Hello to all the new Americansters who've joined us in the last few months. More of us now, Mariana, than ever before. I know it's brilliant, and that's really good because there's so much going on that we want to tell you about. Between now and Donald Trump's inauguration in January, we're going to be looking at all sorts of things. Who he's picking for his team, what this can mean for the next four years, how the Democrats regroup, you name it. So if you have any questions or comments, do get in touch, americastatbbc.co.uk. We'll be publishing episodes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
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BBC sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, it's Justin. At quarter to four in the afternoon, UK time, and we have just recorded America answers on Five Live. And it's Marianna sitting next to Justin. Still, Justin hasn't actually visited the worldwide headquarters since we've been back from the United States, but he will. He will later in the week. And I mean, there's been lots of news. It kind of feels like there's this endless bingo of who is going to be in Trump's cabinet. What are our latest? Who are our latest additions?
There's actually a really big name and a really important one that's just come today and that is Scott Besant who is a hedge fund manager who is going to be treasury secretary. That is if he gets through the Senate and he's very likely to get through the Senate because he is a very serious customer. So we talk and we're going to talk on the americans that were about to play to you about
The clown car, as some people call it, and the things that are going wrong and the kind of mad stuff, but this is a very serious customer who I think will have the impact on the markets of calming them and making them think that the Trump economic policy, and you think of all the stuff that he's threatening to do when it comes to tariffs, etc, etc, as isn't actually going to be as out there as some people think.
And we answer lots more questions, including, of course, about ex and Elon Musk. When does an episode go by when we don't talk about that? We talk a bit about Blue Sky. We also talk about inaugurations, crowd size and traditions, and what all of that means. So there's lots to look forward to, and we hope you enjoy the episode. And Anthony actually looks up the Constitution live on air. Don't miss it. Here we go. America. America from BBC News. God spared my life for a reason.
Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars? The star is born, Elon. I'm not just maga, I'm dog, gothic maga. This is what happens when the machine comes after you. I'm terrified for this country and I'm so hurt that America let this happen. I think that we just witnessed the greatest political comeback in the history of the United States of America.
Hello, hello, hello, hello to you all. I've got Justin and Marianne on the studio with me and Westminster. Sam, where are you? I'm in Arbuto in Washington. Very nice. Anthony, where are you? I'm across the river from Sarah in Arlington, Virginia. Very nice. Let's get up with the questions. Simon in Dorset has sent us a voice note. This is this. Hi, America's team. Trump's new chief of staff, Susie Wiles, recently said she would not allow the clown car to arrive at the White House.
In light of his recent appointments, do you think she was right in as much as the clown bus seems to have arrived in its place? How do you think she'll manage this? Sarah. Well, so this is really interesting because obviously Donald Trump has picked some highly controversial people to be in his cabinet. But are they clowns is the question just because they've got some relatively extreme or controversial views? I mean, I think that's exactly what Donald Trump wants them for.
The clown circus that Susie Wiles wants to avoid is well partly on serious people, but also all of the infighting and back biting that is reported to be going on a bit at Mar-a-Lago at the moment. But the most controversial choice Trump came up with, Matt Gaetz, the former Republican congressman who he wanted to make the Attorney General, but who was
facing these allegations of sexual misconduct and drug taking that were being investigated inside the House of Representatives. And he pulled out last week. It's reported that he was appointed out when he was on Trump, force one with Donald Trump. Elon Musk was there and they came up with this idea.
to make Matt Gaetz attorney general because Donald Trump thought all the serious candidates that he'd been interviewing were just too dull. And they didn't have the fire in their belly to go after Trump's enemies the way Matt Gaetz did. But Susie Wiles, who was on the plane, was in a different section. She was literally at the back of the plane when they came up with this decision and announced it before she could get to the front of the plane and stop them. So I think what she's probably doing is keeping a very close eye on Donald Trump at the moment.
It's interesting just, isn't it? There is a limit, and it turns out Matt Gaetz is it. It's not a total free for all. There is some things that even Trump won't put up with. The thing is about Matt Gaetz, nobody really knows. There's sort of suggesting the sort of four-dimensional chess, and actually he was appointed in the first place with no expectations at all. They didn't get as far as the hearings because they needed to get out of an ethics inquiry in the house.
representatives, and he can maybe now be appointed, as he could be, in theory, at least as the new Florida Senator, if Marco Rubio becomes Secretary of State, or do some other thing, or just go to Fox News, to be honest, or get a podcast for goodness' sake, which is where all the money is.
Yeah, so, you know, he could kind of go down the sort of Joe Rogan route or whatever. But I do think, I mean, just to pick up on what Sarah said and to harshly agree with it, I think when you, when we describe the Trump people as a, it's very tempting to get into this kind of, oh my goodness, there are all sort of abnormal candidates.
People voted for this. They wanted it. It's democracy. They wanted radicals. They wanted people who would shake up the system that they think has led them down the garden path for a long time. They might say, wasn't the Biden administration where a man who was clearly unfit to run against, again for president, was foisted on the American people until it became too obvious that he was absolutely useless and he had to pull out of the race.
Those are the clown things, they would say. These candidates, yes, someone will be a bit out there, but actually this is what people voted for. They voted for radicals, they voted for populists, and that's what they're going to get. Just following on from that, Anthony, it's probably one for you. List of Mike sent in a question over email. He says, now that Matt Gaetz was withdrawn from his nomination after resigning from the house, where does that leave him? Is he able to return to his position? Following the next four years with more than a passing interest, keep it up, he says. So what, having quickly, can he go back?
i mean technically he could go back because he resigned from this congress but he was reelected to the next congress so there is no reason why he couldn't take back his house seat but he is said he isn't going back that he doesn't want that that he's going to move on to bigger and better things and as just mentioned the the possibility of him being a senator from florida being appointed by
uh... by ron de santis to fill that sentence but it is possible i was at a debate in in twenty eighteen ron de santis debating the democrats for his first governor's bed and matt gates was in the spin room ardently defending ron de santis almost getting into a fist fight with the democrat from palm beach who is defending the uh... uh... the gillum the the democratic candidate for for governor so clearly
Matt Gaetz is tight with Ron DeSantis, so it is possible he could ease into that Senate seat, but there are other options for him out there in the wider conservative ecosystem, like Justin mentioned. So the world is this oyster now, especially now that he's out of Congress and doesn't have to deal with that ethics investigation and the criminal investigation into having sexual relations with a 17-year-old and sexual trafficking, all that has gone away.
So we're just falling off the point that Justin was making, that this is what people voted for, and they wanted change. How much, because Donald Trump doesn't need to, we touched on this a little bit last week, because he doesn't need to seek re-election. How much will he be judged by delivering on change in people's lives? And how much will he just revel in blowing everything up, do you think? Does it matter?
He doesn't need to set a series of targets to meet by the next election to show he's delivered because he can't stand again. So is it the process of blowing everything up that counts rather than then delivering it afterwards?
No, I think he has to deliver. I mean, it's not unique, obviously. Every president who's in their second term is essentially a lame duck. There will be a bigger electoral test, remember, in two years' time at the midterms. And that matters because he can get a lot more done if he controls the Congress, if he's got a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate. But also, it's just a very public referendum, isn't it?
Donald Trump's first two years and he will care very deeply about being seen to win that and being seen to have delivered and you know he obviously is well idiosyncratic shall we say you know and he's got his own selfish impulses around why he wanted to be president but you know he made some very big promises
to people, and I think he will want to be seen to deliver them. Right, we've had a question sent in on Discord, which we covered at some length last week. Riley's been in touch saying, do you think the emergence of blue sky contributes the increasing fractionalisation of social media and could lead to further polarisation in the US and the world?
That feels like one for you, Maria. It might be. Let's just... I think it might be. It's a really good question. It's something that we started to talk about a little bit on the last episode of America Answers. I think that we're in this interesting situation, so if you look at what's happened with Blue Sky, so for anyone who's not encountered Blue Sky, it's a kind of alternative to Twitter. There have been other alternatives that have sprung up and kind of...
faded a little bit in some cases. We know that blue skies now got its hit 20 million users and is rising. We also know that there appears to have been a drop in users on X. What that is down to is questionable. There's also queries about inauthentic accounts and whether those have been disappearing or popping up. And then there is obviously this kind of
uh, backlash certainly from some political circles towards Elon Musk and what X looks like now. I'm sure that some people will have noticed and I've definitely noticed it on my undercover voter social media feeds. Regardless of their politics, whether they're left or right, the kinds of stuff they are seeing on X.
is kind of all of the same political ilk, it's often Elon Musk, it's often Elon Musk resharing other stuff that's often in relation to Donald Trump and it's generally pretty nice about Donald Trump and not nice about anyone else or certainly his political rivals. There were quite a lot of questions as well about whether that's a kind of deliberate thing on Elon Musk's part from what I've found I think
An environment has been created on X, which is now favouring the kinds of content which is supportive of Donald Trump in so much as it's big accounts with blue ticks, sharing this sort of stuff. If you go on Blue Sky, it resembles a little bit more the bits of Twitter that used to be kind of like, I mean, this is just the kind of people I'm following, but like academics and experts.
talking about stuff. On the whole, lots of the people I've spotted on there are people who are not feeling very positive about X and you've got this kind of situation where it's almost like your social media platform becomes a marker of your political persuasion and what you like or don't like. In some ways this feels like the next phase of the kind of algorithmic echo chamber.
Instead of just coexisting in your own echo chamber, you create an entirely different world where you are constantly surrounded by people you agree with. That has all kinds of effects, not least that it can push people kind of deeper towards certain points of view. You might find though that people also end up finding it a bit boring, that they can't argue with people or get stuck in on either X or blue sky in a way that they perhaps used to enjoy or liked in some way.
And I think it's also interesting from the fracturing of, for so long, all of the big social media companies have and continue to dominate the online conversation, whether it's Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, X, TikTok. It'll be interesting to see what happens with Blue Sky and whether we have this kind of fracturing of social media and people just going to particular places they like better. What does that mean for politics? It probably means that the polarized conversations are even more polarized.
and people's kind of tribal instincts are greater and their social media sites become emblematic of that. It just reinforces that. Well, I don't know anybody who... I don't know anyone who could have thought that because all I've been seeing is... I've only ever seen people. Yeah, and it's kind of like the wider... I know I do bang on about algorithms so much that Justin now feels like he knows everything about algorithms.
But it's really interesting to think about the consequences those have not just for kind of public discourse, but actually felt political views and opinions and where people end up. And there are people on the left as well as the right who've been pushed to really quite extreme viewpoints. They're almost a kind of identical, but about the other side. And I think a lot of that is down to where these recommendation systems have been taking them.
It's worth putting in a word for the old-fashioned media as well. I'm sure, Sarah and Anthony, you look at the websites of the big newspapers. The Wall Street Journal is still great. The New York Times, Washington Post, the Free Press, which is this thing set up by a group of journalists who were kind of felt they were kicked off the New York Times.
So a very big on individual freedom, kind of anti-identity politics. They've set up a very good website called the Free Press that I recommend to people, not because I agree with it, because that's just a kind of range of opinion that some papers don't have. So there is a kind of ecosystem, isn't there guys, that exists outside the kind of monstrous algorithms that Marianna threatens us with all the time?
I was just going to say, in defense of X, you know, if Elon Musk ever replied to any of my emails. So I never replied to any of them. That's right. He could use this quite easily by coming on the programme. Yeah, well, exactly. Are the offers open if you're listening to Five Life? But what I would say is that there were lots of things wrong with the old Twitter too, not least that often journalists would be sort of just regurgitating the same things.
Jumping to conclusions and it often felt like a kind of bit of a fishbowl and that wasn't necessarily good either. So the kind of diversification of where people are finding stuff out is good. I think the flip side of that is what we're talking about, which is the polarization that there's stuff that is rewarded with views and likes that's not true. People can make money out of it, which I've investigated before.
And also, I think, that it's important to remember that when Elon Musk took over X, he made a big deal of saying, this is a place for everyone, and it shouldn't be a mouthpiece for government, it shouldn't be protecting certain points of view. And some people would argue now that it very much feels like it's a home for one political opinion or side and not the other. He might disagree, but it definitely looks different. Excellent. Well, glad we've covered all that. Andrew is in Cordon with Andrews on the line. Hello, Andrew. Hi, thank you. Hello.
Last week on the podcast, the team were discussing the question, who will go first, sort of sweepstake of the Trump cabinet once it's assembled. And there are a variety of suggestions. And I think Sarah suggested that J.D. Vance was in the running to be a casualty if Trump might think he's getting a bit too popular. And I think my question is, isn't it the case that as Vice President Trump can't fire him, even if he could clip his wings and run his reputation down quite a lot?
That's absolutely right. Anthony may know some clever way in which you can fire the vice president, but broad principles know. But you can shut him out. You can stop him having any power or influence. And you can, as you say, deride his reputation, which is something Trump's very good at. But Anthony, can you get rid of a vice president if you don't like him?
You could impeach and remove him, but that would take Congress. It is a constitutional office, as you rightly point out, as a constitutionally elected office. It doesn't have a lot of explicit powers, so the president could just strip away everything and make him pretty much a useless figure, except for being able to break ties in the Senate. That's something that's written into the Constitution.
But yeah, just look at Mike Pence. I mean, we know we don't talk about Mike Pence anymore. He was Donald Trump's first vice president. And now he is essentially a persona non grata in the Trump dominated Republican Party. And I suppose really it's going to be down to who's he's who does Trump annoys his success? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we really don't know because we've discussed. And it could be his JD Vance. If it's not, yeah, then it'll be someone else. Yeah, if JD Vance behaves himself in Trump's books, I'm sure it'll be Vance. But if he doesn't, it won't be.
on our predictions about who was going to fall out. It's made me realise we both predicted Elon Musk and Donald Trump would be the first to fall out. But Anthony didn't actually get to give his predictions. Oh, good thought. So yeah, clearly I would have predicted Matt Gates.
And you found it, but the microphone wasn't on. Let's round off now with a voice note from Greg in Madrid. Hello, with all the talk about cabinet picks and tariff policy. I think we're obscuring what is really the burning issue on Donald Trump's mind right now. How to boost crowd size for his inauguration, especially given the DC area is, I believe, not a Republican stronghold.
So who exactly is responsible for managing the ceremony and getting those seats filled with the Maga faithful? Who exactly pays for the ceremony and after parties? Are corporate or foreign donations for the inauguration legal? Or will Alan Elon Musk just pay for the whole thing?
Well, this, this, yeah, it's really, I mean Anthony will know all the detail of this, but it is really interesting on the inaugural stuff. As I remember this, this from inaugurations that I covered, it actually is. I think, I mean, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't think you can take foreign money, but you can certainly take a ton of private money and the whole business is one of these things, what a bit like the things we have here where
all the kind of folder all around Westminster, and you think, well, that's gone back centuries, but actually it was invented to the last Tuesday for the convenience, and a load of stuff. I mean, I think it was Reagan, wasn't it, Anthony, that first turned round and started having inauguration so that you could look all the way down the mall to the Washington Monument, because he thought it was a grander. I mean, all of this stuff is relatively recent, and the big money, I mean, FDR,
Certainly in the last of FDR's inaugurations took place in the White House in kind of semi-private. Bayman Antony will know what the rules are and all the rest of it. There's a commission, isn't there, Anthony, that does it? Yeah, there's an independent committee, an inaugural committee that is set up to handle all of the
pomp and circumstance around the inauguration and they can take donations not from foreigners not from foreign nationals, but from corporations and labor groups and pretty much anyone and there's no limit on how much you can give so you're actually, you can be betting on a horse that has already won the race essentially by giving to the inaugural committee as a way to,
by influence in the incoming presidential administration, and their parties, their balls, each of the states host balls, and those are funded by inaugural committees and their musical concerts. And as far as getting the crowds in, they can arrange buses and other transportation for people to get here.
more easily. So it is a massive kind of logistical undertaking. And there was a bit of chaos, a bit of alleged corruption back in 2016 with Donald Trump's first inauguration and their inaugural committee. Actually there were some indictments, although not convictions regarding some financial improprieties around the fundraising for that inaugural committee.
But this time round, as we've seen in a number of different cases for Donald Trump, it seems more organized. I think you'll probably see a better kind of run inauguration that does allow more and more people to come, not from the DC area, because you're right. Northern Virginia and Maryland are very democratic, but
I would imagine people coming up from Florida. There are tens of thousands of people who are dedicated Trump fans down there, even from New York and New England, where Donald Trump actually drove up support and got more support this time around than he did in either his past two elections. So there are people who will show up, and I imagine the city is going to be taken over by Trump fans, and it's going to be a kind of celebration, an organized celebration that we didn't really see in 2016.
Is it worth saying as well that if you think about the network that Trump appears to have tapped into Joe Rogan's listenership, fraternity houses, all that kinds of stuff, you could see a world where people thought it might be quite a cool thing to turn up. And I don't know if people have spotted that there've been a couple of footballers and also in different other sports, people doing the Trump dance as their celebration, that kind of like making it sort of cool. And you could see how they might tap into that, as well as Elon Musk and everything else to kind of encourage people to want to come.
Because last time, there was sort of some Mickey-taker, wasn't it, about the sort of the scale of the celebrity you could attract, and it's like one of box fees sang the natural anthem or something. Well, it's actually all right. Now it's like the alternative network of, you know, exactly Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, and you've got like some of these people who perhaps during the campaign, people were thinking, well, how influential really are they? And now it's like, oh, actually, those are kinds of the celebrities quote unquote, or the influencers that you perhaps want on your side. So you can see how it might not be your A list.
celebrities in the traditional sense, but actually the people who a lot of the public are really connecting with. Yeah. And so you can imagine that Donald Trump is playing... Expect the whole Hogan and Lee Greenwood. Yeah, the truth. Get the whole Hogan and sing the National Anthem. So you can imagine a world where Donald Trump has said he wants more people in the crowd than he had last time around, given all of the kerfuffle that happens back in 2017. He cares about crowd size. He would go on about it all the time during the campaign that he was attracting bigger crowds than Kamala Harris, even when that wasn't true.
And yeah, he thinks it's a real measure of success. So there's going to have to be hard work, I think, to try and supply a very large crowd. And I think we can guarantee
that regardless of how many people are there he will claim it's the largest crowd that's ever been to an organization in history. One of the big challenges with inaugurations is that it is in January in Washington, D.C. Why is that? Why is that? Because it used to be March, didn't it? Yeah, it's going to be cold. I was at the Clinton's inauguration and it was like 20 degrees. I couldn't feel my hands and my feet. It's sleeted, I think, during one of Reagan's inaugurations and they had to move it indoors.
in 84 so you know there is a chance it could just be miserable although with global warming maybe it'll be a lovely spring day. But the issue is that I mean it's not really mandated in the constitution the actual day is it it's just a kind of convenience so could they change it again I mean could they make it could they put it back to March for instance where it used to be.
I think it might be mandated in the Constitution. I think it might have been changed in one of the amendments. But yeah, it used to be in March. That was originally the, because it'd give people time to get by horse and buggy or wherever. Yes. Thanks to Oregon. And I'll lower that again. Yeah, three months. It's remarkable that it's not like the Brits where you lose the election. Next, you know, moving trucks show up the next day. There is a long transition period.
But it's only just the point you made just about the traditions and all of that, you know, it was JFK's supposedly killed off hats because he didn't wear a hat, although it turned out he didn't, actually he did wear a hat. He did, yeah. It was only Jimmy Carter that did the walk back to the White House as well, wasn't it? Was he the first person? Well, someone else didn't bush, I thought W walked back. No, as I mean, he started that. Oh, he started the walking back, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know all of these things. But then 50 years is quite long, isn't it? Yeah. But I mean, I think I'm right, again, where this is constitutional knowledge that Anthony's more like, you know, than I have to put it mildly, but I think
A president has got to be sworn in, hasn't he? So that much is in the Constitution. There has to be someone who says, do you agree to do X, Y and Z to help you God? Whatever. But beyond that, the whole thing is just made up, really.
Yeah, I mean, just looking up the 20th Amendment to the Constitution switched inauguration day from March to January 20th of the year following election. So it is written there. You have to take the oath of office on that day. Now, you could have your party sometime with the weather's a little warmer, but obviously, you know, if you waited
then Trump's been president for three or four months until the cherry blossoms are blooming here in washington d.c. in springtime you may not have the same kind of level of enthusiasm that you would get on that day when he he does stand on the steps of the cap or wherever he wants to be and puts his hand on the bible after jf k was shot
Lynne Johnson was sworn in just in her room, wasn't he? It was on the plane. He was in an airplane. He was in Air Force One on the tarmac in Dallas. Yeah. I feel like we learnt things. Lots of things. Lots of things. All of the things. Thank you so much for that. That was about a cancerous weed. Serves myth, Anthony's actually just in a way.
We love answering all of your brilliant questions, so please keep them coming. You can send us questions on Discord, our online community. The link is in the description to this podcast. You can send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to plus44-330-1239-480. The email is americast.bbc.co.uk or you can use the hashtag Americaast on X, formerly known as Twitter. Orbly Sky, or wherever you so please. That's it. Bye-bye. Bye.
American American from BBC news.
