Up next in 10
Simon Marks and James O'Brien discuss the latest development in Trump's press secretary saga as it emerges Katie Zacharia did not pass the bar exam... despite claiming to be a lawyer.
Hazy with the details, Zacharia previously responded to a question asking about the state she passed in with: "in China".
So, is she a lawyer or a liar? James O'Brien and Simon Marks have some thoughts...
Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp
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0:00
It's happened, hasn't it? The final breach, the impossibility of pretending that Trump is anything other than an ally of the Kremlin
0:06
Absolutely. It has happened. And it has happened just a matter of weeks, two months now, before President Trump welcomes Andy Burnham and the other leaders of the G20
0:16
possibly even also including President Vladimir Putin, who has been invited to the G20 Leaders Summit, not, as the Americans keep saying, in Miami
0:26
It's being held in Doral, Florida, which is where Donald Trump's personal golf course is located
0:34
And that is the venue for this G20 Leaders Summit. So huge questions now for our prime minister, for European leaders about how they are going to handle a situation that is poised to become a showdown for the future of Ukraine
0:49
with Donald Trump absolutely now avowedly attaching himself to President Vladimir Putin
0:56
with Elon Musk suggesting that the US government has turned off, or at least reduced the speed of, the military-grade Starlink system that the Ukrainians are using
1:08
to try and defend themselves against incoming Russian attack. Suggestions by the Ukrainians that the United States has, if not completely suspended
1:18
providing intelligence to them of incoming Russian attacks certainly has reduced the amount of
1:24
intelligence that is being shared, which means that every single time there is a fatality in the
1:31
Ukraine conflict now that is caused by Russia, there is every possibility that that fatality
1:36
is partly related to an American government decision to slow support for Volodymyr Zelensky
1:45
Take a listen to what Donald Trump had to say at the White House three days ago when he was still touting that energy ceasefire which appears to have been a complete Donald Trump concoction and he was pressed by a Polish journalist about precisely how he was going to enforce it
2:00
How are you going to make Putin abide by the ceasefire? I think what's happening is he wants to make a deal
2:07
and we have to get Zelensky to want to make a deal. Of course Putin wants to make a deal
2:13
that requires Volodymyr Zelensky to give away potentially 30% of his territory
2:18
to the Russians. But it's also not just Putin that wants to make a deal
2:23
We also now know the Americans are increasingly keen to make a deal
2:28
because during the conversations that were taking place between Russian officials and Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff
2:34
in Miami a few days ago, it is now being reported that Witkoff and Kushner
2:39
proposed to unfreeze some Russian assets, put them into a special purpose financial vehicle
2:48
that the United States government would then control. Now, when you layer that on top of the decision to do the deal for diesel
2:55
with Vladimir Putin, a carve-out from a very extensive sanctions regime that the United States has imposed against Russia
3:03
congressionally mandated, it underscores the view that what Donald Trump is trying to do
3:09
even without a peace agreement for Ukraine, is get to a point where he turns Vladimir Putin into the blame figure
3:18
the figure who you attach blame to for soaring energy prices at home
3:23
Zelensky. Sorry, Zelensky, by falsifying these claims. Don't mention Iran. Don't mention Iran
3:31
You focus only on the attacks against Russian refineries by the Ukrainians
3:36
You then make Zelensky the figure of blame that you point at when the Republicans lose control of the Senate and the House of Representatives You say it all Zelensky fault It got nothing to do with me It got nothing to do with Iran It all his fault And now we need to move to a situation where we just one way or another
3:54
have to put the Ukraine conflict behind us, normalise the business relationship with Russia
3:58
as massively as possible. And all of this is going to be on the front burner at the G20
4:05
conversations that take place in Florida at Donald Trump's golf club. We still don't know, by the way, what kind of guarantees the British government may have received, that no British taxpayer money is going to flow through that golf club into Donald Trump's personal coffers
4:20
It's a question continuing. Still worth asking. So you've done it again. It's got nothing to do with swaying votes in the midterms. It's preparation for defeat
4:28
Yeah, they're beyond that. He knows. He knows. And Republicans on Capitol Hill know that the midterms are lost
4:36
So this is all about positioning for the day after. Well, thank goodness he's got such a top-quality director of communications
4:44
to steer us through these choppy waters. Well, we knew a lot about Katie Zakaria
4:48
before she had her catastrophic first White House press briefing earlier in the week
4:52
We knew that she's a dyed-in-the-wool conspiracy theorist. We knew that she had engaged in social media diatribes
4:58
calling Democratic Party leaders paedophiles, calling members of the Hollywood elite paedophile cannibals
5:04
We knew that she had amplified all sorts of conspiracy theories and, indeed, even, it seems
5:09
sat on the board of an organization that calls for the public execution of any American women
5:16
who have abortions. But we also thought we knew that she was a lawyer. I mean, I am a lawyer and
5:22
I'm a rigorous researcher. As a lawyer, the procedural steps are absolutely critical to
5:28
ensure that they get this right and that each has the ability to both the state can prosecute and
5:34
lay out their case and also the defense can respond accurately I love to be able to break that down I a lawyer He wrote a book called The Real Anthony Fauci which I read cover to cover to substantiate all of the theories that were actually not theories the known facts about him and was able to make a case because that what we do as lawyers for
5:53
the reason why I would not take anything Fauci recommended. You know, as a lawyer, there's a big difference between answering something under oath and
6:00
answering something to the media. I don't think he needs to do that right now. It's totally illegal. You're a lawyer. Fill us in on Prop 50
6:07
Well, it's definitely illegal and in violation of three sections of our state constitution
6:12
Well, it turns out, thanks to the reporting of the Wall Street Journal, that while she did graduate from Pepperdine Law School, she sat the bar exam and failed it
6:21
In California. In California. Very hard bar exam in California, to be fair
6:25
I mean, it is notoriously one of the hardest in the States. But she failed it. So no evidence to support the claim that she is a lawyer
6:32
A White House official hilariously said to the Wall Street Journal that Zakaria was not hired by the President to work on legal matters
6:40
And indeed that's the case. But she was hired by the President to be his press secretary and presumably to be a credible figure who can mostly tell the truth to the press corps
6:52
And she is either a liar or very, very forgetful. It's one or the other
6:56
Neither of which are brilliant qualifications for being the President's Director of Communications
7:01
Lettuce cam time. Let us come. Start the clock, Simon. I'm just thinking whether or not anybody in British politics could get a degree in something and then subsequently claim throughout the course of their political career that they were actually that thing
7:15
I don't know. Maybe, for example, if you got a degree in software engineering and then spent your entire political career claiming that you were an engineer, despite the fact that your major jobs appear to have been selling financial services at Kutz & Co and working for the Spectator magazine
7:33
But I would not dream of mentioning any names, Kemi Badenok
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