Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / Behind the headlines last week: from Trump's America First agenda to corruption

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Behind the headlines last week: from Trump's America First agenda to corruption · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So beyond the Iran war, the US administration has been busy
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: furthering its nationalist agenda,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: lining its pockets, fawning over Trump and attacking universities.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what's been going on over the last week or so.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start with nationalism.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: According to a report
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  SPEAKER_00: by the Women's Refugee Commission and Physicians for Human Rights,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Trump administration is deporting a significant number of parents
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  SPEAKER_00: without even asking them if they have children
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  SPEAKER_00: or allowing them to decide whether to bring their children with them
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  SPEAKER_00: when deported, which is in apparent violation of its own policies,
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  SPEAKER_00: let alone anything else.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And speaking of children, in January, Ice detained a five year
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  SPEAKER_00: old boy in Minnesota called Liam Conejos Ramos.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Trump administration is continuing its push to deport
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  SPEAKER_00: him and his family, who are from Ecuador.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now the family had a pending asylum application with the administration,
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  SPEAKER_00: when he and his father were taken into custody in January.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the federal government has basically moved to end the asylum
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  SPEAKER_00: claim without holding a hearing on the merits of their petition.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that they've been increasingly doing, basically,
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: to quickly deport asylum seekers without considering their cases.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then the New York Times reported last week how the Republican Party
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  SPEAKER_00: has a growing tolerance of just open racism against Muslims.
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  SPEAKER_00: So here are some examples.
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  SPEAKER_00: Representative Andy Ogles, who is a Republican in Tennessee,
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  SPEAKER_00: recently wrote on social media
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  SPEAKER_00: that, quote, Muslims don't belong in American society.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then representative Randy Fine who is a Republican in Florida,
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  SPEAKER_00: said, quote, if they forced us to choose,
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  SPEAKER_00: the choice between dogs and Muslims is not a difficult one.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, the State Department has added 12
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  SPEAKER_00: more nations to its list of countries whose citizens must post
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  SPEAKER_00: bonds up to $15,000 for a US visa application.
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  This now brings
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  SPEAKER_00: a number of countries who have to pay huge bonds for visas up to 50.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: But also last week, Donald Trump appointed Australian born Nick Adams
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  SPEAKER_00: as special presidential envoy for tourism, exceptionalism
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: and American values.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Nick Adams was born in Australia and he was once Australia's
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  SPEAKER_00: youngest deputy mayor,
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  SPEAKER_00: and then he began posting on X as an alpha male influencer.
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  SPEAKER_00: And his most quoted post is, I'm quoting,
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  SPEAKER_00: I go to Hooters, I eat rare steaks, I lift extremely heavy weights.
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  SPEAKER_00: I read the Bible every night,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I am pursued by copious amounts of women.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: He has written a series of books, the first of which is called Alpha
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  SPEAKER_00: Kings, and has a foreword from Trump and basically
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  SPEAKER_00: in that book he makes the case for traditional masculinity,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he now promises to show the young men of America what it means to be
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  SPEAKER_00: a true alpha male in today's hyper feminized world.
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  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, a great presidential envoy for tourism.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: There.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then kind of domestically, the administration is continuing
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  SPEAKER_00: kind of with its surveillance and crackdowns.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So on surveillance.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: FBI Director Kash Patel admitted under oath last week
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  SPEAKER_00: that the FBI's buying location data on Americans from commercial brokers.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So normally, law enforcement has to get a judge-authorized warrant,
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  SPEAKER_00: a search warrant to obtain location data directly from telecom companies.
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  SPEAKER_00: But this is a way that government agencies can buy that information
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  SPEAKER_00: to kind of circumvent the need for a warrant.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, on this section, the Pentagon is planning to maintain
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  SPEAKER_00: the National Guard's federal mission in Washington, DC, basically
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  SPEAKER_00: until the end of Trump's second term now, so January 2029.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The Pentagon press secretary stated that it was committed to supporting
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: the president's mission
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  SPEAKER_00: to address the epidemic of crime in our nation's capital.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are currently almost 3000
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  SPEAKER_00: National Guard troops stationed in the capital.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Moving on to corruption and fawning over Trump.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: a senior House Democrat has accused the US
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick of, corruption.
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  SPEAKER_00: Basically, they said that he is structured,
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  SPEAKER_00: the administration's $1.5 billion investment
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  SPEAKER_00: into the USA Rare Earth company, in such a way
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  SPEAKER_00: that gives the government, leverage over that company
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  SPEAKER_00: while boosting the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that the House Democrat is concerned is because
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  SPEAKER_00: Cantor Fitzgerald is run by Lutnick’s sons.
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  SPEAKER_00: there's also, growing concerns about insider trading.
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  SPEAKER_00: So someone or someone's made bets worth half a billion dollars
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  SPEAKER_00: in the oil market just 15 minutes before Trump posted on Truth Social
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  SPEAKER_00: that he's had
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  SPEAKER_00: productive talks with Iran, which sent the price of oil falling.
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  SPEAKER_00: So trading volumes for oil spiked at the same time.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the people whoever made that bet ended up
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  SPEAKER_00: making a profit of $500 million.
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  SPEAKER_00: And those kind of well timed trails
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  SPEAKER_00: echoed a flurry of really large, profitable Bets made on
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  SPEAKER_00: the prediction markets in Polymarket, which are basically anonymous,
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  SPEAKER_00: earlier this month or rather a month ago,
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  SPEAKER_00: on the timing of the US attacks on Iran and Venezuela.
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  SPEAKER_00: So several hedge funds have basically said that there now
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  SPEAKER_00: seems to be really quite a lot of examples of large trades
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  SPEAKER_00: being done just ahead of official U.S government announcements.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's why people think there's definitely some kind of insider
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  SPEAKER_00: trading going on.
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  SPEAKER_00: Someone is getting very rich.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then another type of corruption is that three years ago,
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  SPEAKER_00: Michael Flynn, who was President Trump's former
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  SPEAKER_00: national security adviser in his first term,
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  SPEAKER_00: sued the government under the Biden administration claiming
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: that Flynn had been wrongly prosecuted
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  SPEAKER_00: for making false statements to federal agents, about his ties
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  SPEAKER_00: to Russia.
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  SPEAKER_00: under the Trump administration, the Justice Department has agreed
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  SPEAKER_00: to settle and to pay Flynn $1.25 million to settle the lawsuit.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's basically just yet
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  SPEAKER_00: one more example of how the Trump administration is offering
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  SPEAKER_00: legal relief to those who are aligned with the president.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then they've just been some more examples of kind of Trump as king,
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  SPEAKER_00: which would be funny if they just weren't so awful.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: So firstly, the Fine Arts Commission now has a Trump appointed panel,
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  SPEAKER_00: and last week they approved, a 24
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  SPEAKER_00: carat gold coin featuring Trump's image.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is despite the fact
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  SPEAKER_00: the federal law says that no living president can appear on US currency.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the Treasury secretary
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  SPEAKER_00: has already authorized the minting of these coins.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's not enough, the Treasury Department now
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  SPEAKER_00: plans to add Donald Trump's signature to US bills.
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  SPEAKER_00: So this is going to be the first time in U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: history that the sitting president's
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  SPEAKER_00: signature appears on American currency.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So typically, US bills feature the signatures
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  SPEAKER_00: of the Treasury Secretary and the US Treasury.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Trump’s signature is going to replace the treasurer.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it's going to be Trump's signature, and it's going to be Scott
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  SPEAKER_00: Bessent’s signature.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the measure isn't temporary.
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  SPEAKER_00: So basically Trump's name is going to appear on all dollar bills,
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  SPEAKER_00: until a future administration decides to take it off.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, Republican leader of the House
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  SPEAKER_00: Mike Johnson presented Donald Trump last week with a newly concocted
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  SPEAKER_00: America First award, which was, a golden eagle statue.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the America First award is basically a made up award.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's following a series of other
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  SPEAKER_00: similar awards that have been manufactured and given
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  SPEAKER_00: to Trump over the last few months, like the FIFA peace prize and so on.
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  SPEAKER_00: these kind of sycophantic awards are just much more typical of populist,
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  SPEAKER_00: authoritarian leaders than they are democratically elected presidents.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then just to end, I just want to highlight some moves
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  SPEAKER_00: that the administration has done to target universities again.
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  SPEAKER_00: earlier this month, the Trump administration sued Harvard,
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  SPEAKER_00: over claims that the school was violating the civil
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  SPEAKER_00: rights of Jewish and Israeli people.
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  SPEAKER_00: Which is yet another escalation
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  SPEAKER_00: of the government's yearlong, attempts to sue Harvard.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this comes
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  SPEAKER_00: after they already sued UCLA on similar grounds in February.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then, a few days ago, the Trump administration
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  SPEAKER_00: said it's launched two more probes against Harvard University.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So this time it's the education department that said that its
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Civil Rights Office had opened two new investigations into Harvard
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  SPEAKER_00: amid allegations that it continues to discriminate against students
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  SPEAKER_00: on the basis of race, color and national origin.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then two days after that,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Trump administration has opened investigations
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  SPEAKER_00: into the admissions policy at three major medical schools.
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  SPEAKER_00: So this is kind of expanding the federal government's
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  SPEAKER_00: pressure campaign, beyond kind of campus culture
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  SPEAKER_00: and taking aim really at the heart of kind of science in the US.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the university, they're targeting Stanford, Ohio State
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  SPEAKER_00: and the University of California at San Diego.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Department of Justice has demanded that all three schools
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  SPEAKER_00: turn over extensive lists of data by April 24th,
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  SPEAKER_00: or risk losing essential federal funding.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of covers things this week.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: So again, all actions are on Trumpactiontracker.info
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  SPEAKER_00: and I'll be back in a week or so.