00:00First, the U.S. President Donald Trump has given the lie to misleading stories about his health and indeed about his death
00:05by appearing live in Alabama in the last hour to confirm the relocation of U.S. Space Command to a place called Huntsville.
00:13It was his choice in his first mandate. It was reversed by Joe Biden, he said, a political decision.
00:19But nonetheless, Trump has decided to take this big project back to what is very much a Trump-supporting state.
00:27Here will be based on something called the Golden Dome, which is said to be a space-inspired Star Wars-style defense mechanism across the United States.
00:37Ruling the skies is something that the people gathered around him said is extremely important in defense.
00:43And of course, the people in Ukraine know about that extremely well.
00:46Since 2022, when Vladimir Putin invaded, they've been asking for help to close the skies over their country.
00:53Trump, as always, when he speaks, segues into different party political issues in terms of his own campaigning agenda
01:00and, of course, trying to state that he's done things better than everybody else.
01:04So let's hear Trump now talking off the cuff there about Ukraine.
01:09Have you spoken with President Putin in the past?
01:11Yeah, I don't want to. I have learned things that will be very interesting, I think, in the next few days, you'll find out.
01:18Will there be any consequences if there isn't some type of announcement of a meeting with President Putin and President Zelensky?
01:25And what could those consequences be?
01:26We're going to see what happens. We're going to see what they do and what happens.
01:29I'm watching it very closely.
01:30Last week, they lost 7,000. Between the two countries, 7,313 soldiers, to be somewhat exact, for no reason whatsoever.
01:42And they're Russian and they're Ukrainian, but, you know, they're soldiers.
01:46I want to see it end. Yeah.
01:48His figures may or may not be correct, but it's worth pointing out that it's his friend Vladimir Putin who started this conflict in Ukraine.
01:54And it is obviously something that Putin could control if he decided to stop and go back.
01:59But he continues with his bombardment of Ukrainian territory.
02:03And it is civilians that are very often the targets of what the Russians are doing there.
02:07Let's bring in Ian Reifovitz, the Sunni Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at Empire State University,
02:12which is part of the State University of New York system.
02:15He's author of Riling Up the Base, examining Trump's use of stereotypes through an interdisciplinary lens.
02:21It ends. Ian, as always, thanks for joining us here at France 24.
02:24We appreciate your time.
02:25We've just heard Trump doing what he does, I think, best.
02:30Freestyling, it seems, in many ways.
02:32Basically bamboozling the press call and most of the people listening by citing a number of different things,
02:37citing a number of numbers.
02:38Impossible to fact check in any way, shape or form.
02:41But in all of that, the overall thing is that he's the best at doing what he does.
02:46That's his agenda.
02:47Do you think people are starting to see through Trump in that way?
02:51What is your sense of the situation?
02:54Well, first, it's great to see you again, Mark.
02:57And, you know, one wonders when people will know or recognize that, you know, the emperor's wearing no clothes.
03:07If you want to ask whether it's happening, we can look at polling data.
03:11Trump's polling data is not great, but it is steady.
03:15It's steady.
03:17Depending on which polling average you look at, generally speaking, the, you know, the average of the polls has him roughly at about minus 10 in terms of disapproval versus approval.
03:29With an approval rating in the low 40s and a disapproval rating in the low 50s, about 10 points higher.
03:34That hasn't budged much in the last couple of months.
03:38It's not a great rating.
03:39It's, in fact, the worst rating at this point, you know, six, seven months into a presidency.
03:44It's worse than any president except Trump's first term.
03:48Biden, Obama, other recent presidents have all had a stronger rating.
03:51But I don't know that there's been a significant shift recently.
03:57Maybe that's just because people know what they're getting with this president.
04:02They've been watching him certainly since he entered national politics in 2015.
04:07But they've arguably been watching him since he became a New York tabloid figure.
04:11And that's, gosh, it's almost 40 years ago right now.
04:14And so, to some degree, if he's going to continue to act the way he always has, I don't know that he can do much to change people's perception of him just based on his sort of performance.
04:25Now, if we see a real and new level of mental decline, then I think that could change things.
04:32But we haven't seen enough yet, I think, to shift opinion on that front significantly.
04:38Indeed.
04:39Health rumors, fake news.
04:41That's what our caption is saying.
04:42That's what Trump said.
04:43And, of course, he's appearing in public, looking like he's across what he's talking about and looking relatively healthy.
04:50He's an old man.
04:51And that's something that comes to all of us in some way, shape or form.
04:54So, you know, we must accept that time moves on.
04:58However, the rumors surrounding Trump clearly might have had a malicious motivation.
05:03Let's set that to one side.
05:05In terms of what he's saying about the space project, now, this is quite interesting, isn't it?
05:08Because this is creating something that I recall many, many years ago, the sort of Star Wars, Star Treaty kind of, the whole project which was set up this idea of setting off rockets in space to stop nuclear weapons firing across the globe.
05:23It sort of seems like it's going back to that kind of idea.
05:26It also echoes, in some ways, Israel's Iron Dome defense system, too, the same kind of project.
05:32So this essentially is going to be based in Alabama, which is their great gain.
05:37But, of course, it's Colorado's great loss.
05:39And perhaps no coincidence that one that loses out is a Democratic state and the one that gains is a Republican state.
05:44No coincidence.
05:48No, not at all.
05:49Look, there was a review done earlier this year, and it came back by the Trump administration, and it came back with an inconclusive finding as to whether the national security was enhanced by having the space command in one place or the other.
06:08That's not what he said, is it?
06:09He said there were four different inquiries.
06:13That's what he said.
06:13He said four.
06:14He cited four, you know?
06:16You know, tomorrow he might say five.
06:19But I think the larger point is even if you take his official report, his administration's official report at face value, if there's inconclusive benefits, why would you invest the, I don't know, tens of millions or millions of dollars at least to move the location from one to another for an inconclusive benefit?
06:39So even if you take the Trump administration's report at face value, it still doesn't make a lot of sense, but it goes back to what you said.
06:46You have Colorado, which is a blue state, which voted against Trump in the presidential election in 2016, 2020, 2024, versus Alabama, which is almost as red a state as it gets and which has been very solid behind Trump.
07:01But unlike Joe Biden, who made a specific point of putting projects from his infrastructure bill, from the Chips and Science Act into red areas, red states, red counties, Trump does the opposite.
07:14Biden did that hoping that because these were good projects for America, that the Republican representatives in these areas would fight to keep them.
07:23Trump doesn't even look at it that way.
07:24He just says, well, I'm going to reward my friends and punish my enemies.
07:26And the interests of America, well, you know, the interests of America are whatever is in my interest as Trump.
07:35And so, therefore, that's why this makes sense from a national interest perspective, if you view national interests as being solely equal to the interests politically of Trump.
07:45Ian, one of the journalists in Alabama put the question about the use of the National Guard.
07:49Clearly, we've seen the National Guard deployed in Los Angeles and New York, talk about it happening in Chicago, even talk about, from one of the journalists, the suggestion of why not put a guardsman in each school to prevent things like the recent Minneapolis shooting.
08:04Now, if you think about all the horrific things that have happened with guns in schools over the years in the U.S., perhaps there might be a point in that some way, shape or form.
08:12But it's the use of the National Guard, a kind of overruling of local authority, which has got many people worried about Trump's overall aim.
08:21Right. Well, there's something called the Posse Comitatus Act, which was passed in immediate post-Civil War years, which bans the use of federal troops for domestic law enforcement capacity.
08:34And the domestic law enforcement capacity. There was a ruling by a court today that said that the use of the National Guard in Los Angeles recently by this president was illegal, was unconstitutional.
08:49We'll see how that plays out as it goes to the upper court.
08:51So at the end of the day, what it comes down to is, will the Supreme Court act as a check on this president's incredibly expansive claims of his presidential authority?
09:04They haven't acted as much of a check as yet.
09:08We'll see how it goes on an issue by issue basis, whether it's on the National Guard in cities, whether it's on tariffs.
09:14This president wants to push the boundaries.
09:17He wants to claim, essentially, that if he thinks it's necessary to do something, it should be allowed for him to do it.
09:25We have a constitution that says otherwise, but only if the people in the Supreme Court are willing to make that statement and, like I say, check his authority.
09:35Indeed, that opens a whole other chapter that sadly we don't have time for, Ian.
09:38But as always, pleasure speaking with you, Ian Reifovitz, Sunni Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies at Empire State University, which is part of the State University of New York system, and author of The Riling Up of the Base, examining Trump's use of stereotypes through an interdisciplinary lens.
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