[0:00]The only [music] person that can really defeat Donald Trump is a guy called Donald Trump. That what the mistake he keeps making is that he goes too far. Hello and welcome to this special
[0:15]edition of Trump World. I'm Matt Fry in London >> and I'm Anish Gristana also in London. And it's special because we are together. >> Together for the first time. >> Yeah. >> In the same room. >> In the same room.
[0:26]>> You're fresh off a flight. >> Fresh. a redeyed. But you don't look redeyed. [laughter] >> I slept well on the fly. I read I finished off the Vanity Fair >> joy. >> You read the article after
[0:38]>> This is the Vanity Fair article about Susie Wilds, Trump's chief of staff. Fascinating character. We don't know that much about her, but she did lift the lid on the White House, didn't she? >> Yeah, cuz she'd done all these
[0:49]conversations with Vanity Fair and then seemed a bit surprised that they were on the record and in a magazine. [laughter] But what I find fascinating about her is we always talk about all the men, don't
[0:59]we? You know, we always talk about >> the hex because there are lots of men in the cabinet and the millers and on and on and on and on and actually the power
[1:09]broker, the one behind it all is a woman who I find a bit of an enigma because she doesn't ever speak and now she has spoken loads. There was one scene where
[1:21]in 2016 when she was basically recruited by Trump to work on the Florida campaign and of course he won the state of Florida. Wasn't expected to, but he won it. The polls before the election were
[1:31]going against him and he absolutely lost it on the golf course in front of the bros and kind of humiliated her and she shouted back at him and said, "If you want, I'm sort of paraphrasing now. If
[1:42]you want the kind of girl who sets her hair on fire, um, that ain't me. But if you want someone who can help you win Florida, that is me. And she stuck with him and he won Florida. So that's when
[1:52]the trust was established. He not only stuck with her, he rang her every single day for the rest of the campaign. So he really trusts her >> and he's still sticking with her now
[2:01]despite all of this. Um I love the opening of the whole article where there's basically a scene in the White House. They're talking about Venezuela and national security and then she gets
[2:12]up and starts to leave and he's like, "Oh, is there an emergency?" And apparently she says, "Yeah, there is an emergency and it doesn't involve you [laughter] to the president." >> And she gets away with it, right? >> She gets away with it. And I love like
[2:24]some of the kind of descriptions of her as basically being the person who has all these pitbulls on the lead or leash as they call it in America and the Pete
[2:35]Hexiths, Marco Rubios, etc. and she decides when they get let off the lead. >> Little insights as well, just a quick one. She described uh Trump's behavior
[2:45]as being that of an alcoholic. >> Of course, he famously doesn't touch drink. He's never touched drink. >> An alcoholic's personality. >> Alcoholics personality. >> Basically, the idea that he feels he can do anything.
[2:56]>> Yeah. >> Exactly. That there's nothing he can't do. Nothing. Zero. Nothing. She repeats it three times. And of course, that is the way he's been behaving. Now, we
[3:06]should say it is an incredibly like fascinating piece and it tells you a lot about him, the administration, about her. >> She has called it a hit piece. I think
[3:16]she thinks there's more context that they missed out, >> but nevertheless, incredibly insightful. >> Insightful. But I I didn't read it as a real I don't I wonder what you think. I didn't think it was a really negative
[3:27]piece. It didn't come across as a negative piece because although there were some humdingers in there like you know the cabinet members, the bloss being described as not by her but by her deputies junkyard dogs which they
[3:38]probably thought was a compliment, it lifted the lid on a White House which until now has been incredibly leak-free until now seems to be slavishly loyal Kim Jong-un style to Donald Trump in
[3:50]these ridiculous sort of cabinet shows of feelalty and it lifted the lid on that and actually let a little bit of light into what were genuine disagreements about some really big issues like deportations and tariffs and
[4:01]so on and and Trump has been okay with the article. You know, he basically says even the, you know, the line about alcoholics. So, he says >> um the line about, you know, al alcoholic psychology, he's okay with
[4:13]that. Maybe because he genuinely doesn't touch any drink. But I thought it made the White House that we've only ever seen from a distance in in all the kind
[4:23]of bright colors and the gold and the mirrors and the and the marble seem actually slightly more human and normal than we thought it was. But I would add one thing. >> Well, she seems human and normal. >> Well, she seems but the way she
[4:35]describes it, right? So, but even so, she, you know, she's at the end of the day she's slavishly loyal to him and even though she is her own person and she has her own ideas and she stands up
[4:45]to him occasionally, he always prevails. You know, even on, you know, on tariffs, which she didn't like or the idea of USAD being shut down by Elon Musk overnight before was even announced as a
[4:56]policy was already busy shutting down USAD. She was horrified by that. But does she actually, you know, you know, force Trump to reverse it? No, >> she does not. Um, so people should read
[5:07]that because it is fascinating if they haven't already. Um, but in today's episode, the last one of this year, 2025. >> Can you believe it? >> Goes so fast. Uh, we've got a festive
[5:16]theme, Trump style, the 12 beasts of Christmas. >> Yes, indeed. >> He talks about stopping wars. We're talking about where he's waging wars. >> Indeed. So, the 12 It's a It's a great
[5:27]theme. 12 It's a great >> 12 beefs of Christmas. >> So, should we start? >> Let's start. >> Beef one, >> right? >> MAGA. Yeah, >> MAGA has turned into a bit of a problem for him. Um, we're going to talk about
[5:39]why, but there's a couple of particular reasons I think. One which is going to hit this week, the Epstein files. >> We are waiting right now. Um, we are two days away from the deadline from when
[5:49]the Department of Justice has to release the Epstein files after a fight that involved once MAGA acolyte, the congresswoman who loved Trump more than any other,
[5:59]>> Marjorie Taylor Green. Marjgerie Taylor Green now facing death threats because of what Donald Trump has said about her. He calls her Marjgerie Traitor Green. But I also just want to mention in this because I think this is going to be huge
[6:10]next year. >> Affordability. I think because it's almost like MAGA has been let loose slightly. They feel a bit more able
[6:20]after Epstein to speak out and to say what they're thinking. And one thing they're thinking and they know is that their voters, their America first voters are feeling the pinch
[6:31]>> and Donald Trump's talking about everything or this is shifting now, but Donald Trump has been talking about everything other than the American economy. Donald Trump has changed what
[6:40]he's saying on this and he he still bla obviously. >> Um but he doesn't anymore say affordability is a hoax. He just says it's the Democrats who caused it and
[6:52]we're changing it. I still think he has a problem on this which is saying >> he keeps saying prices are coming down. No, inflation is coming down. I want to sit down with him. Have a little economics lesson.
[7:03]>> Maybe he doesn't understand it. I think understanding I don't think he does. >> I don't think he really does. I don't think he gets economics very well even though he's a businessman. I don't think he does. So, you know, inflation is coming down but prices are still going
[7:14]up just at a lesser rate than they were before. and and his inability one to fix that and two to acknowledge it more importantly I think it does stick in the throat of many of the people who thought
[7:26]that he would come to power fixing it. Okay. My second beef of Trumpness is what he's doing in Venezuela. Now he's been doing a lot. He's been as you've reported brilliantly from Trinidad. He's
[7:37]been zapping all these boats uh that are supposedly carrying drugs to the United States. But he's gone one further having, you know, special forces storm a tanker
[7:49]full of Venezuelan oil and confiscate the oil. And he was rather hilariously asked in the cabinet whether what would happen to the oil. He said, "I guess we'll keep it." It was [laughter] thousands of tons of oil. Anyway,
[8:00]they've kept it. But more than that, they've now effectively organized a naval blockade of Venezuela. That's a big deal, right? because Venezuela really relies on exporting that oil.
[8:12]They will not be able to do that. The economy is already in big trouble and it is part of Trump's personal beef against Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela. And I do think he wants to
[8:23]affect regime change, but is hoping that the Venezuelan people will do it for him, that it won't involve American boots on the ground. And it plays into the wider Trumpian philosophy, call it what you
[8:33]like, of hemispheric power, the Monroe doctrine, the Donro doctrine of Trump basically supreme in the Western Hemisphere. What do you think? >> Yeah, I mean I think he's obviously
[8:44]obsessed with Maduro. I think the kind of difficulty for him, the thing that makes it very awkward is that the motivation is so obviously not
[8:54]what is really being stated. And people in America want to hear about America right now. He's obsessed with Maduro. He is maybe in trouble with the boat
[9:05]strikes, particularly with this one where there was a second strike >> that looked like it was there to take out two survivors who were struggling on the boat from what people who have seen
[9:15]it seem to have suggested, which would in turn be a war crime. Um, he says it's about drugs. I mean, as you mentioned, we went to Trinidad. I spoke to people who were actually stopping boats. There
[9:26]was no fentinel on the boats. There was cocaine and there was cannabis and it was headed for the Europe. And yet just yesterday, Donald Trump in the White House was telling us, >> you know, right, fentinel, there is a
[9:38]crisis in the US. Although, amazingly, fentinyl was given to my seven-year-old child when they had an operation recently. And I was sitting there, they were like, should I give him some fentinel? I was thinking, oh, I'm not sure about that. >> You didn't ask for more after the operation.
[9:49]>> Yeah. Well, it's a weapon of mass destruction now, but it's not coming via these boats. So big question about what is the real motivation. It's also not coming from Venezuela. So clearly the motivation is regime change. We're going
[10:01]to hear a lot more about it. Land strikes likely coming. Um I think it is a bit of a problem with him with his base. >> Okay. Uh let's move on to beef number three. >> Number three, Europe. >> Yes.
[10:12]>> I mean he's got a big beef with Europe. And watch how the Europeans have tried to suck up to Daddy Trump as they literally called him. That's what Mark
[10:21]Rutter, the uh general The secretary general of NATO called him. Karma perfectly planned out a trip to the White House to hand over an invitation
[10:31]from the king. We have really, as you would put it, not me, Matt, kiss the ring. Um, [laughter] and was it worth it? Was it worth it? Out they come with a national security strategy in which
[10:42]they basically say Europe is on on the brink of civilizational erasia where they've slagged off almost every policy.
[10:52]So my question is was all the sucking up worth it? >> Well um yes and no depends who you talk to. So I think this European thing is
[11:02]really important and as a as a European uh you know someone who was brought up in Germany and the UK. I am I was deeply shocked by that part of the national security strategy
[11:14]because the only foe that this strategy singles out for criticism is the European Union. supposedly America's best friends. And you remember that Kennedy speech, the inauguration speech
[11:26]years ago when he said, you know, we we will do everything it takes to protect our friends in Europe. I'm again, I'm paraphrasing brutally here. And Trump seems to be saying or his people seem to be saying on his behalf, we will do
[11:37]everything it takes to make your life more difficult. You know, encourage internal opposition. Um undermine your ability to sell stuff to the United
[11:47]States. Now the question is does this work as a massive stress test for the European Union? How is Europe responding to this? And I'm afraid the p the scorecard is mixed, right? So on one
[11:58]hand there's a much greater European effort to try and deal with Ukraine which is the most important survival kind of test for the future of the European Union.
[12:08]On the other hand, for instance, the European Union decided to accept tariffs of 15% from the United States, which they were dead set against doing. In
[12:18]fact, when when we got tariffs of 10% here, they were kind of laughing at us in Brussels, thinking we're going to get away with nothing because we're so big and we're so powerful and America needs
[12:27]us. And then Ozel Fondonder basically caved to Trump. And the reason was, and I've heard this from a couple of officials I've been speaking to recently
[12:36]in Berlin, that Mertz, the German chancellor, had massive amounts of pressure put on him by the car lobby of Germany, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, and he
[12:47]basically said we they said to him and he said to Ozella Fondonder, who's from the same party, also German politician, we need to make a deal. 15% is better than something worse. So they they
[12:58]folded. Now the interesting figure in all this on which really the survival of the European Union in the short term hinges is Georgia Maloney of Italy. And just briefly on her, she loves Trump.
[13:10]Trump loves her. She was one of the few European leaders who was invited to the inauguration. She's also a friend of Victor Orban. But unlike Victor Orban and unlike Trump, she's massively on the
[13:21]side of Ukraine or has been until now. Now there are going to be a couple of things where she will be forced to choose. And crucially on the issue of those frozen Russian assets, the
[13:31]Europeans want to use them in order to fund the war in Ukraine and reconstruction. The Americans want to keep those frozen assets for when the, you know, the peace is finally there, they can then use those frozen Russian
[13:43]assets to do business deals with Russia and possibly with Ukraine. Now, Georgia Maloney can basically override that with her vote. She's got the deciding vote. Watch what she does in the next few days
[13:55]because if she sides with the Europeans that's good for Europe. Trump will be very upset. If she sides with Trump that's disastrous for Europe >> and through that which is very interesting we watch out for you seamlessly took us through the fourth
[14:07]beef of Christmas. Did you notice >> I didn't notice but tariffs >> of course of course tariffs. >> What you said was really interesting about how Europe dealt with them. What I find really interesting about tariffs is
[14:18]initially there was a kind of >> establishment kickback almost jeering at Trump [clears throat] what he was doing and it did look silly. He was there with
[14:27]his big sign just randomly his sandwich board randomly with numbers that no one could really understand. It took a long time to come up >> including uninhabited islands were getting paid by tariffs. Yes.
[14:38]>> Completely randomly. Um but there is a sense I was talking to uh an economist in Washington DC that the jury is definitely out on his tariff policy because what what he has decided to do
[14:49]is just be much much more muscular use America's strength when it comes to it. And look I think there are places in which the world economy is and will lose as a result of this.
[14:59]>> There are potentially places where the American >> economy is doing better as a result of it. Just a kind of very crude thing. They're taking in loads of money in additional tariffs. And I do actually
[15:11]agree that the jury is slightly out on whether this will work. And also just this one, >> do I detect a little trickle of Kool-Aid? That's um you know, have you drunk the Kool-Aid here?
[15:21]>> Do are you are you turning it into a Trump >> honestly nothing they've argued on tariffs is what has made me think this. It just makes me think the jury is slightly out. Because what I think is
[15:32]true is that the problem that they identified >> was real, which is that America's manufacturing base has collapsed. It's collapsed because China has had this
[15:44]comparative advantage on everything. >> Yeah. >> What has China had a comparative advantage on? Very very cheap labor. Yeah. >> It's not like a kind of smooth
[15:53]functioning world market. It is a market in which China has taken a lot of trade away from the rest of the world. I don't actually think that how Trump is fixing it is ultimately going to fix it. But I
[16:05]think the jury is out on really what it's going to mean for the American economy. >> So I I'm going to differ with you on this one a little bit. I think so. First of all, what the tariffs
[16:15]showed us was a kind of was Trump reacting in a way that he always wanted to react. tariffs for him has been as you know the the possibly the oldest issue political issue he's ever cared
[16:25]about. He's he talked about tariffs back in the 1980s when Japan was the big issue and China was still a largely agrarian Mau state. >> Now China he's obsessed with we know that
[16:37]China right and when I interviewed him he kept going on about China >> and what he tried to do with these tariffs was to humiliate China but what has happened in the process is that
[16:46]China has cleaned his clocks. China has basically come out of this trade war, this very personal trade war with America started by the Americans in a prevalent position. It has reminded
[16:58]people that, you know, it controls 90% of rare earth metals without which American defense or industry cannot function, let alone AI and and all the other stuff. It has reminded people that
[17:09]it can play the long game. It has reminded the the world that it has an industrial strategy which Trump doesn't have. >> Yeah. It also has its own economic issues. >> It does. Not I'm not saying it's perfect, but just in this particular
[17:21]tussle between Washington and Beijing, Beijing has basically prevailed and is prepared to play the long game. And if you look at it, what has Trump got out of this trade war with China? He's got,
[17:32]you know, Chinese farmers are buying soybeans again from America. Okay, that's fine. >> Only bringing us back to where we were, obviously. Yeah. I mean, I don't disagree with you on lots of that. The only thing I'm just saying is that he
[17:43]identified a problem that was real. That years of just an assumption that free trade and globalization was great for everyone and we had to not have protectionism did actually cause harm
[17:54]for the type of voters who are now in an economic rage and are turning the jobs back to them. But no, because he's not doing it because because of AI because of just the point I'm saying is why are
[18:05]we getting more and more extreme politics around the world? We're getting it because people have been let down successively by governments. I I read this thing by a guy who had
[18:15]>> advised Bill Clinton was a centrist and who said people are feeling economic rage and they need a radical solution. And even the people who might accept in the end Trump's ideas on tariffs didn't
[18:27]work were actually quite happy. You know, I was listening to people speaking in, you know, kind of manufacturing centers in Michigan. Happy that he tried something because their lives have got
[18:38]harder and harder and harder and they are looking for radical solutions. The same reason, by the way, why Zoran Mandani won sure so well in New York. >> And I I get the rage and of course, you know, we've been covering it here, you know, around Brexit. I've covered a lot
[18:50]of it in Germany with AFD. There is rage across the Western world and a lot of it is to do with income discrepancies. And by the way, you know, if I was Donald Trump or the Trump family, I'd be very
[19:01]careful because those exuberant examples of wealth, the big parties at Mara Lagoa that are very great Gatsby munching munching away at the east wing of the White House to build the biggest ballroom ever going to be one of their
[19:12]biggest problems. So beefs five and six really go together. One is migrants and this absolutely huge kind of aggressive tactic that we
[19:23]have seen to try and crack down on what they say >> was meant to be just about criminals. But we've been seeing people snatched off the streets by masked ICE
[19:34]agents. That's immigrations and customs enforcement. People being separated from their children. big questions about what it might mean for his Hispanic vote where people support the idea actually
[19:45]of removing criminals, but they didn't support what's actually happening. And in recent elections, we've seen a very big shift away from Trump when it comes to Hispanic voters. And then beyond that, and I think they are really
[19:57]linked. So, I'm going to go to beef six as well. His absolute attack on liberal mayes, liberal cities, >> obviously >> with an exception, the Mandani meeting
[20:08]in the Oval Office. >> Well, eventually. So he hated Mandani. He um slagged him off and then Zoran Mandani I think very clever the way he did it. Turned up at the White House, had a nice chat with Trump. >> But he likes Trump likes a winner. We
[20:19]know that he likes a winner and Mandani was a big winner. So you know that's why I invited him in. >> Infuriating infuriating Republicans who have been battling against this. Um, so
[20:30]I I'm you know and within that I should just also mention because some of our reporting has taken us to this comments that you know I don't know how we dis you know how we describe them but
[20:41]they are seen by many many people as racist about Somali Americans comments which when I went to Minneapolis to meet Somali who were affected by what Trump had been saying
[20:53]had resulted in immediate death threats. But if you look at what Trump has been saying and what he's been doing about migration and deportation, which has clearly upset, as you said, a lot of his voters, you kind of it raises this
[21:05]spectre, which it which he raised in the first administration as well, that the only person that can really defeat Donald Trump is a guy called Donald Trump. That what the mistake he keeps
[21:15]making is that he goes too far. Now, he would say, "I'm a maximalist." I don't I don't think he's ever used that word, but I mean I'm in a guy I'm a I'm a man of extremes, you know, whether it's on tariffs, on deportations, and then I end
[21:27]up somewhere in the middle. But this has cost him potentially a huge number of Hispanic voters. And the Hispanic voters swung exponentially in Trump's direction. But
[21:38]if you start hurting their families and you send them, you deport them, that upsets them. And I think he he must realize somewhere that he's gone a bit too far and he will probably try and rein it in. But every time he's
[21:49]prevailed upon to stick to a script, he goes off it and he goes off to his, you know, to his pet hates and and I think they have he, you know, if I was his
[21:59]adviser, if I was his Suzie Wilds, I would say, "Watch this because your your base is fragmented. You know, you've got an economic problem, as we've discussed.
[22:10]You know, you're upsetting too many in the migrant community who really like you and really want to stay here. So watch him perhaps in in the coming year
[22:20]pivot back to something a bit more reasonable. >> I mean you say that but just on this kind of point the way they've been attacking Somali Americans. I've been listening to >> it's brutal >> deputy chief of staff Steven Miller on
[22:31]this who's clearly the driving force behind it. >> I was watching him talk about the 1975 Immigration Act which was basically when they >> stopped being able to discriminate in
[22:42]favor of Northern Europeans. And I was standing inside a big government department talking to officials about this, trying to understand better. And I said, well, look, people say you want northern Europeans, you don't want
[22:52]Somali and Haitians. That feels like it's race-based. And the person was saying back to me, it's not about race. It's about culture. And I was really thinking hard about this because I think hard about the language I use and
[23:03]whether it's okay to say things are racist. Are they racist? They would deny that they're racist. >> But it's very, very clear that you like white northern Europeans. Do you like
[23:13]white South Africans and you don't like people of color to come in >> in the United States or in Europe by the way? >> Oh yeah. Anywhere. Yeah. And >> there is a cultural difference. And I I
[23:24]kind of I can see what they're talking about. You know, if I think about my Indian culture, it is more different from European culture and American culture, you know, than some of the
[23:35]countries that Trump is talking about. When we went to Minneapolis, I was thinking, of course, the Somali culture was much more noticeable. I mean to me these are really positive things. They bring amazing cultural mix and
[23:45]diversity. Um but then I was thinking Northern Europe is culturally quite different to Donald Trump's America and actually has he actually you know you
[23:57]think about Zoran Mandani who he calls a communist or he did [clears throat] until they were best mates. >> I would say his policies are pretty normal in Nordic countries. I should
[24:07]say, however, that, you know, while we spend a lot of time criticizing his immigration policies and the language he uses, which is very abrasive, the Biden administration did allow a huge number
[24:19]of people to come in and they didn't take the problem seriously. That created a massive problem which the White House under Biden did not appreciate, but American voters did appreciate. But as
[24:30]ever, you know, the pendulum swings and as I said earlier, as you said, I think as well, he's gone too far in the other direction. So, is he going [clears throat] to >> I think these are two discreet things for what it's worth. I think can you be
[24:41]worried about immigration and the impact racist without being racist? Of course you can. Okay, so we've got to six. We're going to do six quick fire now. So, we get one each.
[24:52]>> Six more quick fire. >> So, not a prop, not a proper beef, like a little >> little beef. >> Little little beef. for beeflet. >> So I'm going to start with beeflet. So number seven, the free press. >> Yeah,
[25:03]>> he doesn't like the free press. He attacks the free press. He's suing the BBC, the Wall Street Journal. >> He attacks the free press in favor of the free press. He's saying the the press isn't free. But then he attacks the free press. Yeah,
[25:13]>> correct. He is having his war with woke. Some of the free press are paying him out. He called a female reporter Piggy, which I just thought was an absolute disgrace. I watched him talking to
[25:24]another female reporter who I know that he calls so he knows who she is and say to her, "Who are you again?" and then say, "Would you mind if you let the man speak for a second?" And the man had
[25:34]spoken loads. Um, so he doesn't like journalists, especially not female journalists. Um, and he is at war with the BBC, although everyone tells me that
[25:46]the BBC is going to see this through and will win this case. That's what lawyers think. >> Some lawyers. Yeah, exactly. Not his lawyers, but let's see how that works.
[25:56]Okay. U my beef. Uh number eight, Trump versus the universities. Fascinating stuff. So the elite universities of America, Harvard,
[26:06]Stanford, Yale, uh which of course many previous presidents have gone to. You know, Bush was at Yale, Obama was at Harvard. Trump actually didn't go to
[26:16]those universities but he went to a very elite business school right so when he starts raiding against elite universities you kind of wonder what is this all about so one theory was this is
[26:27]not just a kind of broadside against the liberal elite that is concentrated in these universities that are centers of learning where you know a lot of Trump critics have traditionally been based and also he knows of course that an
[26:39]attack on on places of learning like Harvard and Yale is going to go down very well with the 99.9% of Americans who don't go to those universities and who think that those universities have
[26:50]had far too much money and far too much privilege. The trouble is but by attacking these institutions you're attacking the very foundations on which American you know business
[27:01]financial scientific excellence thrives on. It creates that sort of soft power allegiance. He's not interested in that as far as we know and some universities have caved. Others have stood up to him.
[27:13]Most importantly, Harvard. I wonder how that will pan out next year. >> Okay. Well, you can give me a ninth day of Trump Elon Musk. Wow, what a massive fallout. I don't really need to say much
[27:23]about it except it looks it looks like they might be back together. We've seen a picture of them together on a plane. >> So, we we spent a lot of time in the first two months of Trump's administration talking about Elon Musk
[27:34]and then he seemed to have, you know, and his little kid was always in the Oval Office, you know, wiping his boogers on the res Resolute desk. I mean it was just an extraordinary intrusion of Musk's world into Trump world and
[27:45]then Musk fell out with him over a number of issues. Visas was one um you know relations with China was another he really because the biggest Tesla factory in the world is in Shanghai. Musk
[27:57]rightly thought that picking a fight with China was a really bad idea for his business and so they fell out with each other. you know, as you said, there's a bit of a rupt going on at the moment, but I think the trauma caused by Musk,
[28:08]especially in Washington, DC, where you live, through the kind of a shutting down of USAD overnight, was something that Susie Wilds in that article says she was shocked by the the the way that
[28:19]he sent his boys into the Treasury to try and get hold of everyone's, you know, social security records, which was then again fought back by the judges and and Trump, I think, realized that that
[28:30]was a, you know, a The fact that Musk was allowed to do that and got the free hand to behave in this way, you know, was remarkable and and interesting enough there was a
[28:41]corrective mechanism there quite early on. The falling out, the fact that some of that Doge agenda has been put, you know, kicked into the long grass, put on ice. The amount of money they actually
[28:51]saved was minuscule compared to the amount of pain they caused and distrust that they caused, you know, within the federal government. So I think Musk has come out of this you know not
[29:02]particularly well. Um his whole Doge project seems to have kind of failed. Uh it jeopardizes what Trump was trying to do and I think Trump has probably realized that himself.
[29:12]>> So if we count Doge or the war on government efficiency as 10. Um then number 11 sort of has a link as well because Donald Trump says they actually fell out over electric cars. And we
[29:23]don't talk about this enough actually, but the war on climate, his 11th beef, is absolutely extraordinary. One of the moments of the year for me was sitting
[29:33]watching Donald Trump talk completely openly as a climate denier at the United Nations where we both were in New York. And and you know there is a court case going on right now because the
[29:44]government basically secretly convened a committee of five people all of whom when you look into their history have climate denial in their history to some
[29:54]degree certainly questioning action on climate change. They produced a report which the government is now using to try and get rid of the endangerment finding
[30:06]which is basically the American government saying in 2009, "Yes, it's true. Greenhouse gas emissions cause harm to humans. It's the kind of
[30:15]fundamental underpinning of work on climate action." And my god are they unraveling it all. If they get rid of that finding, there is a massive knock-on effect for so many other
[30:27]actions to do with climate. Um, and obviously they've pulled out of the Paris agreement and it is a disaster for the world because we're even seeing politics echo this around the world.
[30:37]Chem Bedon here in the UK happy now to say we're going to roll back on climate commitments after the Conservatives led the way when it came to climate action.
[30:46]Okay. And now we're there the 12th day of Trumpmas. Can you remember what it is? It was one of his biggest beefs to start with. >> It was the big one and it surprised us. Um, and it's about a very big island,
[30:57]the biggest island of them all, Greenland. Okay, so Greenland, huge beef for Trump. It gets back to this idea that he wants to control the hemisphere
[31:06]and a large chunk of the hemisphere that kind of determines access to the Northwest Passage, of course, which thanks to climate change is becoming, you know, possible, you know, for most of the year. Now, it used to be frozen
[31:17]for most of the year. Now it's actually you can send ships through it for most of the it's a much quicker route to Asia both for tankers carrying oil or Barbie dolls but also for warships. So Trump is
[31:28]obsessed with Greenland. He looks at upon it as a very very large empty island. 55,000 Greenlanders live there under you know Danish sovereignty but
[31:39]there effectively it's an autonomous region. Those you know Greenlanders don't really want to be ruled by Donald Trump but they don't particularly like Copenhagen either. But I spoke to a
[31:48]Danish politician a few days ago and they are terrified that Trump is being unreasonable on this that he will try something military at some stage. And
[31:59]they're trying to persuade him that there's a reasonable way of doing this. You know, you can have a bigger military base. You can have more people there. You can have soldiers that will come to some arrangement on shared use of
[32:09]bathroom and whatever. But they're afraid that he will go for the, you know, the maximalist policy. And if they did so, then Denmark, which is a loyal member of NATO, which has been, you
[32:20]know, a very close American ally, Danish troops fighting alongside American troops in Afghanistan, etc., etc., suddenly Denmark, member of the EU, member of NATO, has one of the more
[32:30]extreme examples of the Trump stress test that is imposed on Europe in the last uh 10 months. So, that's another one to watch. He might get bored. You never know. He might think it's too >> gone away. No,
[32:41]>> nothing ever goes away completely. I mean, one thing that I have definitely learned having moved to the US in 2025 and having very easily come up with
[32:51]between us and having clearly easily found 12 beefs of Trumpness is that American news under Donald Trump never
[33:01]stops going and no doubt next year is going to be just as crazy. >> Everything everywhere all at once, the Oscar winning movie of a few years ago, that is what this has been like. So, of course, next year, midterm elections,
[33:12]2026, something to look forward to. Until then, >> until then, I hope you have a lovely Christmas and New Year. Trump World will be back very early in January.
[33:22]>> It will be and I look forward to us, you know, reuniting across the airwaves or in person, fully rested, fully rested and fully >> very much back in DC. >> Happy Christmas
[33:32]>> to you, too.