'Ask for the impossible" Are Trump's 'wild ambitions' simply a negotiation tactic to "raise political stakes" with allies?

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00:00Let's get some analysis on this now. Richard Johnson, US politics lecturer at Queen Mary

00:05University joins us now from London. Good to have you with us, Richard. So expecting

00:10Wang Ma-chan to issue an unconditional discharge in the sentencing for Trump today. Just explain

00:17to us what that means exactly.

00:19What that means is that the state of New York has determined that it's not in the interest

00:23of the state to incarcerate the felon. But this is not an overturning of the jury's decision.

00:32Trump will remain a felon. Being a felon carries certain penalties. It would restrict Trump

00:40from ever serving on a jury in the state of New York. It could restrict his access if

00:46he wanted to buy a firearm and actually could also restrict his travel. Now, this was a

00:53particularly curious one because Trump is not the first president to have a criminal

00:58record. George W. Bush had a criminal record. But for a misdemeanor, he had pled guilty

01:03to drunken driving back in the 1970s. And when Bush was elected, there was some discussion

01:08that he was applying for waivers to gain visa free access to travel to Canada. Now, I'm

01:15not sure how serious that ended up being, whether Canada would have looked into that.

01:19But when you travel abroad and you get visa waivers to certain countries that are friendly

01:24to the United States, you have to declare on that that you don't have a criminal record.

01:29And Donald Trump, of course, would have to declare that he was a felon, which would complicate

01:36that. So we'll have to see in practice whether that means anything. But Trump remains a felon,

01:42even if he does get this unconditional discharge.

01:46Yeah, Trump very much not going off scot-free here. Richard, we saw from that Supreme Court

01:52ruling that two conservative justices sided with liberal justices to go ahead with that

02:00sentencing from Wang Man-shan today. The fact that that happened does go some way to show

02:05that nobody is above the law, doesn't it?

02:09Well, yes. I mean, the Supreme Court is a court that is strongly shaped by the ideological

02:17interpretations that the justices apply to the Constitution. And that tends to align quite

02:23strongly with the party of the president who appointed them. But I think it isn't accurate

02:29to say that the Supreme Court members are purely partisans in robes. That is to say that

02:35they act purely on the basis of what the interest of the party is that appoints them.

02:40Some might form judgments that are closer to that than others. But basically, once you're on

02:46the Supreme Court, you're there for life. And it's extremely rare in American history for

02:54Congress to remove a member of the court. They have to go through the impeachment process,

02:58which would require two thirds consensus in the Senate, which would be unlikely to be found

03:02for a particular judge on the basis of their political leaning. So in a sense, they are much

03:07more insulated and protected from partisan punishment, say, in the way that a member of

03:14Congress is. If they step out of line against Trump, they could lose a primary election.

03:19Well, that isn't something that Supreme Court justices have to think about. So they do exercise

03:24greater independence from the party that put them into office than I think sometimes people expect.

03:31And Trump has recently claimed that Wan Malshan is trying to embarrass him. Do you think that

03:36this is an embarrassment for Trump? How embarrassing is this for him?

03:42Of course, it is embarrassing for, I think, anyone to have a criminal conviction,

03:49particularly given the circumstances of this criminal conviction, which are rooted in

03:55allegations about marital infidelity that Trump denies. But of course, that's not quite what the

04:03jury came to believe. Whether this has larger political ramifications, I'm less sure. I don't

04:13think that Trump supporters have shown that they are particularly moved by this in any way. Trump

04:20claims that this is lawfare against him, that this is a stitch up, have been received quite

04:27well by Republican voters. And so I think this is another example of how the United States is

04:34such a strongly divided country at the moment, and that people interpret the events around them

04:41through a partisan lens. And so Democrats will look at this and it will confirm to them that

04:47they view judges on suited character to be president of the United States. And Republicans

04:52will look at this and see Democratic elected prosecutors moving against a president they

04:58didn't like in a jurisdiction that's heavily Democratic. And at the end of the day,

05:03I think in terms of the political ramifications, it'll be a bit of a wash.

05:08And of course, Richard, this wasn't the only case against Trump. It's the only one to have

05:12reached a conclusion now. Tell us how unprecedented it is for Trump to now be

05:16returning to the White House after effectively defying four criminal cases. Well, it is remarkable

05:25how Trump has been able to navigate the legal jeopardy that he faced. Of course, running for

05:31president did provide him with a degree of protection because at the very least, his

05:38presidential campaigns caused the different courts to delay proceedings in some matters.

05:46But also Trump was strongly helped by the intervention of the Supreme Court in the

05:50summer and the Trump v. United States case, which said that the president is immune,

05:55not just this president, any president is immune from prosecution for official acts that they

06:01conducted as president. Now, this particular New York case is of a different character because this

06:07refers to actions that were alleged and found to have taken place in the 2016 presidential election

06:14before Trump was elected president. But the actions say relating to the 6th of January 2021

06:22and so on, these pertain to when Trump was president and the Supreme Court has given him

06:27immunity. That is quite extraordinary. Now, what I would say on the other side is, of course,

06:31Joe Biden may be grateful for that Supreme Court case in the coming months and years, as it does

06:38protect him from legal lawfare or actions taken against him by Republican prosecutors who may be

06:48unhappy with the things that he did when he was president. And finally, Richard, I did want to

06:53get your thoughts on this so-called expansionist agenda that Trump has been pushing in recent days,

06:58talking about taking over Greenland, absorbing Canada. Tell us your thoughts on this agenda that

07:07he's been pushing. Well, I think in many ways, this is classic Trump negotiation tactics. Trump

07:14has known throughout his business career, this long predates his political career, that you ask

07:21for the impossible and then you might get more than you ever bargained that you would plausibly

07:26have gotten otherwise. And I look at the wild ambitions of Trump with respect to Greenland or

07:36Panama or Canada, and I think few expect that any of those will become territories of the United

07:44States. But what it has done is, A, it's headline grabbing. So it has brought attention to certain

07:53issues that Trump cares deeply about, whether that's trade or competition in the case of China,

08:00or competition with China in the case of the Panama Canal, or U.S. strategic defense in the

08:07case of Greenland. And secondly, what it's done, I suppose, is it has put pressure on the respective

08:14governments that are in charge of those territories to consider how or to raise the

08:22political stakes against them, should they not take action in a direction closer to what Trump

08:27wants to take. You know, Trump could have said to Denmark, I want you to increase your defense

08:32spending. And maybe Denmark would have. But if Trump says, well, if you don't increase your

08:36defense spending, we're going to take Greenland. Well, it's not likely that Trump would take

08:41Greenland, but it shows to Denmark how serious, how important this issue is to Trump. And it may

08:47cause them to move a bit more in the direction of Trump or that Trump wants to see them.

08:52Richard Johnson, U.S. politics lecturer,

08:54thanks so much for joining us. Really good to get your insight there.

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