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00:00Trump. Trump elected on an America First agenda promising no more endless wars abroad.
00:05Ukraine was the scapegoat of this viewpoint, a war that Trump blames on his predecessor Joe Biden,
00:11never blaming his friend who started the war, Russia's Vladimir Putin.
00:15But no sooner was Trump installed as President No. 47 of the United States,
00:19his look was to matters abroad. Threats to annex Panama and then Canada,
00:24pulling out of international treaties such as the Paris Climate Accords,
00:27a military operation to capture the president of Venezuela. Greenland, the latest case of Trump's
00:33election promises veering strongly away from the script. Our report starts with Trump's words
00:38a year ago. Here's Eliza Herbert. On January 20th, 2025, Donald Trump promised a golden age for the
00:49United States. Then he got to work rewriting the world order. He withdrew the US from major global
01:02bodies, including the World Health Organization and UNESCO. He set his sights on claiming Panama
01:08and making Canada the 51st state of America. Then he launched his vision to solve the Israel-Hamas
01:15war in Gaza, dubbed the French Riviera of the Middle East, in a video created by artificial intelligence.
01:24Everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land,
01:30developing and creating thousands of jobs.
01:32When it came to Ukraine, a conflict he initially promised to resolve in 24 hours,
01:38the stalemate brought out his temper. During a White House press conference,
01:42he reprimanded President Volodymyr Zelensky.
01:45You've got to be more thankful, because let me tell you, you don't have the cards.
01:50Then further alienated European allies by meeting with the Russian president in Alaska.
01:55I've always had a fantastic relationship with President Putin, with Vladimir.
02:00And the consequences of US foreign policy were felt well beyond Europe. Despite promising
02:06no new wars, US military bombed Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Nigeria and Venezuela,
02:14and threatened Greenland, Mexico and Colombia. Countries that are now further on edge after
02:20the recent offensive in Caracas to seize Nicolas Maduro. What began with boat strikes in the Caribbean,
02:26under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking, now continues with the US openly claiming
02:32Venezuelan oil, leaving much of the international community apprehensive about what will come next.
02:38What was billed as an impromptu speech from the White House on this, his 12-month anniversary
02:47of being back in power. We know that things relating to presidential speeches are rarely impromptu,
02:54just unannounced in that sense. So this is Trump talking now for over an hour
02:58regarding his one-year anniversary in office. We'll dip back in as that becomes more interesting.
03:04To give us more about Trump and his style as president, Monty Francis has a forensic examination
03:12now of how Trump has reshaped the White House, not just in terms of ripping down the East Wing
03:16without planning permission to build a ballroom. Monty's got more on what Trump is doing and what
03:20effect it has going forward. So Monty, in this past year, Trump has in many ways fundamentally
03:25changed the role of president. Explain how.
03:28He really has. You know, before entering politics, Donald Trump was a real estate mogul, a CEO. I think
03:33that's really how he views his role as president here, a pyramid structure where decisions are made
03:38at the top and they filter down. The problem is that's not how the U.S. government is supposed
03:43to run. You know, as Americans were taught, there are three co-equal branches of government,
03:48the executive, legislative, and judicial. The founding fathers meant them to share power
03:53under a system of checks and balances. So what we've seen during this last year really is the
03:57elevation of the executive branch over the other two. And in some cases, the president's
04:02side-stepping or flat-out usurping the power of the other two branches. Let me just give you a
04:08couple of examples. Let's take Congress. So two years ago, Congress, on a bipartisan basis,
04:14passed a law to ban the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok in the U.S. It was signed
04:19into law by then-President Joe Biden. It was even challenged in court, and the Supreme Court
04:25upheld the ban. Now, despite that, Trump, by executive order, put the brakes on the ban. He refused to allow
04:30the Justice Department to enforce it. He kept delaying the ban until he could broker a deal.
04:36So the TikTok ban that was passed by Congress, signed by the president, upheld by the courts,
04:41never went into effect. So here you have an example of the executive branch essentially ignoring the
04:46decrees of the other two branches. Let me give you another example. You remember, of course,
04:50Elon Musk and his Department of so-called Government Efficiency, or DOGE. They were effectively
04:55dismantling entire agencies like USAID, the agency that provided millions of dollars in foreign aid
05:02across the globe, the education department, which is now just a shell of what it once was.
05:07Congress, not the president, has the power of the purse, as they say. That means it controls
05:11appropriations and spending. And yet we saw in this last year the executive branch reduce the federal
05:18workforce by 300,000 employees, either by firing them or offering them buyouts. Now, in addition to all
05:24those cuts, the Trump administration has also unilaterally decided not to spend money that
05:28Congress has allocated. That is something really unheard of in the modern area. And here's a look
05:33at some of that money. In the last year, it's estimated the Trump administration has frozen or
05:38canceled $410 billion in funding already appropriated by Congress. The majority of that is climate
05:44funding, or about $180 billion coming from the Inflation Reduction Act. Trump froze $45 billion
05:50from the IRS used to crack down on high-end payers who evade paying taxes, $100 billion in infrastructure
05:57projects, mostly in democratic cities and states, and $30 billion in aid. So slashing funding,
06:04canceling funding, basically doing away with entire agencies, not something that legally falls under
06:09the president's authority, but Trump has done exactly that. Trump has also sidelined Congress
06:15on issues relating to foreign policy. That's right. Whether we're talking about Venezuela or
06:20Greenland, Trump sees himself above international law. He said exactly this when he was speaking to
06:25the New York Times, you know, and when he was asked if there was anything that constrained his power
06:29on the world stage, we can show you the quote. He said, yeah, there is one thing, my own morality,
06:36my own mind. It is the only thing that can stop me. I don't need international law. So in the case of
06:42Venezuela, we see striking a foreign country, deposing its president, saying the U.S. is in
06:47charge. That's not only a violation of international law, according to most experts,
06:51it's something Trump did without the approval of Congress. In fact, Democratic lawmakers weren't
06:56even briefed by the White House in advance of the strike. Usually that happens, even though Trump
07:01said that he briefed oil executives in advance of that attack. I should also mention here that we've
07:07seen Trump asserting executive power in really an extraordinary way at home, militarizing
07:12Democratic states such as Minnesota, where ICE agents are there. Part of what the White House
07:17claims is a crackdown on illegal immigration. Indeed, use of the National Guard as well, I suppose,
07:21comes under that same remit, doesn't it? Or non-existent remit. Why hasn't Congress then stepped
07:27in to assert its power, or at least play its role? Tell us about that. That's the big question,
07:31because the Republican leadership in Congress, namely Mike Johnson in the House and John Thune in the
07:35Senate, have really across the board just deferred to Trump. We should say, you know, the Republicans
07:40have a razor-thin majority in both the House and the Senate. It would take only a handful of
07:45Republicans to stand up to Trump and keep him from doing some of these things, but we just haven't
07:50seen that happen. Now, that is despite the fact that according to opinion polls, Trump has lost the
07:54support of a majority of Americans. The latest average of polls tracked by the New York Times shows
08:00Trump, with 42% of Americans approving of the job he's doing, with 55% disapproving. Back in October,
08:08we saw the No Kings protest, you might remember, said to be the largest single-day demonstration
08:12in American history, 7 million people taking to the streets. Now, despite this public backlash,
08:17Trump remains the undisputed head of the Republicans. He wields tremendous power over the party. He's been
08:24very effective in taking down anyone who comes up against him. We saw this with Marjorie Taylor Greene,
08:29who was once a staunch supporter of Trump, and who broke with him over releasing the Epstein files,
08:35and she has since resigned from office, as we know. Indeed, you mentioned the E-word, Epstein.
08:39Speaking of those files, then another example of how the executive branch is defying Congress.
08:44Yes, Congress passed a law requiring the Justice Department to release millions of pages of the
08:48Epstein files. That deadline was back in December. We have yet to see those millions of pages.
08:53Could it be that there's something damaging about Donald Trump in those files? We don't know. We may
08:57we may never know. It's important to point out here that the Justice Department, which is usually seen
09:02as operating independently, now operates hand-in-hand with the White House, even carrying out
09:08the prosecutions of Trump's political enemies. Many of Trump's political foes are now facing or have
09:14faced criminal investigations. We can give you a look at just some of them, and this is not a complete
09:19list. Former FBI Director James Comey, Letitia James, the Attorney General of New York who successfully
09:24prosecuted Trump for fraud. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the mayor of Minneapolis, even Jerome Powell,
09:30the Fed chair, who Trump has been quite angry with for not lowering interest rates. So if there's a
09:36theme to this past year, I think you could argue that it's been about retribution, with Trump using
09:40the Justice Department to really go after people who thinks have wronged him in some way.
09:45And it makes me think about your opening remark about the separation of powers, how that has become a
09:51very blurred line. And that isn't good for justice or for democracy. Finally, Monty, and you could go
09:57on a lot longer, I know, because this is, it's detailed stuff and it's excellent. What about the
10:02courts then? Have they been able to restrict this expanding power of the executive? Well, let's start
10:06with the Supreme Court because there's a key ruling we're expecting to hear soon about whether Trump has
10:10the legal authority to impose tariffs, and that could have big ramifications. But over the past year,
10:15the Supreme Court really has enabled this expanding of executive power. That's because the conservative
10:20majority supports something called the unitary power of the executive. And Trump has really been
10:26on a winning streak when it comes to the Supreme Court. And we'll have to see what happens in this
10:30tariff case. He has had less luck with lower courts who have attempted to check his authority in several
10:35instances, notably in a case of deporting immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador. Trump has attacked
10:43judges who've ruled against him. He's called them on them to be impeached. And there are several
10:48examples of Trump, the Trump administration defying these lower court orders. In fact, the Washington
10:53Post did an analysis and found that the White House either defied or frustrated, that's the word
10:58they used, 35% or one in three of their rulings against it. So the White House says it has a legal
11:05rationale for this. But when you have an administration ignoring court rulings, experts say this points you
11:10toward what they call a constitutional crisis.
11:13Indeed. Can I just, I've just, one, this is a stupid question and maybe I'm just a dreamer, but
11:17the Supreme Court is supposed to be independent, is it not? I mean, we talk about a conservative
11:22majority, but aren't they supposed to be independent?
11:24They are. And you really aren't even supposed to talk about Trump judges and Biden judges and Bush
11:28judges and Obama judges. They are supposed to rule independently. But we've seen time and time again,
11:34you know, people saying that these decisions appear to be political.
11:37Monty Francis, thank you for that breakdown. Essential stuff. And thanks again.
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