was that Around ten billion of that has been found or identified and part of that hass come through other government departments making savings, so things like roads and energy schemes. There was four point seven billion still has to be identified and that that was going to be found or identified in the upcoming budget this year Obviously, as Prime Minister Keistarmer is on his way out, that's probably going to fall to the new Prime M minister most likely to be Andy Burnham and whoever he picks as his Chancellor. And what we have from the Defence Mister Luke Pollard, when he was answering all the questions on this morning was him effectively saying, yeep, ye. That's got to be identified in the budget. But the argument that I've heard from ministers and government making today is that they say, well look, this is pretty normal because actually quite often it's the case. when you're setting out spending plans for something that run over a period of time, you'll identify some of the money and then it will be up to when you're taking big decisions in the round for example, a budget time that you might identify some of the others, and what Downing Street keep pointing to obviously is the fact they are spending lots more money in their view on defence and that this is what this investment plan is part of, a kind ofif uplift and increase in defence spending I don't think this is a settled issue, not just because an incoming Burnham Premiership will have to re look at this to find more money for defence spending because there's this promise to increase it over a period of time, as well as the four point seven billion that hasn't yet been identified in this plan, but also because political opponents and others are saying, well, look, we just don't think this is enough for defence spending. and there was Pime Mister's questions Wedesday lunchime. and that is exactly what Kemy Badenach, the leader of the Conservative Party, pressed the Prime Minister really hard on He says that he's delivering this outside the budget. That's right. It should have been in the last budget. The strategic deffense review was published last year. It should have been in the last budget, not the next budget. The intelligence assessment that he himself has said we have says there could be an attack on NATO by twenty thirty doesn't deliver until after that fiveive billion pounds is missing from his plan It also relies on eleven billion pounds of unidentified savings. The plan has unraveveled. It is a total dereliction of detail. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. The Times newspaper said today the Prime Minister's legacy why don't we wait and see what they said that the Prime Minister's legacy is betrayal failure and vulnerability and that is one of the nicer headlines. So I will ask again because he did not answer the question, did the Member for Makerfield know that he was going to have to findU five billionound for the Prime Minister's plan. When I became Prime Minister two years ago, this country spent fifty four billion a year on defence Because of the decisions we have taken that will rise to EU eighty billion pounds a year by twenty twenty nine. That is a real terms increase of twenty seven percent transforming our armed forces. We are not going to take any lectures from the party opposite. They cut defence spending. They hollowed out the armed forces Their defeence secretary admitted that's what they did. They don't like it They will not defend their record because they cannot. They will not apologise for it because have to admit what we all know it is a total failure. They just try to pretend the fourteen years they are in power never really happened. We are in power, with recording investment in defence and security. I am proud of this Labour Government, and any Labour Prime Minister would stand behind this plan I was really struck by the tone and the manner, Alex, of the Prime Minister's answers to Kimy Bidenk there in terms of defending his legacy. and almost the backbench labour MPs cheering his legacy And I was thinking as they were doing it But you've sacked this guy basically. It's quite the contrast, isn't it? It's kind of remarkable, wasn't it? Like so I thought exactly the same. So you heard Kir Stahmer talking again and again through Prime Minister's questions about my record and you know I'm proud to defend my record. And I do think that is a little bit of legacy building You know, that is what prrime Ministers and other ministers when they leave office or when they know they're leaving office often will do is try and shape how history might see them. And so we have heard a bit of that from Karma and I think we'll continue to hear a bit of that from Kist Aarmer because he's got a couple of weeks yet, obviously before he actually leaves Downing Street to try and cement what he would see as his legacy or the legacy of his period in office. But you are right again that the reason he's leaving is because labour MPs effectively wardly and publicly said that they didn't really want him as the leader anymore. So it is this kind of strange space that we're in at the moment. where Kiistamma is suddenly getting a lot of support from his backbenches where not so long ago, it was those very same back benches that were calling for him to go to make room for someone else. It's yeah an odd little period in politics is window, is it not? It's such an odd time. I'll tell you one other thing that occurred to me, Alex, reflecting on Tuesday's episode that we were talking about Defence is that There seems to be such a mainstream consensus now in favor of increased defense and security spending And I just wonder whether the voices of the people in this country who aren't convinced by that are not really being very loudly heard at the moment. Well so at Westminster, I think what you've seen developing between some of the big bigger parties in Westminster, so the Conservatives, Labour, the liberal Democrats They are all very much talking about the need to increase defence spending. Nobody is really moving away from that position and Reform UK actually in the mix as well. I think where there are real points of difference between them is how you get there. So for example, you've got Reform UK, the Conservatives suggesting you need to look at welfare.ve The Liberal Democrats talking about defence bonds to try and raise money for defence spending And you've got the Labour Gvernment pointing to what it said out yesterday, which is of course the defefence investment plan. And then you've got the Greens as well. and interestingly, Ellie Chowns, who is the Green Party's Westminster leader, she actually spoke in the debate that there was in the House of Commons on Tuesday about defence spending. and the point she was making put this to the current defefense secretaryan Jaravvis was about pouring billions of good money after bad into what she called the black hole of Cold wall technology instead of investing in security. So that's obviously a reference to the nuclear deterrence. So I think that point of difference comes from if we think there does need to be an increase in security Where do you spend the money, not just how do you raise the money? So I think while people recognise that the nature of the threat the UK is facing has changed after Russia's forcecaar invasion of Ukraine, after the wars we've seen in the Middle East, Most at Westminster would say, yeah, look, we think that we do need to invest in our defence and security. There are questions about how you fund it evenven potentially how you spend it. Yeah, and questions in Scotland, Alex, particularly about that nuclear weapons program, the UK's nuclear weapons program, because thevernment the UK goovernment yesterday was talking about more money going into that to the next generation of nuclear weapons to improving conditions at the naval base I J just off the Clyde where the UK's nuclear weapons and the submarines that carry them are based. and there's been a lot of complaints about conditions there actually. But the Scottish National Party have for many years, as you know, opposed the presence of nuclear weapons, UK having nuclear weapons at all and the presence in Scotland. their long term idealistic vision for Scotland in their view is that Scotland would be independent and wouldn't have any nuclear weapons. So I think this debate is going to continue on those terms as well in Scotland, particularly if it isn't necessarily happening at a UK level. But that's for another day. I also have a question to ask you, Alex, because yesterday when we went away The Newscast studio, you were off to do some more work on another program you said you're going to be working late into the evening and I was worried about you. And then I came in this morning and you were on the television filling in for Vicki on Politics Live. So you're everywhere. How was politics liive? How was the defense spending chat there? Yeah yeah, it's been a busy run, you know 's all hard working. Now everybody's hard working, James, come on, you yourself are pretty hard working. let's not make any bones about it. But yeah, no politics live is just filling in a very, very short term for Vicky Young is having just a couple of days off and it was a lively one today, I can tell you around defence spending because exactly as Kemmy Baadenott was doing during Prime Minister's questions, I think this is something conservatives for their own