Global News Podcast - President Trump: Your questions answered

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

Our BBC North America correspondents answer your questions about President Donald Trump's first week in office, and his future plans for the United States.

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Somewhere, when we weren't looking, it's like busyness became a way of life. Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life, available to purchase wherever you get your audio books. You're listening to a special edition of the Global News Podcast. books. with BBC News, based in Washington. And we're going to be answering your questions about Donald Trump's first week back in office as President of the United States of America. And thank you for all the questions you sent in. We'll start as Donald Trump did himself,

straight after his inauguration, with the blizzard of executive orders he signed, a record 26 on day one. So here are two questions from Alejandra in Chile. Hello BBC. I want to know how enforceable, what is the real weight of the executive orders? Can they just be implemented or do they have to go through Congress? And the second one is about the Inflation Reduction Act. How feasible is it that it be dismantled? I suppose first of all, we should ask, what is an executive order, Gary?

So an executive order covers a whole range of things from proclamations, just things the president thinks is true, right through to directions of the federal government to do certain things, right through to things that have constitutional implications. So all these ones he's issued are right across that gamut. You said dozens and then you're right and it compares to his first term when I think there was just four in the first five days.

And Katrina, the Inflation Reduction Act, is that something that's going to be easy to dismantle? There's a mixed answer to this one. Fundamentally, it's not easy to dismantle because it's a piece of legislation and the only way you could truly get rid of it or undo every aspect of it would be by further legislation coming through Congress. However, what the president can do is he can slow down some of the provisions of it. He can put them on ice indefinitely. We've already seen in fact President Trump signing one of these executive orders that pauses the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act and another one called the bipartisan

infrastructure law. So that's what he can do. He can slow it down, he can't get rid of it totally and some of the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act that were already in force and already up and running, he can't undo those at this point. Yeah, he could fall foul of something called the Empoundment Control Act, which is effectively Congress spends money in the US Constitution. It has the power of the purse, as they say. Presidents can hold up money being directed, but they can't really stop it as they can't really raise it without agreement of Congress. And that's one of those things that's going to be challenged in court. Certainly that 370 million odd that he's stopped

in the from the infrastructure spending that's going to be challenged. Well he certainly signalled that he wants to get on with things and we had this question, no name attached to it, about three of the issues that Donald Trump campaigned on. Besides immigration and economy, one of the other big things on my radar with Trump was taking down the quote unquote deep state, what Trump calls the deep state. Ridding the CIA and FBI of partisans. He's done a little bit on censorship, but I still worry that's not enough. And then talk about the common worker. I don't know, even like the VP Vance was talking a lot about getting wages up and stuff. I'm like, good luck doing that.

So where's some of that gone? Okay. So there's a lot in this question. We'd probably need a whole two hours to go through everything that Donald Trump has done so far. But just on the issue of the FBI and the CIA, obviously we saw the former FBI director Christopher Ray resign before Donald Trump took office. Basically Donald Trump had said he would fire him if he didn't. We've seen the Department of Justice workers who were involved in the

investigation into those federal charges against Donald Trump in terms of election interference, working with Jack Smith. They've been let go. We've also seen the Inspector Generals fired as well. They are supposedly independent officers who are established under the Inspector General Act of 1978 and they're independent and objective units who basically make sure that each federal agency sticks to their mission. So they've all been fired and the expectation is that they'll be replaced by individuals who are loyal to President Trump. So it's a sort of watch this space on that when you're talking about deep state as a term. Obviously that's quite a subjective viewpoint but it is something that we had heard Donald

Trump talk a lot about on the campaign trail. So on the censorship thing that's quite interesting because Silicon Valley has already started to do some of that work for him. So conservatives would complain that their views were being marginalized on social media and things like that. Well, Elon Musk controls X, so that's okay for conservatives now. Facebook has stopped fact checking, so that's much more of a, what they would describe as a free speech environment, First Amendment environment. So some of this stuff that was, you know, censorship based as already being done and on the common worker well You know one of the things that won Donald Trump the election was his talk about inflation

and that was what damaged Joe Biden right back in 2022 when it went through the roof and Ironically, that's one of the things Donald Trump has done least about in his first week There's been one kind of directive that says to federal departments, try and do what you can to get prices down. Well, yeah, sure. So let's see how that translates into the price of eggs in the shops, which I know is something you care about, Oliver.

Yeah, I mean, very interesting the way that eggs have been going up despite what Donald Trump promised before the election. All of it. I mean, eggs, bread, milk, I mean, the real sort of basics. And while the increases are slower than they were, prices haven't come down. Just on eggs as well, there is a secondary issue there, which is that avian flu has been detected in parts of the US. So actually a huge number of chickens and hens and poultry have been slaughtered because of that.

So there is in actual fact a shortage of eggs. I just even know myself, Gary I'm sure you're the same, going to the supermarket in recent weeks, sometimes there are no eggs on the shelf at all. And it used to be the case that they were there, but they were extremely expensive, sometimes $10 for a dozen eggs. But now you just can't get eggs at all often.

Well, let's get to two more questions, which I think relate to executive orders. I am Sachin Ananda from India. I would like to request Honorable President Donald Trump to introduce the following criminal and social reforms. They're abolishing death penalty and eradicating violence against the black people by the American police department. Hi, I'm Maurizio from London and I wish to ask what will be the Trump policy about military

personnel, especially about gender. Thank you. Certainly on the death penalty, I think that's fairly straightforward, Gary. There's no chance of Donald Trump abolishing the federal death penalty. He doesn't have control over individual states and their decisions, but a lot of states don't have the death penalty, bear in mind. But the federal death penalty for federal capital crimes, he has decided to end. There was a moratorium on executions on that, that was instituted by the Biden administration.

Donald Trump did execute I think around a dozen or 13 people on death row during his first administration. That was the most any president done for absolutely years. However, Joe Biden did commute most of those death sentences of federal capital crimes, people that were on death row in December. 37 out of the 40 people who were on death row, he left three behind. One is Zaniyev, who's the Boston bomber, the Boston Marathon bomber, he's still on death row. The other one is Dylan Roof, who murdered a group of black worshippers in a church in

South Carolina 10 years ago, after having sat through the prayer service with them. And the third one is Robert Bowers who was the man who murdered the worshippers in the synagogue in Pittsburgh back in 2018 I think. And Katrina I think we saw a raft of orders about the military just last night on Monday. Indeed President Trump signed four executive orders which were focused on reshaping the US military. One of them was about developing an American iron dome similar to the one used by Israel in the Middle East. But in terms of the ones that relate to gender, as the questioner has asked there, he signed one banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the military, so-called DEI, and he's done similar things in other federal agencies

over the past week. So that basically removes the use of race or sex-based preferences in the armed forces, something there'd been much debate over for a couple of years now really in terms of the US military and the debate comes up around readiness of the armed forces and capabilities and so on. Another executive order that he signed tasks officials in the military with coming up with a policy on transgender troops. Now the action doesn't immediately ban transgender service members, which was something that President Trump did in his first term. But there's a lot of detail not in these executive orders as there are with many of President

Trump's executive orders where he's ordering reviews or he's passing it back down to the agency or the department to kind of figure out as to how they'll be implemented. So in terms of transgender service members, there are 14,000 active military transgender service members at the moment. It's about 0.8% of the entire force. So it's unclear whether this order would mean they can no longer be in certain jobs in the military, whether they have to be discharged totally. So as you can imagine, this is causing a lot of upset. So also worth saying, I think that, bear in mind,

he's also signed a more general executive order saying, all federal agencies will only recognize that there are two genders, men and women, that's it. And the DEI thing, it's having a sort of broader impact in the private sector as well. So you're starting to see some big big companies like the Walmart's and the targets and other people starting to wrap up their DEI programs so it's not just going to be restricted to the federal government the knock-on effect

is going to be much much wider. Well in a way I think you might have helped address this next question. Hello my name is Federico I'm from Italy and I would like to ask you how far do you think that the dismantling of civil rights by Donald Trump's policies can go? As a LGBTQIA plus person, I'm very concerned about the impact that Donald Trump can have not only in the United States, but also in other Western countries. I think this is really interesting because there's a feeling in the US and there was a feeling in Britain as well. For example, when gay marriage was legalized, there was a feeling that the clock cannot be turned back from big social changes like that.

You know, that it's then engrainedrained no one revisits it and I wonder if there's a sense in which we might have been wrong about that that these sorts of things could could be turned back. Katrina what do you think? Well I would just say first of all that President Trump and his supporters do not see these moves as dismantling civil rights they actually argue that it's a restoration of civil rights that they say false equivalencies have been created by these DEI policies and if you read some of the executive orders that's the language that's in there that this is about restoring civil rights and restoring what he calls a meritocracy. I do think on the second part of that question, when Federico asks, you know, could this sort of

spread into other countries as well? I think there is a risk in that because whatever the United States does is often copied in other countries. And in particular, a lot of these big private sector companies, big multinationals obviously have operations in many other countries as well and they tend to have broad sweeping policies that stretch right around the world. But again there's not a lot of detail in some of these executive orders as to whether some of the instructions from President Trump will result in the removal of people from office and what that means for their salary what that means for their employment rights.

Well Sunil from India had this question about President Trump. What are his policies for persons with disabilities? I myself am a person with blindness and would like to know more about what he thinks and would be doing for the people in US or maybe throughout the world. Thanks a lot for this podcast. Gary, as our listeners may know, you're blind. How accommodating is the US for people with disabilities and what's the Trump administration's attitude to that?

Well, that's two questions. So the US was the first country really to pass civil rights legislation for disabled people back in 1990 signed into law of course by a republican president What's donald trump's attitude? I have no idea whatsoever I mean the only instance I can ever remember him sort of alluding to disability was when he imitated the sort of slightly Difficult walk of a new york times reporter who has a disability So I I have no idea and I don't suppose they've thought about it very hard. However, it is true that disabled people will be swept up

into the consequences of all these changes to DEI programs because they're not just about race and gender, they're about disability as well. So that unemployment rate among disabled, certainly among blind people, which is seven out of ten across the Western world unemployed of working age, which has been a hard nut to crack for governments of all flavours in all countries, that's probably not getting any better under Donald Trump. And you were telling me you may have got an indication of his attitude with regard to Trump Tower.

Well there was a story about when Trump Tower was built and I think it was an architect who wrote a book about the process. I think this was right at the time and when they were designing the lifts apparently she said to Donald Trump, well the law says you've got to have braille numbers by the buttons and he said no blind people are going to live in Trump Tower, don't worry about that. You're listening to a special edition of the Global News podcast. We had an email from someone who works at the International Rescue Committee in the US who wished to remain anonymous. This person said, many of us are feeling unstable in our jobs. Many of our refugee and asylum

clients are scared of being deported. What do you think will happen to the resettlement agencies who built entire careers on the US refugee programmes? Will they be able to withstand this presidency? There is a ban on refugees coming into the country now, an indefinite ban. And there's also a separate ban on grants, federal grants, a complete freezing of grants and loans which will affect those organizations that do resettlement. That's a sort of 90-day thing they do with refugees who come into the country. So I think the listener is right to be concerned about that. Stephen Miller, who is one of the most influential people in

the White House, this is one of his big areas, immigration, refugee status, asylum. This is something he's been working on for the last four years while they've been out of power. So I'm afraid, I do think, you know, there's going to be consequences for people that do this all around the country looking after refugees. And we've seen it come into force straight away with the couple of thousand Afghan refugees who had appointments, who had flights booked, who were ready to travel to the US. These are people who had helped out the US military in Afghanistan, many of whom their lives were

now at risk under Taliban rule for having done that. And they're now in limbo essentially with these executive orders that President Trump has signed. So they're now in limbo, essentially, with these executive orders that President Trump has signed. So there is concern in many quarters about the fate of those individuals and for anyone coming behind them. And this is something that came into force immediately. And there is great concern in the NGO sector as well as to whether these agencies and these programs will be stood up again. These are pauses again, subject to review that President Trump has ordered. But it's unclear as to what will happen beyond that. Well, that seems a good moment to look at the impact of Donald Trump's second presidency on the rest of the world.

Hello, my name is Juan Ignacio Olivares and I am from Argentina. And I wanted to ask if you think that is there any particular country that is going to be benefitted from the assumption of Donald Trump and how do you think that the foreign relationship is going to be reshaped during his government? I'm tempted to say any country that does what they're told. But maybe that's a bit cheeky. But yeah, this is, I mean, the word transactional is used a lot. And that is definitely what Donald Trump is doing.

He's not the first foreign leader or president or leader of any country to take a transactional approach. But he is the most powerful leader in the world at the moment. And therefore it means something and so you're You're getting into an era where? rules based international relations Norms things like that were carried sway now you're getting to an era where you know

this is about deals and about the national purely the national interest about Perhaps pulling up the drawbridge a bit, unless people, you know, want to do something that's strictly beneficial to the U.S. And that is that is what America first is all about. And I think we've seen that already, even before Donald Trump assumed office for the second time with his involvement in the Middle East ceasefire deal. That sort of harsher, brasher language then we had had from President Biden and indeed had become accustomed to from diplomats all around the world. And credit has been given to him for that intervention

from President Biden amongst others, that it sort of took that different type of speech and different type of approach to get that deal over the line. And, you know, to build on Gary's point there, he does use threats as a way of getting things for America, as is his right as the American president. All countries are essentially self-interested. That's what they do. The question is to how much President Trump is concerned.

Is it America first and the rest of the world second or America first and I don't really care about the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to trade and the dangling of the threat of tariffs being imposed on foreign governments. I mean, we heard him enunciate that in a very clear way in his speech at Davos last week. Basically, come and build your products in America or face the consequences. We saw over the weekend when he was deporting migrants from Colombia, sending them to Colombia, the Colombian president refused to take them. And then it was President Trump saying, right, okay, well, face tariffs then if you don't

take your people back. And, you know, there was a lot of technical issues there about how they were being transported in military planes and so on that the Colombians didn't like. But ultimately, they were able to come to an arrangement to receive these individuals back. And Donald Trump took away the threat of tariffs. So he has a very different way of doing business. He approaches this as he is the CEO of a big company and as he has done business over all the decades of his professional life. You know, as Gary says, it is transactional. It is the art of the deal. It is about doing whatever he has to do to get what he perceives to be best for America.

Well, talking about toughness, Jeff from New Zealand has what he calls a tongue-in-cheek question. If Trump decided to take Greenland by force, wouldn't he be obliged to also defend Greenland from US forces under the NATO Treaty? Well, I think he's probably obliged to defend Greenland whether or not he owns it or not, because it's, you know, part of Denmark, which is a NATO member. So I yeah I don't really know I mean don't forget Donald Trump has already raised the prospect of not coming to European countries aid if they were attacked by Russia. He's already dangled that idea of reneging on Article 5 obligations as they're called under the NATO treaty. So he seems

prepared to disrupt in that way in a fairly radical sense and the irony of course is the only time Article 5 has ever been invoked was after September 11th. And I think if President Trump decided to take Greenland by force defending Greenland from US forces would be the least of his worries because that would be viewed as a direct attack on Denmark. So we'd be into a much more serious international situation. It would be pretty rapid. There's only 57,000 people on, I shouldn't laugh at Greenland, and it's, although I did read something that said that New York restaurateurs would be very happy

because the sort of deep water fish that could be caught and flown to New York restaurants in four hours would please their diners a lot. Well going on to another near neighbour. Emilio in London has a query about Donald Trump's decision to designate Mexican cartels as terrorist organisations. Emilio says how might this change policies, security strategies and socio-economic relations in both the US and Mexico? Well, this is one of the executive orders that President Trump has signed that we haven't

heard quite as much pushback and reaction to at this point. And this executive order designating these cartels as terrorist organizations is intended to apply maximum pressure on Mexico to rein in the drug trade and basically it gives more power to various branches of the US government to impose economic penalties, travel restrictions and potentially even to take military action and it can lead to severe penalties, fines, criminal charges and so on. The flip side of that is that some companies, US companies and others, could get caught up unwittingly in being

accused of being part of supporting a terrorist organization doing very innocent things like importing avocados if it's found that cartel members had some involvement in how the avocados were picked or transported a company importing them in the US could find themselves on the wrong side of the law. So there are some very specific and potential penalties here. Banks as well could find themselves in a difficult situation if they have accounts with individuals in good faith and it turns out that that individual has some connection to a

cartel now designated as a terrorist organization. So again the devil is in the detail with many of these executive orders and we have to see how they'll play out. The problem with this of course is that the cartels don't just do drugs. They're involved in all parts of the Mexican economy. The connections between the US economy and Mexican economy are huge. The trading goods across the border is massive. And so this could have a real chilling effect on US businesses who think it's just too risky. We have no idea of finding out whether this group or this company or this factory has any connection to Ocato.

So we better not do it. And then also there's this question of Mexican migrant workers who come into Texas and other places like that, seasonally, and send money back home. That's billions of dollars a year apparently, billions and billions of dollars a year in remittances. Now the companies that organise those remittances, the Paypal's or the western unions, you know, do they know where that money's being wired back to? Do they know that that person is being wired back to doesn't have some connection with a cartel? So all these things could really sort of clog up the free flow of money and trade and business

across the border, which is advantageous to both countries. So the implications are huge on this one. Other administrations have thought about it before and thought, too complicated. And of course there are existing laws, which means if you start doing business with these cartels, then your assets can be seized. It's not that there's nothing on the statute book for this, but this is much, much broader. Next we have some questions on Ukraine. Hello guys, this is Daniel from Mexico. This is much, much broader. Next, we have some questions on Ukraine. Hello guys, this is Daniel from Mexico.

There's conversations about which country is going to take the lead if the US stops giving so much support to Ukraine. So what am I missing? What is the human context that is key to understand why this is such a pivotal point in the relationships between European countries? Thank you. And we got this from a YouTuber called Polemicist who's curious about President Trump's effort to force Russia to end the war in Ukraine by getting OPEC to cut oil prices. Polemicist wonders if lowering oil prices might actually help tackle Russia's 9% inflation rate. How would lowering the prices of gas and oil for these Russian producers, actually for every Russian really, end the war more quickly if it relieves the pressure that these Russian people are feeling from inflation caused by the war? Well, first of all, in answer to your question, Daniel, I suppose Europe is so concerned because

of fears that Russia may not stop at Ukraine and move on to other countries perhaps and of course all the death and destruction that's occurring on European soil. But perhaps Gary and Katrina, who are US experts, can talk about President Trump's position on the war in Ukraine. I mean he promised to end the war in Ukraine on day one. That hasn't happened obviously. He believes there has to be a negotiated settlement as I think most people do. What that looks like and how it's brought about we're not yet clear on and he's not yet made it clear how he plans to do that. His oil obsession is interesting I think because wanting to bring the price of oil down and putting

pressure on OPEC it's difficult to see how that you know would influence the the outcome in Ukraine. But what it would definitely do is make drilling in the US in certain places less viable. He wants people to drill baby drill. Well if the oil price is cheaper then it becomes less economic to do it in difficult places in West Texas or Alaska or wherever. So I'm not quite sure whether he's thought that one absolutely through. But the question of ending the war in Ukraine is, you know, we still just don't

know what his plan is on that. I would just add that having spoken to some experts in the oil fields and in natural resources, the idea about lowering the OPEC price is designed to target President Putin's coffers essentially. So if he can't sell his oil for as much, he has less in his war chest ergo, he has less money available to fund the invasion in Ukraine. And that that would put some kind of pressure on President Putin. Again, there are questions about that approach because President Putin has a fairly deep war chest and it's ideological his push into Ukraine. And we know he's getting support from North Korea and elsewhere at this point. And I think, you know, one of the questioners there was asking about how

much does the U S care with Ukraine, about Ukraine and so on. asking about how much does the US care about Ukraine and so on. And I think that's a good question in terms of future funding and support for Ukraine under President Trump and this new Congress. We saw how difficult it was to agree funding for Ukraine last year and many voters on the campaign trail travelling around, I noticed, and Gary, I'm sure you read the same, were also questioning that level of support when so many Americans are struggling with the price of groceries, the price of housing, other benefits, and they don't understand why so much American money goes to support Ukraine.

And so I think that's just a watch point people have in the back of their mind in terms of continued support for Ukraine. That also is motivating President Trump to try and want to get a deal done because he wants to cut those financial ties and not have US money employed in other countries and helping other defense moves. So, you know, I think it's just, it's a very complicated relationship. And obviously we heard from president Trump last week saying he wants to meet president Putin as soon as possible.

President Putin responded saying he was open to having discussions described to Donald Trump as a smart man and President Trump's envoy to Ukraine, General Keith Kellogg, he has been talking about this 90-day period kind of taking us up into the middle of May that there might be a deal done. So we're watching for a meeting between President Trump and President Putin before that time. Well on the subject of economic pressure from the US, we have this question. Hello, I am Frédéric from Paris, France. Is it likely that the EU and UK will be the victims of Trump's tariff policy against China?

Well, Frédéric's concerned that Chinese products could be redirected to European markets, possibly increasing unemployment in Europe. But I guess tariffs could have many unforeseen impacts. Yeah, this is the thing about tariffs. I mean, Donald Trump has described tariffs as the most beautiful word in the English language. And he was speaking last week about his quest to be considered the tariff king. But of course, imposing tariffs on another country really raises the possibility of that other country retaliating and imposing tariffs on you. So you get into a situation where ultimately it's the American consumer who could pay the price for any sort of trade war or tariff war. And he targeted the EU quite specifically in a few comments last week. I mean, we've heard him talk about China.

Often we've heard him talk about imposing a 25% tariff on Mexico and Canada from the 1st of February. But he really headed in the direction of the EU last week. And that's a complicated one. And if you take the issue of cars, for for example many European companies make cars in America hiring American workers using American materials but some of the parts for those cars come from Europe to the American factory and then those cars are sold back to Europe so you have a potential for things getting incredibly expensive quite quickly if tariffs are layered upon each part of something like a car. And ultimately, that will be the consumer that pays the price there.

The one thing about the EU is also worth bearing in mind is the EU is a market of 450 million people. It's a big old market. It's not going to be as easy as he would like to push Europe around as it was to push Colombia around. And so I'm sure they will come to some accommodation because American companies do want access to 450 million people with pretty high average incomes. Nick takes us to a question that he says many Americans Googled in 2016. Should I move to Canada? He says they're about to get their own far-right populist prime minister. The economic opportunities in the states still seem higher. So is there any reason to make them move?

Well he could end up being a somewhat living in the 51st state, couldn't he, of America if he moves to Canada? According to Donald Trump anyway. And I would say maple syrup and poutine are great reasons to move to Canada. Says the Irish woman. Well the question of should I move to Ireland was also heavily Googled in the days after and the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ireland actually has had many, many queries from Americans looking to trace their Irish grandmothers and whatever to move to Ireland. Well Panama is the other option of course.

Right, well let's have a look at Donald Trump's success at the ballot box. We had this question from Ian. What information do you have regarding how moderate, possibly previously democratic voters may have been pushed into the arms of Trump by overly liberal rhetoric in the media and social media. Overly liberal rhetoric, is that what won it for Donald Trump? I mean I don't think there's much evidence that there was a lot of switches in this election. I mean it's one of these bizarre things about American elections that the sort of voting demographics, you have to wait for ages to see the real detail, the real analysis done of those.

We know we'll get much more clearer idea of that in sort of April and May of this year. But no, I think, you know, it wasn't the turnout of 2020, but it was still a very high turnout. So I think he was turning out people that probably didn't vote. It turned out more younger people who started to vote for him more, although not not in majority, as you mentioned already. So I don't think a lot of Democrats deserted, you know, went went over in that sense, but but he just managed to turn out more. And I think the question of the role of the media is quite an interesting one and one that we'll see people do PhDs and various studies on for time to come because this was

the first election where we really saw the role of the podcast and the user specific user generated media really play a role. So I think large numbers of people, particularly those Gary's talking about there, who maybe were in the middle, don't normally vote, came out to vote, so on, probably weren't being hugely influenced by, you know, what the questioner describes there as overly liberal rhetoric in the media. I think they were more swayed by things they were hearing in their own social circles,

things they were hearing from podcast hosts who have massive reach. And you know, Donald Trump doing that three hours or whatever it was with Joe Rogan, you really got to see quite a different side to him. Then you get to hear when he just does short sound bites or his big long rallies and so on. So I think it's the role of the media has changed and I suppose for us here in the BBC, you know, that's something we're trying to get a handle on as well and that audiences are moving and you need to go where the audience is and give them the information they need

such as on a podcast like this. Well on a similar theme, Farn in South Africa asks if the return of Donald Trump is a turning point for liberal policies on asylum and gender and things like that. And in particular he asks, does it herald the end of extremely polite type of presidents. I think the whole world is a bit scared for the import tax, the penalties and all that stuff. But do you guys think that we need to move to a certain type of president that does the same type of stuff. I mean there is evidence that people like strong leadership and that even they, you know, some surveys have shown quite a strong support in various places for, you know, things that verge on the autocratic, you know, because they think stuff gets done. The problem with it of course is that people love autocracy until it knocks on their front door and they like it, they like to see it being done to other people, particularly

people they think have been overly favored previously, but it doesn't generally stop there. So not for me to say what kind of, I think your question was from South Africa? Yeah, fine. I'm not, you know, I wouldn't presume to say what kind of government they should have or any other country should have. But I think the idea that strong man government is the future. I mean, Africa suffered from the big man leader type post-independence in all sorts of places and stuff ended up being very corrupt and people got a lot poorer and infrastructure

wasn't built. So strongman leadership doesn't always work. Well, let's hear from a couple of people who are perhaps more worried about populism. Hi BBC folks, my name is Haya Simchan. I live in the Israeli city of Haifa. Populism is rising all over the world, all at the same time, and there is a deep lack of critical thinking skills that contributes to this. What can be done in future generations to prevent this state? Coming from Mexico, a country deeply impacted by global political shifts, I would like to ask, how do you believe the post-pandemic era, coupled with the recent rise of populist movements like to ask, how do you believe the post-pandemic era, coupled with the recent

rise of populist movements like Trump presidency, is reshaping the global perceptions of kindness and social cohesion? Marco there with that second question. Well, putting aside the fact that Donald Trump's electoral victory wasn't quite the landslide that he claimed, what has been the impact of his success on liberal voices, well particularly in the US? I think actually I've noticed, because I'm presenting programmes on the news channel and we have debates every night and we have people from different perspectives on every night and I've noticed in the last week things are actually less harsh and less competitive.

I find our panellists more trying to find a place where they can reach common ground and trying to find a place where they can be in agreement with each other because I think for some anyway there's an appreciation that America got to a place that was so polarized and, you know, people can't have family dinners and they can't speak to their brother or sister because one supports Trump and one doesn't and that you have to try and get to a place where everyone can work together and that there's an acceptance. Okay, it wasn't a landslide victory, but it was a victory. A majority of the American people, 77 million of them voted for president Trump.

75 million didn't. And so you have to find a way to be able to live your life and move on from there and try and have some type of society. And, you know, here in Washington, DC, we can all get caught up on the Republican Party did this and the Democratic Party did that whereas most people are just trying to get on with their life and feed their families and go to work and earn a few quid to have a little holiday here and there or you know pay their health care bills and so on and I have noticed a slight shift and maybe it's wishful thinking in this

first week but definitely there seems to be an effort there to try and improve things. Your question was I mentioned populism and I suppose you know one's got to be careful because you might say what's wrong with populism you know isn't that the way it should be but I think what's what the what the accusation is against Donald Trump and the West has been is that – and other populists is that there isn't an empathy with the grievances that propel them to power, but there's an exploitation of those grievances that they are used as a means to pursue the leaders' agenda.

So I think that's something that we'll have to watch. Certainly the president is trying to reshape not just the federal government, he's trying to reshape society. He's trying to make huge changes in American life. And he seems to have four years to do that. He did raise the possibility at the weekend that he might have longer. But constitutionally, he has four years to do that. He did raise the possibility at the weekend that you might have longer, but constitutionally he has four years to do that. That's not very long, but it is a huge ambition. He doesn't necessarily have to worry about the voters now.

He's got a Congress that's on his side, just about, by a very narrow margin in the House, certainly, for the next two years. And so he has in many ways certainly, for the next two years. And so he has in many ways all the tools at his disposal with the experience of his first term and a lot of people who have learnt a lot from that first term to get things done in a much more efficient way than the chaos we saw in his first term. And that's all from this special edition of the Global News podcast. Thanks very much to Gary O'Donoghue. Thanks Oliver.

And to Katrina Perry. Thanks Oliver, great to be with you. And thanks to you for all the questions. Apologies if we didn't have time to get to yours. This edition was mixed by Gareth Jones and produced by Chantal Hartle, our editor's Karen Martin. I'm Oliver Conway. Until next time, goodbye. useful guides to tackling some central ills of modernity. Busyness, anger, the insistence on positivity,

and the decline of nuance. Our lives today can feel like miniature versions of this relentless churn of activity. We find we're rushing around more crazily than ever. Somewhere, when we weren't looking, it's like busyness became a way of life. Start listening to Oliver Berkman, Epidemics of Modern Life, available to purchase

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