The Chaser Report - Air Farce One

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Donald Trump has gone on deal-making extravaganza, and all of them are 100% ethics free! Planes, towers, and San Francisco island prisons — Dom and Charles cover all the latest Trump news! Plus they ask the all-important question: what should Australia try and bribe Trump with?---Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] our caviar addiction: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, it is hard to keep across the absolute firehose of information about Donald Trump. Yes. What I'm going to do today is just update you and everybody on some of the bizarre stories to come out of the Trump presidency. All kinds of norms being, you know, beautifully shredded. And the main thing, Charles, is some big deals being done.

Yes. That's the thing. I mean, ethics rules and so on and one thing, but you don't want to get all namby-pamby and stand in the way of progress and of deals, Charles. Yes. I'm going to start with the big one. Which is, of course, the India-Pakistan, I'm assuming.

No, no, no, that's still bubbling away. Oh, right. It's U.S. China. Oh, U.S. China. We'll get to Donald Trump's first overseas trip to the most important place. Oh. He's really prioritising. I mean, Albo's going to Indonesia in the next couple of days.

And Donald Trump is also going. overseas to the most important place. So Ukraine? Is he doing the... He's actually not going to Ukraine. I'll tell you where he's going in a moment. Also, a few interesting ideas. His deal for New Air Force One, refugees he likes and refugees he doesn't like, and his brilliant idea of reopening Alcatraz long last. So lots of bits of Trump news kicking off after this. Now, Charles, as you know, the world has been plunged into economic turmoil in recent months.

Yes. For one big reason. And that is because the US has huge trade deficits with many countries, particularly China, right? Yes. $1.2 trillion dollars is the extent of the deal. And I've got a release here from the last 24 hours or so from the White House on White House letterhead. US announces China trade deal in Geneva. They've done it.

They've got China to the table. It's all done. This is the big announcement that Trump's been talking about for the last few days. It could be, although we might be getting something else that he's even more excited about a bit later on. So some huge things here. This is amazing. So I'm going to give you some quotes. It's all done.

I'm going to give you some quotes from the full press release here. Treasury Secretary Scott Percent says we've made substantial progress, productivity. The talks are productive. President Trump's informed what's going on. There'll be a briefing tomorrow morning. And US trade representative ambassador Jameson Greer just says we're confident we struck a deal that will help us to work towards resolving our national emergency. So there's not a massive deal.

They've done it, but I don't know any of the details. There are literally no details at all, except that you can just reassure yourself, Charles, that the US has done a brilliant job and that everything is okay now. Oh, well, that's a huge relief. I can't believe I was panicking. You know, for a moment there,

I thought that the White House was run by fools and jackanapes. Jackenapes? Yes. Would Jackanapes achieve what Donald Trump has hailed as a total reset in US-China trade relations? Is that something that are jack-a-napes would do? I suppose that is what happens when you completely, you know, switch everything off and, you know, take it to zero.

That's a complete reset, isn't it? Well, it's like resetting a computer. Yeah. You lose everything. If you'd manually installed viruses on your own computer. I mean, the duties on some Chinese goods are now 245%. Yes. So if the aim was to completely essentially, you know, shut off the taps.

Yes. But Charles, you've got to shut off the taps before you do some plumbing, before you get in there. So it's quite interesting because we've been looking at publishing a book in the US, right? Not particularly me, but... Wankanomics. And it's really interesting because the whole economics of writing a blockbuster book that goes global is that you printed in China, right?

Like, you print the book because you're going to print millions and millions of copies. Sure. So you need it to be a proper... And it's actually a fascinating process, right? Because when you're coming up with all the sort of how each page looks, you're only allowed to use black ink for the words, right?

Really? Because all the other plates are different colours, right? But what they do is they print all the other plates of colour for every single language in the world. And then the black plate is the one that changes language. So if you're going to translate Wankanomics, as I'm sure will happen into 191 languages. The Wachronomikonomic?

Yeah. Warancomic. Which is, it's a funny concept to think that the Wayne Economics book will be published in other languages, because it is at heart a dissection of the English language. Yes, it's very much based on corruption of English. But apparently, you know, like the management style of language has invaded essentially all countries.

So all countries now talk around a topic rather than about a topic. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Everyone is moving forward. Of course they are. Someone once said to me, in a going forward direction. So this is fascinating because with books, and I know this to be true, any colored book pretty much gets printed in China, any book with a multicolor, the ones that are black and white get done locally in Australia.

But we just don't have the ability to do that. Well, we do actually have one printer who can do it. And that's where the Chaser Annual is printed. Because the Chaser Annual has to be printed in Australia because it's got a tight turnaround. Yeah, yeah. And so, but there's now, I mean, when we started doing the Chaser Annual, there would have been like probably 20 or 30 printers who could do it. Yeah, we got rid of that, rationalised them all out of the way, didn't we?

We're now down to one, and that one keeps on going broke and being bought out by other bigger companies. Well, presumably they'd print lots of tax manuals that you don't sell and you owe the money. Anyway, so that's interesting. So your book might have a 250% tariff on it. So I think the point is that, you know, like one aspect of it, which when they bought the rights to the US version, they didn't factor in, was their name. are now going to have to deal with these tariffs.

Or do they print it in the US, right? But the thing is, where do you get the paper in the ink to print? So say you do take it to a US printer. First of all, the US printer is now completely slammed. Yeah. Because everyone else has had the bright idea of, oh, why don't we print it locally. But also, where do you get the paper from overseas? Most paper is done in Germany or Singapore or China.

And what tariff applies to each different bit of the paper, the ink. Yes, exactly. And so all their input costs have gone up anyway. So they're not as competitive anyway as coming in China. But I do think it's good, Charles, because what you and James were trying to do was put American wankers out of a job. You're trying to undercut them. Yes.

And so you're Donald Trump's tariffs are now spanking you. Yes. Anyway, it might be fine for you because Donald Trump's done a deal. We don't know what it is. But apparently it's wonderful. He says, you know, essentially that it's all solved. They're going to have a big announcement and it will be fine. China says the US reckless abuse of tariffs is disabled the global economy.

Dom, I just want to call you on this. I feel like there's no announcement. And you've completely, like, this is a complete bait and switch. And, like, what's going on? Charles, this is, like, people tune in to this podcast to get reliable up-to-date news. They don't get, they don't tune in thinking, oh, right, okay, there's a big deal. That's what, you know, I thought this podcast was going to be about. Oh, no, it's not.

There's absolutely no details about it. But Charles, it moves too quickly for details. You can't, and you can't tell me, I could, we could wait. We could wait for the details to come out. The Dow Jones, the Dow Jones trades on the headline. Yes. I read out basically the release is two short paragraphs long. And that's it.

But they're very confident. And it will move markets. Yes. And then the thing about the Trump administration, though, is that no deal lasts for more than a couple of days anyway. Yes. So even if we had the full details here and, oh, what are they going to do with aluminium? What are they going to do with, you know, computers and whatever?

it would change next week anyway. There's no point worrying about the details. And the other thing that you have to recalibrate is you've got to remember that Trump, like everyone thinks, oh, Trump will come to a deal because he has America's best interest at heart. But actually, no, his interests lie in crashing the economy. And it's a standard operating procedure of these sort of kleptocratic dictators, like that sort of had this sort of competitive, what's it called? competitive authoritarianism is the concept.

So it's Orban and Putin are the best examples of that. And the whole idea is you still have elections, you still have some veil of democracy. But what you do want to do is you want to create an economic crisis and actually drive your economy a little bit into the ground so that all the people are holding on to the life raft and you can provide the floaties the whole time. So the idea that Donald Trump will solve the crisis,

is, no, it will just be this rolling, rolling crisis where he cuts one deal and then cuts out that deal after a while and cuts for another deal. But isn't that a market thing too? Yeah, that's, you want the constant chaos so that everyone has to keep on coming to you to do a deal, another deal with you. You've got the monopoly on ambulances. Yes. And so you crash the car.

Yes. No, but Charles, the thing that's, I really want to say it in defense of Donald Trump, and you've made some pretty big accusations there, is that in places like Russia, Russia, for instance, Putin has all this shadowy, you know, what is he own, is he the world's rich as man, we don't even know what's going on. Yes. In America, the land of integrity and of openness, it's very clear what Donald Trump's interests are, because they're called the Trump Organization.

We'll get to that next. If there are any details on the China trade deal, we might mention them later. But for now, let's just reassure ourselves that the good days are just around the corner. Liberation is imminent, Charles. news a few days after it happens. As I was saying, the good thing about Donald Trump is that we know exactly what his interests and his deals are because they're blatantly up front.

And on that note, Donald Trump is about to head off on the most important trip. First trip. First trip to Ukraine. First trip to really the world hotspot of everything. You might say, is he going to Ukraine? Oh, is it going to Gaza? To solve things in person, to bang heads together there. Is he going to India and Pakistan to try and have some diplomacy?

Kashmir. I'd like to see him You're getting warmer You're getting warmer Because where he is going You won't believe this Yeah To the Middle East

His first visit Is it to visit that orb That he I think so I think the orb Is called him back Yeah Somehow through its power

So he's going to Three of the World's richest nations It's a whistle stop tour To Saudi Arabia Qatar and the United Arab Emirates Right And look There's so much on offer here

Yes Because all these countries want to invest large amounts of money in America, buying up American assets. Yep. And Jared Kushner has been, you know, brokering a few deals because he's in tight with the Qataris. Yep. And they want weapons. They're going to pledge trillions, all of them, apparently.

And, yeah, become the best customer for US arms. But it's also worth noting. A few other things here, a US-Saudi security pact, because it's really important that the US intervene to prop up the Saudis, if anything happens to the print. and so on. They're also renaming. They're doing another renaming.

It's not going to be the Persian Gulf anymore, Charles. It's going to be the Trump Gulf. It's going to be the Gulf of America too. No, it's not. It's going to be the Arabian Gulf. Apparently, the Saudis are very unhappy about it being called the Persian Gulf. I think it should be the Arabian Gulf. Wow.

This is a real sort of... It's branding, Charles. I mean, it's one of those things where it may just come to pass that they win, right? Like, in the end, that in hundreds of years time, they just go, And then this bright revolutionary came along. His name was Donald Trump and he reordered the world in his... And the history will be written by the victors. Charles, have you offered thought...

Have you wanted yourself what it would take to get Donald Trump to visit us here in Australia, the allies, the friends? Well, a lot more than a fucking sub-deal, I would have thought. It's very clear what it is. In March, and I hadn't seen this news until this is from CNN, Trump said in a press conference he would go to Saudi Arabia. Yes. If they invested $1 trillion in the US.

they are so he's getting on a plane and heading to the US but then we get to to Qatar but isn't that the sort of thing where Saudi Arabia or Uzzi Qatar or whatever you like can just put out a press release saying oh yeah we're very confident of doing that and then that's good enough for Trump like it doesn't actually need to happen like none of this needs to happen this is all just this is all just fiction it may be fiction but what is definitely going to happen we'll get to which is Donald Trump's personal financial ties in all three of these countries. Oh, yeah. And the Trump organization's exciting new properties coming up in these locations. But before we get to that, let's talk about Qatar. Now, Qatar's done some great work

to give them credit in terms of diplomacy, trying to solve the Israel-Gaza conflict, certainly more than Trump's done. The killing of Bangladeshi workers to do the World Cup. Yeah, fantastic job on that. Now, imagine you wanted to win Donald Trump's favor. You're, I don't know, the emir of Qatar or whatever, the ruling family of Qatar. You want to give him a gift. Yeah. What do you think Trump would like? For the man who has everything, he's a billionaire. What do you think he'd like, Charles?

Maybe you've seen the headline. I feel like if I was appealing to... I don't know, like a father figure who loves him. Is it that sort of am I close? The one thing he would really like. He'll never get his father's approval. The true love of a woman? No.

Who doesn't feel disgusted every time she meets him. Yeah, I think that's also off the table. The love of his children. Well, there's always Eric. And I'm sure Don Jr. when he's on a particular high, when he's, you know, when he's, you know, coked off, he'd do it. No, Charles, you give him a plane. Yes. You give him an aeroplane.

And curiously enough, give him an airplane to serve as Air Force One, the, you know, the symbol of American diplomacy and might around the world. So, wait a minute. Where does this aircraft come from? It comes from Qatar. They've got a spare 747. What? And this is the whole thing. For years now...

That they've just been rigging with bugs. Well, this is one of the bizarre things about it. Donald Trump has been saying for years that he wants a new and fancier Air Force one. He thinks the current one isn't good enough. Why can't America just buy one? Well, given that Boeing is American, you would think that they might. But no, what's being proposed... And Qatar's come out and said, look, we haven't decided whether we're going to do this or not.

But they're going to give, I don't know, a plane worth three or four hundred million dollars to Trump. Now, you might say, isn't that a bit suss? Isn't that a bit dodgy? And what about when I tell you that when he retires from... The White House, he's going to be allowed to keep using it. So to be very clear, it's going to be gifted to the Trump presidential library, not to Trump himself. So it's for charitable purposes. So he gets to use the plane as Air Force One.

The US spends all this money on technological upgrades and putting in all the military stuff, whatever they do, which might actually take more than four years. But anyway, that's another problem with the deal. So this massive ethical issue of a foreign country providing your leader's aircraft as a gift, obviously in return for whatever. I mean, you know, you don't just get $300,000, $400 million for nothing, presumably. And then it gets gifted for Trump's

used for as long as he lives. And presumably he's offspring. Barron could toll around in this thing for years as part of the Trump. Who pays the fuel bill? What a great question. Because that would be quite expensive. Maybe the Saudis will come up. So anyway, so this is going on as we speak quite blatantly.

Can I say, look, if there was one form of bribery that I would accept and go, okay, that is my price, it would be a personal 747. Firth Force One. I often, when I need to go to sleep, you know, I often dream of just having my own 747. Because, you know, you could do a whole of, like a 10-pin bowling.

But I've never been temping bowling in the sky. That's true. And I don't think anyone has, right? That would be a great use of a 7-4-7. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it. Karaoke in the sky. Carrioki in the sky. I like that.

You could have a whole, I mean, you could just, you could gut it. And put it in a stage, you could do little stand-up comedy gigs. We could record a podcast. Amazing. Okay, so, you know what I mean? And you could have proper sleeping quarters. Yeah, well, they do. Yeah.

I mean, that's where Stormy Daniels is going to go next time. Don't you think, like, it would just be so much fun. It would be great to have your own private time. I kind of feel like that's, that's rewritten the rules around what's a decent bribe. Well, Charles, you might recall that there's a law in the U.S. that prevents emoluments, the idea that you can't receive payments if you're the president from foreign governments. But your foundation apparently can.

And the good news is, Charles... It's all about board. That's what I'm saying. A lot of this stuff used to be... Places like Russia's stuff under the table. Let me talk you through. And this is just a very brief summary from Newsweek of some of the business deals that the Trump organization has announced in the Middle East since Donald Trump returned

to the presidency. The Trump Tower in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, a very excited. exciting, $530 million tower coming up. In partnership, of course, with Dar Global, which is linked with the Saudi state. The Saudi state's investing in a new Trump Tower in Jeddah, the biggest building, I think, in the city. There's also two more. There's one in Riyadh. Also with DaGlobal, a few things going on.

Oh, and great news. Jared Kushner has also managed to get $2 billion off the Saudis from a sovereign wealth fund, led by our old friend, Mohammed bin Salman, of course. So that's going on. That is Saudi. Live Golf, which is the Saudi attempt to buy World Golf. They're hosting tournaments at Trump's resorts in Florida and around the world. Then in Dubai, in the UAE, you've got the Trump in National Golf Club in one of their

developments there. Oh, and they're building a Trump International Tower with a hotel and tower. It's the first in that region there. It's Darglobal's money again in Dubai. It's going to be worth a billion dollars. So that's the UAE. And interestingly, the tower will accept Bitcoin. Isn't that wonderful?

So that's going on. So I feel like we need to, like, because corruption's essentially legal in Australia as well, isn't it? Just before we get to that, I just want to tell you the last one. All right. So Qatar, the other place he's going, and this was only announced a couple of weeks ago. Amazingly exciting.

$5.5 billion, Charles, for the Sismysmer development. This is a luxury golf resort north of Doha, Trump-branded beachside villas in an 18-hole golf course. And it's, where do you get the water? to do a golf course in the Middle East? You just basically spend lots of money, don't you, basically irrigated with seawater that you've... De-tailed on those?

Yeah, to spend lots of money in it. Or is it all bunkers? Is it just the new time? It's the world's biggest sand trap. So look, there are also Trump businesses in Oman, Turkey, other places and so on. Syria, you know, there are lots of problems in Syria, but Trump's doing business there anyway.

But the point being, the three places that he's visiting first as president are places where in the past few months, months. The Trump organisation has announced massive new property developments under the Trump brand. See, nothing subtle, nothing hidden about it, Charles. I'm feeling like there's two things here. Australia needs to get on the Trump train and start bribing Trump as well. I mean, surely the Gold Coast is a perfect place for a Trump tower.

Well, I'm thinking we give him centre point. Oh, okay. And we say, look, this is the tallest, this is the tallest non-residential tower structure in the CBD of Sidney's not counting the other ones. There's some bigger ones in Melbourne. They can have next to all the crowd. But I think that that's one where he'd like it because it's gold on the outside. Oh, he's gold.

It's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of those ones in Melbourne's gold too. We're not really doing much with it. But I think the realto town is too valuable. You want to give him stuff where it looks shiny. Yeah. Because I bet you always, like golf courses in the Middle East, like I bet you a billion dollars,

or five billion dollars that they're not actually worth. anything because you know like what a stupid idea what a fucking stupid idea so here you go here's some pictures of the trump international golf course he just wants his name on there's some pretty big bunkers i must say yeah it's a lot of sad we could give him like what else we could give him melbourne oh no i like melbourne no oh you like melbourne now i do yeah we'll give him adelaide then i think give him perth i think oh perth would really that would work yes that would work well yeah yeah yeah yes or maybe darwin like the florida no No, I like that.

You like that? Yeah. What about, I think it's got to be the Gold Coast. It's already gold in the name. Yeah, okay. Yes. It's like the Oval Office. Yeah.

There's lots of quick sand in the Gold Coast. Perfect. Yeah. There's, like, remember that old Christopher's case, Mirage Resort? Yes, yes, give him the Mirage. Yeah, yeah, Bill. Or what's that, the Clive Palmer Resort? Yes.

Parmasaurus. So that's all going on. So, yes. So I think that's good. I think also Australian politicians should get in on this whole be bribed thing. Because if you recall, in the last parliament, they introduced this anti-corruption commission, which essentially makes... That's not a thing yet?

No, no. The only finding it had was against its own chair. And it had to then say, well, we can't investigate our own chair. And then they referred it to the order to general. Why don't we get someone on one of those politicians who's, we should actually get someone to explain what's happening with the knack? Because that was a big fanfare. I can tell you what happened with the knack, which is it's a complete fraud of an order. So who's investigating whether the NAC's doing anything?

Do we need another body to investigate why the NAC hasn't done it? No, it's doing exactly what it was designed to do, because it was set up as a joint venture by the Liberal Party and the Labor Party and voted against by the minor parties, I think. All right, we're wondering on Australian politics. But it was a bipartisan, it was a fix, right, to sort of say that they'd created some sort of fig leaf. But the point is, I think that we're going to see Albo turning up with a 747 anytime. Oh, Albo Force 1.

And the thing is, the National Anti-Corruption Commission will probably look into it and go, oh, well, nothing to see here, nothing to investigate. We're just not as good at this stuff as Trump. No, I reckon, I reckon. No, he'll turn up with a focker friendship. It'll be a little biplane. A bit of biplane. I stop with Camel.

All right. What are those ones that keep on crashing, Blackhawk? Or one of those, one of those Boeing's, yeah, yeah. What is it wherever it is? Oh, the 737 max. 737 max, yeah. Okay. I'm going to whip you through a little bit more Trump news before we go.

Charles, it's a little bit of a pop quiz here. Okay, so just on migration in the US, Stephen Miller, you know, has announced that one of the Trump advises, he believes that Trump can suspend habeas corpus, which is the thing where you've got to show the government evidence to justify your detention for migrants because there's an invasion. That's what he says. So they don't like that. All the migrants are even more trouble if this happens. It's a constitutional right that the Trump administration.

It's just going to get rid of. However, Charles, people who say that the Trump administration is anti-migrant and missing a very important detail. There's one group of, in fact, refugees who've just been granted asylum in the US. Can you guess which group it might be? A little bit of a tip. They've also been treated well by previous governments in Australia. Oh, South Africans.

Yes, white South Africans are being allowed into the US. So very, very generous. Trump's also fired multiple librarians. There's sort of a war on libraries going on. Well, except what about his library? His library owns a 747. Yeah, I'm assuming that there won't actually be books in the Trump library. It'll just be a money laundering or another nation.

So, yes, the nation's top copyright official has gone. And so has, this is days after they sack the head of the Library of Congress. So that's slightly concerning. But my favorite bit of Donald Trump news, and there is a lot going on, as always, is his big idea in the last couple of days. Here's a clip. To reopen Alcatraz, how will you use it? How did you come up with the idea?

Well, I guess I was supposed to be a movie maker. We're talking about. We started with the movie making, it will end. I mean, it represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order. Our country needs law and order. Alcatraz is, I would say, the ultimate, right? Alcatraz, Sing, Sing, and Alcatraz, the movies. But Donald Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz.

Have you been to Alcatraz? Yeah, it's a great tourist destination. Beautiful. Yeah, it's a great place to go. I think he just saw one of those movies where they can't escape from Alcatraz. And he's just trying to think of meaner places to put, you know, felons and people that doesn't like. So there you go. So that's coming soon. Like I sort of approve of that because it shows he understands the theatre of law and order.

Well, yeah. I mean, weirdly enough, it's actually a successful business. They make a lot of money with tours of Alcatraz. And it'll make even more money if there's real prisoners to see on the tour. That's true. Yeah. There I was thinking that they'd have to stop having the tourist visits. Oh, God, no, no, no, no, no. You know what, couldn't the Trump organisation get involved here? And it could be like you'd get Judge Judy down.

Well, you joke about that. And you'd actually have the judge and jury on Alcatraz, and then you'd get to see them be sent to jail. I mean, you joke about that, but you know he's just hired Judge Janine Piro from Fox News as one of the top federal prosecutors in Washington, D.C. Yeah, well, there you go. So, yeah, I mean, she could do it. Judge Chudy's actually too ethical, I think, to do this job.

So that's all the Donald Trump news in the podcast, and I just, I think we aren't doing enough. I think if we want Orcas to work, we've got to throw a few casinos and golf clubs into the mix. Yes, I agree. It's just never, it's never going to happen otherwise. Yep. No, no, I mean, we just do a press release saying that that's what we're doing. Oh, okay. Yeah.

We don't actually have to do it. Could we give him, I don't know if Trump's got a submarine. Maybe we could give him. Do we give him one of those? We give him one of the orchards subs Because they're never They're not going to actually ever exist So we might as well give him one

Okay That is brilliant Maybe you should just put together a press release Faxes to the White House And see if Donald Trump actually Yes And then we get rid of those Get him to come down under

Yeah To the Gold Coast I don't want him To the Gold Coast Yeah yeah yeah We give him the Gold Coast And an August sub A non-existent office sub

I think that will really sweet The deal All right we're part of the Icona class network We'll catch you next time. See ya.