Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / The last two weeks in America: attacking enemies, corruption, and Rubio’s chilling speech

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The last two weeks in America: attacking enemies, corruption, and Rubio’s chilling speech · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So Hi.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: There is a lot packed into the last two weeks.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to concentrate on two themes in particular,
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: covering topics that haven't made the headlines as much.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: So first is the way that the
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: machinery of state continues to be turned against the president's opponents
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: and then corruption, before ending with some chilling words from Marco Rubio.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start with the Nobel Peace Prize.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: This year's Nobel Peace Prize went to Navi Pillay,
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  SPEAKER_00: a South African judge and human rights lawyer
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  SPEAKER_00: who is also a current judge on the International Criminal Court,
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  SPEAKER_00: specifically in its case
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  SPEAKER_00: determining whether Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya.
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  SPEAKER_00: Within hours of her
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  SPEAKER_00: winning, the Trump administration imposed fresh sanctions on that same court,
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  SPEAKER_00: the ICC, and Trump himself went after both the prize and Norway,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: where the Nobel Prize committee sits.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, note that the Norwegian government has no say in who is awarded
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: a Nobel Prize.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: But in a speech, Trump called the decision an indelible stain on Norway,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he posted that he should have won eight
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nobel Peace Prize himself for what he claims were eight wars
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: he had settled.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So now onto how Trump is attacking perceived enemies.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I'll start with what has happened to Ilhan Omar.
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  SPEAKER_00: So she's a Democratic congresswoman who came to America as a child,
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  SPEAKER_00: as a Somali refugee.
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  SPEAKER_00: And on the 12th of October, federal agents from Homeland Security searched her home
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  SPEAKER_00: under a warrant as part of a criminal investigation,
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  SPEAKER_00: reportedly into immigration paperwork filed by her father
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  SPEAKER_00: when she was still a child.
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  SPEAKER_00: Since then, it has all escalated.
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  SPEAKER_00: Federal authorities have seized her phone.
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  SPEAKER_00: They've issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas,
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  SPEAKER_00: including to some of her relatives.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the US attorney in Washington has confirmed a separate investigation
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  SPEAKER_00: that has started into her financial disclosures.
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  SPEAKER_00: The evidence behind all this remains very unclear.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is all happening in the three weeks
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  SPEAKER_00: before the midterm elections in which she's standing for reelection.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's even though the Justice Department has a long
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  SPEAKER_00: standing policy against enforcing cases that could look like
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: election interference.
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  SPEAKER_00: Omar says she's being targeted as a political enemy.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump has denied any involvement.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: But then he called her a disaster
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  SPEAKER_00: and said that she came from one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet.
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  SPEAKER_00: She is far from the only target.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Justice Department has also opened an antitrust investigation
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  SPEAKER_00: into five television networks: ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because they briefly withdrew together from white House press coverage in protest
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  SPEAKER_00: at the Trump administration barring CNN, MSNBC and Politico from the White House
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  SPEAKER_00: press pool.
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  SPEAKER_00: Press freedom groups say that using competition law in this way
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  SPEAKER_00: looks like a pretext
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  SPEAKER_00: to get hold of the network's records and to intimidate journalists.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of which, meanwhile, at a rally in Arizona.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Trump said that government sources
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  SPEAKER_00: who leak information about military plans to the press should be shot.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Also in the last two weeks,
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump has asked the Supreme Court to revive his old lawsuit against Hillary
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  SPEAKER_00: Clinton and others over the 2016 Russia investigation,
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  SPEAKER_00: which Trump claimed was a conspiracy to sabotage his campaign.
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  SPEAKER_00: His original lawsuit was dismissed in 2022 as legally baseless.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Trump has also set up a committee to investigate Lisa Cook,
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  SPEAKER_00: who's a governor on the Federal Reserve, over mortgage fraud allegations.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is just the latest round of a long campaign.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Cook is a Biden Appointee.
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  SPEAKER_00: And back in August last year,
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump tried to fire her outright over these mortgage fraud allegations,
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  SPEAKER_00: which she denies and over which no charges has ever been brought.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that was the first time that any president has tried to remove
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  SPEAKER_00: a Fed governor.
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  SPEAKER_00: The court stopped him, and in June, the Supreme Court
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  SPEAKER_00: ruled that she hadn't been given due process
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  SPEAKER_00: and let her stay in post while the courts decide whether the firing was lawful.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, this new committee of Trump appointees is set to hold
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  SPEAKER_00: a hearing on the 5th of November.
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  SPEAKER_00: And basically they want to try and supply the process that the Supreme Court
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: said was missing with the same goal of removing her.
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  SPEAKER_00: Cook has consistently voted against the cut in interest rate that Trump wants.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Trump has made no secret of wanting to bend the Fed to his will,
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  SPEAKER_00: going after Cook now and also attacking its former chair,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Jerome Powell, relentlessly over his same refusal to cut interest rates.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Disinformation is also part of the tactic.
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  SPEAKER_00: At a rally in Ohio, Trump again claimed with no evidence that Democrats
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: had cheated in Minnesota, which is a state that Kamala Harris won in 2024.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump attacked the Somali community there, saying that they come
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: from a place that, in his words, only knows how to kill each other.
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  SPEAKER_00: There was also a separate episode around a Texas Senate candidate, James Talarico,
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  SPEAKER_00: When Talarico missed campaign events because he had flu, Trump
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  SPEAKER_00: allies and conservative influencers spread a false rumor
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  SPEAKER_00: that he had been treated at a mental health facility.
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  SPEAKER_00: The rumor reached millions of people
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  SPEAKER_00: before the facility itself confirmed it had never treated him.
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  SPEAKER_00: One of the people who had pushed the rumor said it was worth publicizing
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  SPEAKER_00: whether it's true or not.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then the administration has been leaning on other governments to pull their support
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  SPEAKER_00: from a major European conference on tackling disinformation.
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  SPEAKER_00: According to The Guardian, Canada, Lithuania and the European
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  SPEAKER_00: Union's own diplomatic service all agreed to withdraw their sponsorship.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the Trump administration's attack on facts appears to be working.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: So now I want to talk about corruption, money and interests.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trump announced a new $6.6 billion shipbuilding factory in Baltimore.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nearly $3 billion of that is coming from the US Navy.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the factory will be owned by Anduril, which is a defense company
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  SPEAKER_00: run by Palmer Luckey, who is a Trump ally and a major Republican donor.
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  SPEAKER_00: And who, you may remember from my last video, was only just
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: put on the Pentagon panel looking at the future of warfare.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Trump said U.S.
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  SPEAKER_00: taxpayers would end up with a 40% stake in the business,
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  SPEAKER_00: although it's not as all clear how that would work in practice.
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  SPEAKER_00: Then Trump's own financial disclosures showed that he had bought
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: between 1 to $5 million worth of SpaceX bonds,
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  SPEAKER_00: just two days before he signed a new national space policy.
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  SPEAKER_00: One that stands to benefit SpaceX, which is, of course, Elon Musk's company.
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  SPEAKER_00: The White House says Trump's investments are managed independently,
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  SPEAKER_00: but he has not said whether
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: this particular purchase was automatic or who decided to make it.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And as we all know by now, Trump is building a large new ballroom at the White House.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And according to a Washington Post report, private donors
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  SPEAKER_00: have now put in around $333 million towards it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Nvidia and Apple each reportedly gave $25 million,
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  SPEAKER_00: and about half of the $333 million came from companies or their executives,
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  SPEAKER_00: whose firms hold federal contracts under the Trump administration.
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  SPEAKER_00: The White House will not confirm who the donors are.
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  SPEAKER_00: Finally, I want to end on the world view of the administration,
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  SPEAKER_00: as expressed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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  SPEAKER_00: While giving a speech in Athens, Rubio said the Trump administration had chosen,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I quote, the unapologetic pursuit of national power.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rubio rejected the idea that foreign policy should put the wider world
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  SPEAKER_00: ahead of national interest, and argued
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  SPEAKER_00: there was nothing wrong with the country putting itself first.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rubio, and presumably Trump, do not see America as working within a system
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  SPEAKER_00: of rules and allies, but an America pursuing its own power unapologetically.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They are telling us very plainly what they intend.
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  SPEAKER_00: So that's it for now.
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  SPEAKER_00: As ever, all of these actions and more are on
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  SPEAKER_00: TrumpActionTracker.info and I will be back in a week or two.