0:00
situation in the United States. The days I don't talk about it are the days when I think that's it
0:05
now. We've lost track. So off the top of my head, they've arrested a young Turkish woman in the
0:11
street. They've announced the latest plans to extort minerals from Ukraine. They've launched
0:16
an attack upon the Smithsonian, which as anyone who's visited the United States will tell you is
0:21
there's no real British equivalent to the Smithsonian. Imagine if the Natural History
0:25
Museum and the V&A and the British Museum. Imagine if all of those came under one umbrella
0:31
that would give you an idea of what the Smithsonian is. Apparently it's not American enough
0:36
which is why Simon Marks is here to just bring us up to date with anything we might have missed
0:41
Simon. And also a welfare report. This is a care check. I want to make sure you're okay as you
0:47
continue to chronicle this absolute madness. Well, that's very nice of you, James. I am
0:53
still here and will stay here for as long as as long as proves to be possible. I mean, look
0:59
the week ends with Donald Trump having seemingly pulled it off again. I mean, he has managed not
1:06
to lose a single member of his cabinet or his national security team so far who were involved
1:13
in that disgraceful conversation that was taking place on the Signal app in which it is absolutely
1:20
clear that the country's war plans were placed by Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary. I mean
1:29
we got to the point on, I think it was Wednesday night here, where Donald Trump, and his story here
1:36
keeps shifting. There was no classified information contained in that chat, which of course was all
1:42
being observed by Jeffrey Goldberg, the respected journalist here in Washington DC, that Donald
1:48
Trump dismissed at one point as a sleazebag. Trump said there was no classified information in the
1:53
chat. Then 24 hours later, he said he wasn't sure whether there had been any classified information
2:00
in the chat after Goldberg, of course, published the classified information that was in the chat
2:05
We got to the point on Wednesday night where Donald Trump was postulating the possibility
2:09
that Signal itself is defective, that there's a problem with the app and that somehow that may
2:17
have contributed to all of this. And you sit there and you just listen to this stuff and you have to
2:23
report it. And honestly, I was sitting there thinking, I went to university for this, you know
2:28
I mean, to to have to deal with this kind of absolute nonsense that is emanating from the
2:34
White House But Republicans on Capitol Hill as we suggested earlier in the week have not found their backbone nor I think will they There no indication that Hegseth Tulsi Gabbard the director of national intelligence Mike Waltz the national security advisor are going to take the
2:50
fall. Although I think Waltz is in trouble. I think Waltz won't take the fall this time round
2:56
because the White House doesn't want to give anything to Goldberg of the Atlantic. But I think
3:02
Waltz has got a real problem because the one thing that is totally still unexplained about all of this
3:08
is why was Mike Waltz reaching out in the first place to Jeffrey Goldberg
3:14
asking Goldberg to connect with him on Signal? And that, of course, has led everyone in the White House to presume
3:20
that, never mind the war plans on Yemen, Mike Waltz actually was about to start leaking stuff to Goldberg
3:28
So there's not a lot of trust left with him in the inner circles of the White House
3:33
So his card is marked. So why was he even in your contacts is probably for people not familiar with Signal. Exactly
3:39
Is the way to phrase the question. I mean, I'm glad you can laugh about it
3:42
And I can too on a good day. But I think when we did the first phone in, which may have been on Monday, the question I asked was, how do you do
3:51
How do you deal with stories like this? How do we report stories like this when they are of objectively enormous importance
3:59
But we are in a world by which I mean the White House where it will not matter at all, where all of the old rules have not just been broken
4:07
that they've been wiped from history, like, you know, in a Stalinist way
4:13
The old rules never existed. Yeah, and I'm not trying to make light of it at all
4:18
I mean, you just have to find some way, I think, of dealing with it
4:22
Look, it is a tsunami here every single day. And there are key moments, and we're going to be talking about this actually
4:30
on American Week in Tom's programme later on this afternoon, that I think are clear indicators of where this country is going
4:39
And the one this week that has shocked me is the manner in which that 30-year-old doctoral student from Tufts University
4:50
Rumesa Ozturk, a Turkish national, was seized off the streets in broad daylight
4:56
by six masked agents of the US government as an onlooker videotaped the scene
5:04
and suggested that perhaps she was being kidnapped because it absolutely looked like a kidnap
5:11
She was then disappeared into the system. And this is exactly what happened with Mahmoud Khalil
5:17
the Algerian student who had been the lead negotiator for pro protesters at Columbia University last year She was disappeared Her lawyers couldn find her They traipse her deliberately to an ICE detention centre more than a thousand miles away
5:35
in Louisiana, even after a judge issues a court order saying she's not to be taken out of
5:42
Massachusetts without notice being provided to the court. So the lawyers have now found her
5:47
Marco Rubio yesterday and Rubio is extraordinary. The last time we saw Rubio, he looked like a man who was hoping that that couch in the Oval Office was just going to envelop him and suck him into it as he watched President Trump berate Zelensky
6:04
Rubio yesterday not only announced that he was revoking her visa and kicking her out of the country for the single act of writing an op ed in which she urged Tufts University to divest from Israel and to acknowledge a resolution that was describing that what was taking place in Gaza was a Palestinian genocide
6:28
She is not a Hamas terrorist, or at least if she is, that certainly has not been proven by this government that has accused her of no crime, has provided no evidence whatsoever of what they claim is her support for Hamas terrorists who relish killing Americans
6:46
And Rubio yesterday said that he's nullified around 300 visas for other students as this hunt for people involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations that are completely covered by the First Amendment to the American Constitution guaranteeing free speech
7:05
He's kicking them all out of the country. Legal peaceful protest. I've legal, peaceful protests and so legal
7:14
These people aren't charged with any crime. In the case of Mzozturk, she was swept off the streets in an incredibly heavy handed and thuggish action by the authorities
7:27
disappeared into the system for over 24 hours. And now she's being sent back to Turkey
7:33
The Turks monitoring this situation and clearly very unhappy about it. So, you know, it raises questions about the extent to which another Rubicon was crossed this week in terms of the move towards authoritarianism
7:46
I mean, potentially even more worryingly, there's a Harvard Medical School researcher who was detained at Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Louisiana who fled Russia originally, I think as a consequence of the evasion of Ukraine
8:03
And she now could be sent. She had her visa revoked and she could be sent back to Russia where she might face let just say a very serious situation And this stuff is mad Simon isn it I know you never thought you see the day when you be reporting back to London from Washington on these kind of events
8:20
but they're gathering pace. They're not like early aberrations. They look very much like a flavour of what's to come
8:29
yeah the point about that russian uh yst is that she has engaged on social media in criticism
8:36
of putin's war on ukraine and so if she is returned and it seems like she will be uh to
8:43
moscow she's at real risk of some very very serious criminal uh repercussions and possibly
8:49
being jailed for a lengthy period of time in uh in russia uh and there are other examples that
8:55
really kind of shock you. I mean, three professors from Yale University this week announcing that
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they're quitting the country. They are taking teaching posts in Canada because they no longer
9:05
want to work and teach in what they said was becoming an increasingly authoritarian environment
9:12
So, yeah, I think we have to continue tracking this day by day. You can't keep up with all of
9:20
it. I mean, I was just looking at the New York Times homepage today. You know, Robert F. Kennedy
9:24
hiring a known vaccine sceptic to investigate the link between vaccine and autism
9:33
We've got the measles epidemic that's continuing down in Texas. J.D. Vance, the vice president, heading off to Greenland to plant his boots on Greenland's soil
9:45
in what the Danes and the authorities in Greenland are saying is a threatening move towards them
9:51
by the Trump administration. I mean, there's just so much of this stuff
9:58
taking place every single day. But some of the things that have happened this week
10:03
have once again, I think, absolutely pegged the needle. We're going to run out of Rubicon, Simon Marks
10:08
Thank you. It makes you even more valuable than you usually are, which is why, as you've mentioned
10:12
you'll be back on with Tom Swarbrick when you have a little bit more time and space to explore what is going on
10:18
And, you know, Diane writes, it's the handmaid's tale in real time and and i agree but i also think that it's time to start
10:25
reading out messages that i would once have filed under oh do calm down i don't mean that in a rude
10:31
sort of michael winner kind of way i just mean let's let's be sensible about this let's be
10:36
clear-headed but when i get messages saying there was very very little resistance to the nazi party
10:41
in germany after 1933 it's why the white rose it has such sort of mythical status in in our in
10:49
our minds. People who weren't being snatched off the streets or deported or the rest of it just
10:54
kept their heads down and carried on