0:02

This is a Global Player

0:04

original podcast. And

0:09

we can now project at CNN that

0:11

President Biden has enough delegates to win

0:13

the Democratic nomination. CNN can now

0:17

officially project that Donald Trump has

0:19

eclipsed the delegate threshold to officially

0:21

clinch the Republican nomination for president

0:24

of the United States. Well this

0:26

is exciting. We now know who

0:28

the presidential candidates will be for

0:31

2024. Let's

0:33

get our own breaking news. Shh. Strap

0:36

coming up now because unbeknownst

0:39

to the rest of the world,

0:41

Joe Biden and Donald Trump

0:43

have just clinched their

0:45

own parties, nominations, acquiring

0:47

the right number of delegates to take

0:50

us into what is going to

0:52

be historically the longest ever presidential

0:55

election campaign we've

0:57

seen. The hugely anticipated,

0:59

eagerly awaited, this is

1:02

Ali versus Fraser, the

1:04

rematch. I mean, God,

1:07

and Americans have got a choice they don't really

1:09

want. The 78 year old

1:11

versus the 81 year old and

1:14

all the polls suggest give us

1:16

anyone but Biden and

1:18

Trump. But that's what they're going to get. Welcome

1:21

to the News Agency USA. It's

1:30

John. It's Emily. And let's

1:32

just go back to explain because you're thinking,

1:34

as we all did, I thought we knew

1:36

that already. Well, we kind of did. We

1:38

definitely did. But last night, there

1:41

were four more primaries and

1:43

those were numerically the occasions that

1:46

sealed the number of delegates for

1:48

each candidate. So we can now

1:50

safely say that there can be

1:52

no upset. I mean, clearly, nobody

1:54

is really standing against Biden. Nikki

1:57

Haley has dropped out of the race. So there

1:59

is no one again. against Trump, except for

2:01

our own dear David Stuckenberg, see last

2:03

week's episode, he is still running in

2:05

the race to be a Republican president.

2:07

But notwithstanding David, we have the

2:10

two candidates, they have made it

2:12

over their respective lines. And

2:14

this was, I suppose, the first time that we

2:16

saw primaries on

2:19

the Republican side that didn't have

2:22

the scratchy stickiness of a Nikki Haley

2:24

vote in the middle of it, taking

2:26

the Never Trumpers away from Trump. But

2:29

let us just consider one state, Georgia.

2:32

Georgia, as we well know from previous episodes,

2:34

is where Donald Trump asked for those 11,780

2:38

extra votes, which was the margin that

2:40

he lost the state to Joe Biden

2:42

in 2020. Last

2:45

night in the primary there,

2:48

77,000 people voted

2:50

for Nikki Haley, even though

2:53

she wasn't actually running. Now,

2:56

that is a significant number because it shows

2:58

that there are huge numbers of Republicans who

3:00

don't want Donald Trump as their candidate. Now,

3:03

yeah, some of those will have voted

3:05

early when Nikki Haley was still in the race. But

3:07

many thousands continue to vote for Nikki

3:09

Haley as some kind of protest against

3:12

Trump. And that's a real problem for

3:14

him. How does he grow out the

3:16

base? And the normal tactic is

3:18

once you get your party's nomination, you go

3:20

out to the extremes to get everybody in,

3:22

and then you go careering towards the center

3:24

as the election draws near. He's showing no

3:26

sign of doing that. I mean, the most

3:28

famous thing about Georgia and Trump is the

3:30

phone call in which he says, show

3:33

me the 11,000 blah, blah, blah, blah,

3:35

blah, number of votes that I need

3:37

to have to claim victory. If

3:40

Nikki Haley is eating into that Republican

3:42

vote in any way, and yes, as

3:44

you say, she was already on the

3:47

ballot. She couldn't be removed. So some

3:49

people will have voted by post. Some

3:51

people would have noticed that she's gone.

3:53

It might not affect the general election.

3:55

But we're talking margins here. And those

3:58

margins will be fascinating. The closer. we

4:00

get to November. Let's just listen to

4:02

Donald Trump sense of his own victory on

4:04

true social life. Is he feeling good about himself? I think

4:06

he is. I think he is. Okay. Hello everyone. It's

4:09

your favorite president speaking to you on

4:11

a really great day of

4:13

victory. One week ago,

4:16

we had something called Super Tuesday

4:18

and it was indeed super because

4:21

we won at numbers that nobody

4:23

has ever seen before. Records in

4:25

virtually every state. And

4:28

tonight, likewise. But

4:31

this one got us over the

4:33

top. The Republican National Committee

4:35

has just declared us

4:37

the official nominee. And

4:39

so we're the official nominee of the

4:41

Republican party, which is a big deal.

4:43

He's also on to social. I noticed

4:45

this last night, he started referring to

4:48

himself as Honest Don. Honest

4:51

Don against crooked Joe Biden. And you

4:53

know, we've said before, this is so

4:56

Alice through the looking glass that everything is

4:58

the reverse of what it seems. But Donald

5:01

Trump rebranding himself as Honest Don as he

5:03

faces 91 criminal charges in

5:05

four separate cases is quite a

5:07

bold move. Because Biden is

5:10

the election denial, clearly. Because Biden is

5:12

the biggest threat to democracy that America

5:14

has ever seen. And I guess this

5:16

presents the Biden campaign with

5:19

their own questions

5:21

over how to respond. Do they

5:23

keep on talking about democracy? Do

5:25

they keep on talking about Joe

5:27

Biden's economic record of which he

5:29

thinks he can, they can be

5:31

rightly proud? Or do they still have

5:33

work to do telling the

5:35

public that Joe Biden is not

5:38

the aged old little

5:40

man who gets names wrong? He's

5:42

out and thrusting and powerful and

5:45

can deliver four more years. And

5:47

I think they're still trying to work out their response

5:49

to this now. Well, I think that they're trying

5:51

to do two things. I think that one, they

5:54

want to keep the focus on Donald

5:56

Trump, on democracy, on autocracy, on what

5:58

happens to the great experiment of

6:01

democracy in the United States of America, were Donald

6:03

Trump to win the second term. But

6:05

I also think that what we're seeing now

6:07

from Biden is rather than trying to ignore

6:10

his age, he tries to embrace it.

6:12

This is a new campaign ad. Look, I'm not a

6:14

young guy. That's no secret. But

6:16

here's the deal. I understand how

6:18

to get things done for the American

6:21

people. I led the country through the

6:23

COVID crisis. Today, we have the strongest

6:25

economy in the world. I passed a

6:27

law that lowers prescription drug prices. Cap

6:37

I mean, to be fair, we haven't spoken to

6:39

you since the State of the Union address last

6:41

Thursday night. And that I

6:43

think, shut up even

6:46

some of his sort of racist critics

6:48

or his most agist critics, let's say,

6:50

because I don't know what he was on caffeine

6:53

pills, but he was bouncing off the walls that

6:55

night, right? He was pretty, as Cameron would say,

6:57

pumped up. Yeah, he was very pumped up. And

6:59

I thought that he, you know, yeah, there was

7:02

verbal slips and there was some gas. But

7:04

I think the Republicans were hoping that

7:07

he would be absolutely useless. And he

7:09

ended up that Trump supporters

7:11

were complaining that he wasn't bipartisan enough.

7:13

And he was too ferocious. Yeah, he

7:15

took on the Supreme Court. He called

7:17

out Lindsey Graham. He actually got quite

7:20

scratchy with some of the with the

7:22

hecklers, right, which is not something

7:24

you can do if you're completely scripted

7:26

and completely on autocue and you then sort of

7:29

look around the room. He was very much in

7:31

that room, I think we have two ways to

7:33

go. Republicans

7:35

can cut so security and get more tax breaks to the

7:37

wealthy. I will. That's

7:39

the proposal. Oh,

7:42

no, you guys don't want another

7:45

two trillion dollar tax cut. I

7:47

kind of thought that's what your plan was. Well,

7:51

that's good to hear. You're

7:53

not going to cut another two trillion dollars in the super

7:55

world. That's good to hear. I'll

7:58

protect and strengthen social. and make the wealthy

8:01

pay their fair share. And

8:03

also the other thing I'd say, you know, kind

8:06

of watching it, it was that he

8:08

stayed after the speech, chatting to everybody. He

8:10

was in no rush to go. He wasn't the

8:12

tired old man who just had to go

8:14

and have a snooze immediately afterwards. They were

8:16

trying to turn out the light. He always

8:18

does that though. I mean, after every

8:20

town hall, it's really interesting to watch

8:22

that he will stay and he'll talk

8:24

to people. And he then reminds people

8:27

of his sort of personal history, his

8:29

family history. You know, if people

8:31

are going through difficulties, he's very good

8:33

at that point. You know, I think he's

8:35

almost better in the town hall and the sort of

8:37

chatting one on one than he is with a big audience.

8:39

But there was one person who

8:41

didn't make it to Congress. She

8:44

went to her own kitchen to give, I

8:46

suppose it's the equivalent of the sort of

8:48

opposition rebuttal. It's a reply

8:51

to this. It's the reply to the

8:53

Queen's speech equivalent. So you select a

8:55

Republican to make this reply

8:58

and they chose this woman, Katie Britt, who's

9:01

42, I think, mum, kids. She's

9:03

definitely a mum. Mum. I

9:06

mean, she is a mum. I cannot forget

9:08

that. And also, just where would you frame

9:10

it to show a modern woman of today

9:13

in her kitchen? I mean, really. And

9:15

it was so hammy. I never

9:17

could have imagined what my story

9:19

would entail to think

9:22

about what the American Dream can do

9:24

across just one generation

9:27

in just one lifetime.

9:30

It's truly breathtaking. But

9:33

right now, the

9:36

American Dream has turned into a nightmare

9:39

for so many

9:41

families. The

9:43

true unvarnished state of our

9:46

union begins and ends

9:48

with this. Your

9:51

families are hurting. Our

9:54

country can do better. I

9:58

am in such pain. all

10:00

those crying. But she has this

10:02

weird sort of rickus on her

10:05

face which is I'm slightly crying

10:07

but I'm still smiling but my

10:09

eyes are really wide and she

10:11

says at one point we hear

10:13

you. We see you

10:16

and we stand with

10:19

you. Sounds slightly zombie. Anyway

10:21

the point is it wasn't

10:24

actually as benign as

10:26

the sort of the kitchen drama that you

10:28

thought it might be because she went

10:30

off on a riff. She talked about I

10:32

mean clearly no Republican can sort of have

10:34

a mic without talking about the border and immigration

10:36

and this is something that Biden knows well and

10:38

it's something that he feels very under threat about

10:40

these you know sort of failed to bring immigration

10:42

down but Katie Britt on

10:45

that night went off on a

10:47

riff about a trafficked woman who

10:49

had been repeatedly gang-raped. When

10:51

I took office I took

10:53

a different approach. I traveled

10:55

to the Del Rio sector of Texas. That's

10:58

where I spoke to a woman who

11:00

shared her story with me. She

11:04

had been sex trafficked by the cartels

11:06

starting at the age of 12. She

11:08

told me not just

11:11

that she was raped every day

11:14

but how many times a day

11:17

she was raped. The

11:20

cartels put her on a mattress in

11:23

a shoebox of a room and they

11:26

sent men through that

11:28

door over and

11:31

over again for

11:33

hours and hours on

11:35

end. We

11:38

wouldn't be okay with this happening

11:41

in a third world country. This

11:44

is the United States of America

11:47

and it is past time in my

11:49

opinion that we start acting like it.

11:51

And she laid the blame

11:53

firmly at Joe Biden's feet for

11:55

allowing this poor trafficked woman to

12:00

half her life ruined by the Democratic president.

12:02

You're not going to tell me that it

12:04

didn't actually happen on Joe Biden's watch and

12:06

it might have happened years and years ago.

12:09

It didn't even happen in America. It happened

12:11

in Mexico, her own country. It happened under

12:13

the Bush administration. And yet somehow she had

12:15

just, I mean, you know, we spent a

12:17

week talking about photoshopping. This was a narrative

12:21

photoshop. She lifted a

12:23

poor, identifiable woman's tragedy

12:25

to a different country, to a

12:28

different decade, to a different presidential

12:30

administration and thought she'd get away with it. And

12:32

she didn't. So I spent the

12:34

weekend with people in Washington who know Katie

12:36

Brooke really well. And they say

12:38

she is lovely. She is super

12:40

smart. She is very normal. But

12:44

she had a job to do, which

12:46

was to impress Donald Trump. Everything now

12:48

in the Republican party is an audition

12:50

to please Donald Trump. And it's perfectly

12:52

possible that she will end up on

12:54

the ticket as vice president. She's certainly

12:56

one of the contenders, but they are

12:58

all doing whatever they think it takes

13:01

to give Donald Trump his talking points

13:03

and to maintain the talking points that

13:05

Donald Trump loves to address. And so

13:08

Katie Britt did it in that context.

13:10

Before we leave Katie bricks, I don't

13:12

want to make too much of this

13:14

Senator from Alabama is that

13:16

we need to hear the skit

13:19

from Saturday Night Live of

13:21

Katie Britt played by Scarlett

13:24

Johansson. Good evening America.

13:26

My name is Katie Britt

13:29

and I have the honor of serving

13:33

the great people of Alabama.

13:36

But tonight I'll be auditioning for

13:38

the part of Scary Mom. And

13:42

I'll be performing an original monologue

13:44

called This Country is Hell.

13:47

You see, I'm not just a Senator. I'm

13:50

a wife, a mother,

13:52

and the craziest bitch in

13:54

the target parking lot. I'm

13:58

worried about the future of our. children

14:00

and this is why I've

14:02

invited you into this strange empty

14:05

kitchen. I

14:07

mean we all know somebody a bit like

14:09

that at the school gate right there's the

14:11

one that you just you have to avoid

14:14

quicker yeah exactly bearing towards me yeah so

14:19

that was Scarlett Johansson just to confirm that was

14:21

a parody but only just I mean go back

14:24

to the original and check it out for yourself

14:26

because it's it's quite the watch. Can I just

14:28

mention one other thing on Saturday Night Live and

14:31

you make this kind of you know just there after

14:33

your little interview with Marjorie

14:35

Taylor Green so it's now going viral

14:38

in America as well so that was

14:40

quite a moment too to watch on

14:42

Saturday Night Live. They just call me

14:44

a British reporter. At Trump's victory party

14:47

on Tuesday one of his biggest boosters

14:49

and fellow lopsided Picasso painting Marjorie Taylor

14:51

Green flipped out at a British reporter.

14:53

I mean look at this clip of

14:56

Marjorie Taylor Green being interviewed by a

14:58

UK person. Marjorie Taylor Green seen here

15:00

dress for shift a TGI crazies

15:04

was questioned by a reporter about her

15:06

Jewish space lasers conspiracy theory. I feel

15:08

like saying my name but they went.

15:11

I think you're famous enough.

15:13

I think you do. The

15:16

news agents USA with Emily Maitless

15:19

and John Soper. The

15:22

news agents

15:24

USA. Now we

15:26

often talk about division and polarization

15:29

in America. The two parties who cannot see eye

15:31

to eye on anything but

15:33

they have come together in a moment

15:35

of pure unity

15:38

in their loathing right now for

15:40

one man in the center of

15:42

a political storm and that is

15:44

the special counsel Robert Herr. Now if

15:46

his name is kind of ringing a bell but

15:48

you can't quite remember he's the

15:51

one who interviewed Joe Biden

15:53

last October and published

15:56

his report a couple of weeks ago saying

15:58

that he wasn't going to take The

16:01

court case any further against

16:03

Biden for missing documents, documents

16:05

that were found in Joe Biden's possession

16:08

in a similar way to those found

16:10

in Donald Trump's possession in Mar-a-Lago, some

16:12

would argue. But he made this

16:14

extraordinary comment that he was just an

16:17

ageing old man. With a bad memory. With a bad memory. And

16:20

last night we got the transcripts

16:22

and he had to come before

16:25

Congress again to explain

16:27

to Republicans why he'd let

16:29

him off and to

16:31

Democrats why he'd thrown Biden under

16:34

the bus. And so

16:36

everybody basically hates Robert

16:38

Kerr today. Yes, because he didn't

16:40

give the Republicans what they wanted, which is

16:42

to say, I should have prosecuted

16:44

him. We should have thrown the book at him. And Donald Trump was no

16:46

worse than Joe Biden. He

16:49

didn't say that. He said that Donald

16:51

Trump's crimes over the retention of documents at Mar-a-Lago

16:53

was far worse. So that infuriated the Republicans. I

16:55

mean, it was even more subtle than that. He

16:58

said that Joe Biden wasn't

17:00

innocent, but he didn't think he could

17:02

find evidence to prosecute. Yes. So,

17:05

you know, all very nuanced. And that's what happens when you get

17:07

the transcripts. It's very nuanced. And

17:09

then the Democrat intervenes and says, well,

17:12

you've exonerated him. And he

17:14

shoots back very sharply on that. Yes.

17:17

I'm going to continue with my questions. I know

17:19

that the term... I ultimately reached... I know that

17:21

the term... ...whether sufficient evidence existed such that it

17:23

would be likely outcome... You exonerated him. I

17:26

know that the term willful retention has... Mr.

17:29

Kerr, it's my time. I did not exonerate him. You've done it.

17:32

They're all talking over each other. She says you

17:34

exonerated him and he makes absolutely clear. I did

17:37

not exonerate Joe Biden. And that, of course, is

17:39

not what Democrats want to hear. And

17:41

then he gets attacked by

17:43

Democrats for politicizing the

17:45

whole case. They say by talking

17:47

about Biden's memory issues, by talking about his

17:50

age, you were playing the Republican card. And

17:52

her said, of course, I wasn't politicizing. I

17:55

had to say that because that was evident

17:58

from the transcript. that's

18:00

correct with respect to the transcript. And if you could

18:02

refer me to a specific page, I'd be happy to

18:04

look. Now, I sort of did a bit of wriggling

18:06

around in the transcript. And I have to say,

18:08

it is incredibly detailed. And the

18:10

stuff that's coming out is really quite bizarre. There's

18:12

stuff about where Joe Biden kept the documents, where

18:15

he got the piece of furniture from, what was

18:17

the cabinet. I mean, the stuff he, the detail

18:19

he goes into is slightly crazy.

18:21

And at one point, Joe Biden is

18:23

giving answers and her actually says to

18:25

him, Oh, you're really sharp on this.

18:28

You're remembering more than most people. So

18:30

in a way, you can see why having

18:32

read the transcripts, the

18:34

Democrats are cross. But

18:36

he does come back and say, I was not

18:38

politicizing this. You see what

18:40

answers are missing. You see what isn't

18:43

there. I had to explain what

18:45

you'd be reading in the transcript. And of

18:47

course, Robert Herr is working within the confines

18:49

of the Department of Justice. At

18:52

the head of the Department of Justice

18:54

is the Attorney General Merrick Garland. And

18:56

Republicans wanted her to

18:59

say, Oh, Merrick Garland intervened and

19:01

told me not to do this and

19:03

told me to do that. And he

19:05

said, absolutely not. Merrick Garland left me

19:07

to get on with it as I

19:09

wanted. Again, not what the Republicans wanted

19:11

to hear either side. So you come

19:13

out of it with both sides feeling

19:15

utterly disgruntled. As you say, you know,

19:17

he has brought Democrats and Republicans together

19:19

in their disgruntled that they didn't get

19:21

what they wanted. What he's also spawned

19:23

is a meme that the

19:25

Democrats are now running of all the

19:27

times Trump says he can't remember all

19:29

the time his children were up in, you know,

19:32

in those very court cases and said, I can't

19:34

remember. I do not recall. So I think the

19:36

Democrats are now trying to capitalize on this. Anyone

19:38

can say they don't remember. Why don't we start

19:40

with your guy here? And I think what was

19:43

underlined here for

19:46

the Republicans is

19:48

that they desperate to get an impeachment against

19:51

Biden and it ain't going to happen because

19:53

they just haven't got the ammunition. You

19:55

know, if you look at some of the

19:57

things over the business dealings of Hunter Biden.

20:00

Biden, and whether there was kind

20:02

of proof that Joe Biden was

20:04

receiving money, nothing has actually happened.

20:06

And I just think that this kind of

20:09

underscores that the Republicans have gone too fast,

20:11

too early, but haven't got the ammunition they

20:13

need, and that this is going to fizzle

20:15

out. And the Republicans need to find a

20:18

way of getting themselves off this particular route.

20:20

Because I tell you what, you don't want

20:22

to be if you're a Republican, you don't

20:24

want to be announcing we're abandoning impeachment proceedings

20:27

because we now recognize that Joe Biden is

20:29

a thoroughly honest and decent politician. Look,

20:31

I was talking to Republicans in Washington,

20:34

and they do feel a sense

20:36

of unfairness, actually. They do think

20:38

that Joe Biden is culpable of exactly the

20:40

same sort of things that Donald Trump is.

20:43

Sure. And they also think there's a double standard. There

20:45

is a two-tier justice system. There is a two-tier justice

20:47

system. And for us, I think

20:49

we do not believe that our justice system

20:51

is politicized. I mean, thank God, we really

20:53

don't. I think they do there, and

20:55

I think they see Merrick Garland as put in place

20:57

by Biden. And I think, you

21:00

know, in the same way that Democrats talk about

21:02

the Supreme Court being Trump appointees,

21:04

they see, you know, a lot of

21:06

the special counsel stuff as aiming its

21:08

fire at Trump and not at

21:11

Biden. And so even if I'm not trying

21:13

to do both side of them here at all, because I

21:15

think, you know, we can actually see how

21:17

egregious the things coming down the line

21:19

at Trump are. But I think for

21:21

Republicans, they genuinely believe it's not kind of what

21:24

about it. They genuinely believe that there is a

21:26

double standard going on and they just can't see

21:28

why people who care about the law

21:30

are more interested in getting the bottom bit. And

21:32

one of the other problems that the Republicans now

21:34

have is that their wafer-thin majority

21:37

in the House of Representatives has

21:39

become even more wafer-thin. Right. Because

21:42

there was a kind of out of

21:44

the blue announcement from a Republican congressman

21:46

from Colorado, Ken Buck, saying, I've

21:49

had enough. I'm leaving the House of Representatives.

21:51

This place just keeps going downhill and I

21:53

don't need to spend my time here. We've

21:55

taken impeachment and we've made it a social

21:58

media issue as opposed to a constitutional. personal

22:00

concept, Mike Johnson's ability to talk

22:02

into staying here is

22:04

going to be about as successful

22:06

as his ability into talking into

22:08

unconstitutional impeachment. So, Ken Buck is

22:10

somebody who has kind of watched

22:12

as the extremes on

22:14

the Republican Party, the

22:16

extreme MAGA wing has taken control

22:19

and holds everybody else to ransom.

22:21

And I do think there is a

22:23

parallel between what we are witnessing in

22:26

the House of Representatives and what we

22:28

are witnessing in the House of Commons

22:30

to some extent of the far right

22:32

sort of imposing its will on the

22:35

center with the same sort

22:37

of consequences. In the House of

22:39

Representatives now, I mean, Mike

22:41

Johnson, the Speaker, can

22:43

barely muster a majority. And so they are

22:45

not taking votes to the floor because they

22:47

are terrified they are going to lose them

22:49

because in swing districts people don't

22:51

want to allight themselves to causes that will make them

22:53

unpopular. And if they think they are going too far

22:56

we are saying I don't want to have anything to

22:58

do with it. Yeah, I mean, I

23:00

think the party is splitting along something, it's

23:02

not really splitting, but we are seeing people leave along

23:05

a very simple line of election

23:07

denialism. Mike Johnson was an election

23:09

denialist. Oh, that's the forefront of it. At

23:11

the forefront of it, he was the one

23:13

writing letters, saying let's not impeach, saying let's

23:16

not take this to Trump, saying oh, I'm

23:18

sure we can sort of make this work, we can

23:20

bring Trump back into the fold. And you

23:22

see somebody like Ken Buck, who just

23:24

cannot go into an election, either

23:27

having to deny the election or else having

23:29

to stand against Trump and know the sort of

23:31

vitriol that's coming at him. I don't think this

23:33

will alter anything electorally in

23:35

Colorado, I think it's a fairly

23:38

safe conservative seat, you

23:40

know, that he's got there. But

23:42

I think what you always do is watch for

23:44

others, isn't it? You know, I mean,

23:46

imagine if he had done that when Liz

23:48

Cheney had left, you know,

23:51

when Adam Kinzinger had left, if

23:53

there had been more of a rump willing

23:55

to stand up then and say this is

23:57

not who we are. One

24:00

other area of bipartisanship

24:02

that we need to talk about is

24:04

TikTok. The hugely

24:07

popular social media app

24:09

that is much loved by young people,

24:12

but hey, an awful lot

24:14

of our TikToks do very, very well

24:16

from the news agents, could be banned

24:18

in the US unless the

24:21

parent company, ByteDance, which

24:23

is Chinese owned, divests itself of

24:26

TikTok and TikTok becomes a freestanding

24:28

company because of the fear over

24:31

the use of data by the

24:34

Chinese, something that TikTok says is just

24:36

impossible to happen. But you

24:38

have seen a committee meeting

24:41

to discuss it and voting 50 to nil

24:44

to go ahead with a ban and Joe Biden

24:46

has indicated that he would support it. It's

24:48

a very odd one because when we were

24:51

talking to Steve Bannon last week, he

24:53

said the difference between Biden and Trump is that the

24:55

young are all on TikTok. They're all embracing TikTok.

24:57

You've seen what Biden did. He decided not to

25:00

go and do his interview at the Super Bowl

25:02

at halftime, but he just makes TikTok videos instead.

25:04

And he thinks that that sort of, you know,

25:06

gets him into the young. The Republicans are kind

25:09

of caught in this trap because they don't know

25:11

whether Trump should be on TikTok, but they quite

25:13

like him for TikTok, but it goes against what

25:15

they think about China and policies. And

25:17

so I think they're really caught in this one

25:20

because yes, of course they want him on

25:22

that platform, but they don't want him on

25:24

that platform. Well, Bannon said to us when

25:26

he spoke to us that you have to

25:28

ban TikTok and he said it is the

25:31

most powerful political weapon in the world right

25:33

now. I thought it was an extraordinary claim

25:35

and you kind of just to see. But

25:37

he said you have to ban TikTok really

25:39

because it's where Biden supporters are more than Trump

25:42

supporters. And I think there was a politicization

25:44

to what he was telling us. And also,

25:46

you know, go back to when

25:48

Trump was in the White House. He

25:50

wanted to ban TikTok, but now that

25:52

it's Biden who wants to ban it,

25:55

Trump is going in the opposite direction

25:57

for complicated, convoluted political reasons. try

26:00

to set it out about why TikTok

26:02

should stay. I could have banned TikTok.

26:04

I had it banned just about. I could

26:06

have gotten it done. But

26:09

I said, you know what? But I'll leave it up to

26:11

you. I didn't push them too hard because, you know, let

26:13

them do their own research and development. And

26:15

they decided not to do it. But as you know, I was at

26:17

a point where I could have gotten it

26:19

done if I wanted to. I

26:22

sort of said, you guys decide. You

26:24

make that decision because it's a tough decision to

26:26

make. Frankly, there are a lot of people on

26:28

TikTok that love it. There are

26:30

a lot of young kids on TikTok who

26:33

will go crazy without it. There are a

26:35

lot of users.

26:38

There's a lot of good. And there's a lot

26:40

of bad with TikTok. But the

26:42

thing I don't like is that without

26:44

TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger. And

26:47

I consider Facebook to be an enemy

26:49

of the people along with a lot of the media. So

26:52

you ban TikTok. Facebook gets bigger.

26:54

I hate Facebook more than I

26:57

hate TikTok. Therefore, TikTok should stay.

26:59

I think that is the logic.

27:01

Yeah, I'm lost. The

27:05

News Agents USA with Emily Maitless

27:07

and John Soper. The

27:12

News Agents USA. Before

27:17

we go, a little bit of what's happening

27:19

in Britain entered into

27:21

the White House briefing room with

27:24

President Biden's spokeswoman, Karen Jean-Pierre.

27:27

Being asked the question, I think you'll

27:29

get the relevance of it. Does the

27:31

White House ever digitally alter photos of

27:33

the President tonight's President? Digitally

27:37

altered? Not that I know

27:39

of. I would say no. Why would we digitally

27:41

alter photos? Are you talking about... Are

27:43

you comparing us to what's

27:47

going on in the UK? I'm doing the

27:49

military. But the leader of the other

27:51

country wouldn't alter photos of the President.

28:00

I love the implication there. We can't actually

28:02

mention the royals, but also we're a

28:04

republic. Why would we act like a monarchy?

28:06

I mean, that's what monarchies do, but we

28:08

don't. I mean, also, would we be

28:10

as batshit crazy as they are at

28:12

Kensington Palace? No, we're very sensible people.

28:15

It's really interesting, isn't it? Because there is,

28:17

I guess, the sense of a creeping naivety on

28:19

all of us, that if we were shocked by

28:21

the altering of photos, we shouldn't have been shocked.

28:24

As we know that, you know, Vogue covers

28:26

are altered and that singers

28:28

and celebrities and actresses are probably

28:31

quite often altered in the photos they do.

28:33

But yet we sort of think it's a

28:36

different standard when it's our own royal family

28:38

and we shouldn't. Exactly. And

28:40

I just thought it was kind of, it's not

28:43

often that what's happening in Britain goes into the

28:45

White House briefing room. It's always the royal. I

28:47

mean, anything that crosses the channel is always royal,

28:49

isn't it? Yeah. They still sort of wish they

28:52

had a monarchy, I think. They still

28:54

like kind of, you know, the great families

28:56

who have this sort of lineage

28:58

of, you know, greatness that goes down the generations.

29:00

I think you're going to start a war if

29:02

you carry on down that line. But they do

29:04

have for a bit. 1812, here we come once

29:06

more. We'll be back. Bye.

29:09

Bye. This has

29:11

been a Global Player original podcast

29:13

and a Persephoneca production. Really?

29:16

Why don't you fuck off?