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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Normalissa emme juhli mitään juuri nyt. Ja sitä on syytä juhlia. Saat nyt Maybellin huuliöljyn hintaan 9,50. Säästää nolla euroa. Voit myös ostaa kolme Sens Beauty kasvonaamiota kolmen hinnalla. Ja säästää nolla prosenttia Maybellin peitevoiteesta. Voimassa joka päivä. Mitä vähemmän ostat, sitä halvemmaksi se tulee. Normal. Pysyvästi edulliset hinnat.
Chapter 2: What does Donald Trump's new settlement with the IRS entail?
You've heard us say many times before that Donald Trump's just done something unprecedented, that we've never seen a president behaving like this before. Well, he's done it again by creating a breathtakingly audacious slush fund, the proceeds of which can probably be spent on his friends and allies, and granted himself immunity.
from tax audits, all as part of a deal he's done with the Internal Revenue Service. We will explain the ins and outs of that in this episode, and also we'll look at the electoral contest, the primaries, where Donald Trump's candidates won, and he's claiming victory even though his name wasn't on the ballot. He's knocked out opponents like long-serving congressman Thomas Massey in Kentucky. Those SOBs in Washington tried to buy my vote. They couldn't buy it.
Miksi rassi tuli niin kalliikkiin? Koska he päättivät ostaa se. Ja se tuli todella kalliikkiin hänelle. Donald Trump näyttää, että hän vahvistaa rassia republikaan partilta, vaikka hän on valmistunut ja valmistunut. Welcome to AmeriCast.
AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump-arrangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up!
Hello, it's Sarah in the BBC Washington Bureau. And it's Anthony across the table from Sarah in Washington DC. Just back from a trip. Back from Kentucky at a big congressional race there, which we were about to talk about. Yeah, we will get on to the slush fund and this amazing deal that Donald Trump did with the IRS later. First, let's pick up on the fact that yesterday, Tuesday the 19th, there was a little kind of mini Super Tuesday in America with...
Six different states having primary elections where they choose the candidates for the Republican and Democrat parties who will go into the midterm elections in November. And we're interested in these because in a lot of them inside the Republican Party there was a more establishment candidate and a Trump challenger. And in most cases, in fact I think all cases, it was the Trump candidate who won, wasn't it Anthony?
Yes, it was. And in Kentucky, most notably, it was Thomas Massey, the longtime iconoclastic rebel libertarian candidate, congressman who lost to a Trump-backed political novice, Ed Gellerin.
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Chapter 3: How is the slush fund related to Trump's immunity from tax audits?
It was a good night for Donald Trump, really, wasn't it? It was a good night for Donald Trump. The marquee contest was that Kentucky race. And well, was he able to stand up to Donald Trump? Was he able to win re-election despite facing the full force of Trump's financial and endorsement onslaught? No, he lost. And he actually lost by about 10 percentage points. So it wasn't even all that close. Let's listen to Massey give his concession speech and maybe he can explain why he ended up coming up short.
Me ei menneet tätä rauhaa, koska meillä ei ollut tarpeeksi rahaa. Tämä on kaikkein kalliimpi rauha. Luulen, että kun ne lisäävät... Nyt he voivat määritellä 35 miljoonaa. Luulen, että kun ne lisäävät, se tulee olemaan paljon enemmän kuin se. Koska meidän puolueessamme, me tiedämme, että olemme kasvaneet enemmän kuin 15 miljoonaa. Olimme voineet mennä rauhassa. Ei ollut enää viikkoa, kun olemme kasvaneet enemmän kuin 2-1 tässä koko rauhassa.
Katsokaa, kymmenen vuoden jälkeen Washingtonin sopimukset yrittivät ostaa minun valinnani. He eivät pystyneet ostamaan sen. Miksi rassi tuli niin kalliiksi? Koska he päättivät ostaa se. Ja se tuli todella kalliiksi heille. Katsokaa...
He used a lot of dirty tricks, but we stayed the course. We didn't bend a knee. We didn't throw a foul ball. We didn't do any of those things. We didn't kneecap anybody. We had lots of opportunities to try a lot of stuff like that, and we never did it. We ran a clean race.
That is very interesting that Thomas Massey is saying that it wasn't specifically about the money, even though tens of millions were spent on what's now the most expensive primary race in America. He was being challenged by a Donald Trump-backed candidate because he had voted to release the Epstein files, he had voted against extra spending that would have increased the national debt, and he voted against the war in Iran.
All things he'd broken with Donald Trump on, but he said he was the one holding the flame of Trumpism because these were all things that Donald Trump campaigned on, but just wasn't delivering in office. And pointed out he'd been loyal to him 90% of the time voting with him in Congress. So, Anthony, you were there talking to voters. You must have met people who in 2024 had voted for both Donald Trump and Thomas Massey.
And they're now being asked to pick between the two of them. Right. And a lot of them were conflicted. I talked to some people who voted for Massey, who was a little upset about the fact that Trump was campaigning against him. I've talked to some voters who voted against Massey, but liked him as a person and felt they kind of admired his stand on principles. But that didn't matter. And when it came down to it,
Massey was making the case that he was standing on principles and that his voters should side with him because of these stands. And a majority of the voters, it turns out, did not like the fact that he was breaking with Donald Trump. I mean, as an example, this is Alan, a Republican I spoke with at a coffee shop in Union, Kentucky, and he laid it out pretty clearly why he was not supporting Thomas Massey. And he does not represent Kentucky any longer. All his...
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Chapter 4: What impact do recent primary elections have on Trump's influence in the Republican Party?
Hän kestää rauhaa ja vahvistaa Trumpia, jotta hän voi saada kysymyksiä ja niin edelleen. Joten mitä sinulla on oikeastaan? Sinun täytyy päättää.
Hänen ystävänsä on Ro Khanna. Oletko Ro Khanna tai Donald Trumpin ystävä? Hän on tehty hänen ystävänsä, niin sanotusti. Oletko sinä Gellerain, vai onko se vain se, että hän on toinen ystävä? Olen. Olen tavannut hänet muutaman kerran, ja haluan hänet. Luulen, että hän on tärkeä ystävä. Miksi hän tulee Washingtoniin, jotta hän sopii Trumpin agendasta?
support Trump's agenda and stand for the Kentucky values. Trump's agenda doesn't always lie. But he is the president, he was elected. He represents all 50 states, so it may not perfectly align with Kentucky, but it's closer than the other side.
So Rokana, that's a reference to the Democrat from California that Massey worked with in getting those Epstein files released with a vote in the House of Representatives. But I think what you hear there is that Massey was too enamored by his press clippings, that Massey wasn't focusing on sticking with Trump and moving the ball forward and being a team player. And that was what.
Sankev. So all of the explaining I heard on the campaign trail, all of this, I vote with Trump 90% of the time, all of this, you know, I'm really trying to just improve the bills, not destroy them. None of that mattered. It was a contest framed between Donald Trump and Thomas Massey, and voters in that district picked Trump.
Yeah, that's fascinating. And if he had had Trump's backing, he would have won, presumably. It's all about the president, even though he wasn't on the ballot. Yeah, he had Trump's backing in 2024, and he coasted to victory, even though he was still the kind of guy who voted against
Some of the Republican priorities because they raised the deficit too much. He was always an anti-interventionist. Another thing is that because the House has been so closely divided during Donald Trump's second term, where just a handful of votes are the difference between winning and losing a vote.
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Chapter 5: Why did Thomas Massey lose his primary election despite his previous standing?
On ollut iso näkökulma Massien kanssa, joten hänen tyypillisyyttänsä, jota olisi voinut kirjoittaa, kun hän oli suunniteltava suurin piirtein aiemmin, on tullut todella tärkeitä. Ja se on se, mikä on saanut Donald Trumpin rauhaa. Tämä on mielenkiintoista kaksi syystä, jotka menevät kauempaa Kentuckyä ja tekevät sen kansalliseen asiaan.
We're seeing polls that Donald Trump is the least popular he has been in this term at the moment, and yet he's winning these kind of electoral victories. And also, when you see somebody who has rebelled a bit on principle like Thomas Massey losing his primary, every other Republican in Congress is going to look at that and think, uh-oh, that's what happens if you stand up against Donald Trump. He's not the first to lose a primary for going against Donald Trump, but he's probably the highest profiler, the one who maybe had the best chance of
joutuvat kentuckiin, vaikka Donald Trump joutuu vastaan. Tämä on paljon, mitä voimme oppia tästä. Kyllä, se tuntui niin, että hän oli paras mahdollisuus joutua vastaan Trumpille ja olla uusi normaali vastaan ulkopuolisen presidentin kanssa. Kuten mainitsit, se ei tullut olemaan niin, mutta hän johtaa pitkään republikaanista, kuten senatorin Bill Cassidy Lousiassa, joka jäi Trumpin vastaajan vastaan.
The primary contest in Louisiana on Saturday. Also, we've talked about in the past those five Indiana state senators who wouldn't redistrict in accordance with Donald Trump's plans and the Trump campaign turned against them and they got voted out off. I think there is a feeling among Republicans who have any kind of
pitkän aikavälin toistuvuudesta ja pysyvästä rannasta, että jos he käyvät sopimuksia Donald Trumpin vastaan, ja he sopivat hänet, he ovat toistuneita. He eivät voida vahvistaa, ei vain kansainvälisiä valitseja, vaan he eivät voida vahvistaa, vaikka he olisivat jatkuvasti hallituksessa, vaikka heillä on paljon ystäviä Donald Trumpin ulkopuolelta. Se ei välttämättä mene.
Katsokaa Lauren Boebertia, republikaanin puolustajana. Hän olisi ollut todella maga ja loistava Donald Trumpiin. Olemme puhuneet hänestä podcastissa aiemmin. Hän meni takaisin ja kampanjoitui Thomas Masseyin Kentuckyissä. Sitten Donald Trump alkoi laajentamaan Truth Socialista, että hän halusi joku, joka haluaisi haastaa hänet ensimmäisenä puolustajana. Mikä olisi oltava laajentamassa Lauren Boebertia, koska hän olisi yrittänyt kampanjoittaa Donald Trumpin ystäväksi. Tämä tuntuu olevan, että hän teki tämän hienosti myöhemmin.
In her state, so nobody will be able to challenge her on that. But Donald Trump has also been posting on Truth Social a graphic saying that he had 37 wins on May the 19th and zero losses. And he's counting them across the six states that were voting in primary elections on Tuesday and saying that his candidates won it every single time. So it does make him look very, very preeminent in the party. But.
Tämä on aika, kun hän käsittelee Iranin sotilasta, jossa paljon rauhoittuvia republikaanit, todennäköisesti suosittelijoita, jotka ovat ääneen ääneen ääneen, eivät kiinnosta. Tiedämme, että kaikki tuntevat, että rauha kasvaa, erityisesti gasin, petrolin, mutta se siirryttyy ruokalaisiin ja muihin asioihin. Hänellä on todella vähäisiä arvontarajoituksia opetussuunnitelmissa, jotka käsittelevät koko amerikkalaisen populaation.
And yet here he is apparently able to command the voters in these Republican primaries. Right. And that is his remarkable ability. He has remade the Republican Party in his image. And even as he is struggling, he has been able to weed out people that he finds insufficiently loyal. Let's talk about Bill Cassidy again a little more. He's a Louisiana senator. This is him in his concession speech talking about why he lost.
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Chapter 6: What does Trump's endorsement strategy reveal about his control over the Republican Party?
So, an incumbent senator doesn't get the backing of Donald Trump and goes down to defeat. We've got another one actually just in on Tuesday. Donald Trump endorsed a challenger to John Cornyn, the incumbent senator in Texas. He endorsed Ken Paxton, the state attorney general. That contest is on Tuesday. I know we talked about it in the past, but here's another chance next week.
for Donald Trump to oust an incumbent. And the thing about Cornyn is he's not even really that anti-Trump. He never had a clear break. Cassidy's thing was he voted to convict Donald Trump during his 2021 Senate impeachment trial. We talked about all the various transgressions that Massey has had. But Cornyn tried to win Donald Trump's favor. He was about to name a highway after Trump in Texas. He had proposed a bill to do that. He had been campaigning with photos of him next to Trump.
Trump nevertheless came out with a true social post endorsing Paxton, saying that Paxton was the true loyalist, that he was real MAGA, and Paxton had gone to New York to support Trump when he was on trial. He was one of the people who were leading an effort to overturn the 2020 election. Trump rewarded that loyalty. He said that Cornyn was a nice guy, but that he wasn't there when times were hard, which I assume means his post loyalty.
defeat time and out of office in 2021, 2022. And that that was just not good enough.
That sounds like a very good reason to be going to Texas, Anthony. And I know you never turned down the possibility of a trip to Texas. I know. There's some barbecue waiting for me. I might have to do that. It is interesting in this case because Cornyn didn't have that break. Cornyn is very popular in Congress. He has a lot of friends in the Senate, a lot of Republican friends in the Senate. He's a former member of the Republican leadership, for crying out loud. He was the majority whip. That's the guy who organizes and tries to get people to vote all together in the party.
He is a an active fundraiser for a lot of his fellow Republicans. So when Donald Trump came out in favor of Paxton, it really, really angered a lot of Senate Republicans who felt like Trump was betraying someone who was a team player. So I think that hints at some of the downside of.
of what Donald Trump is doing here. He may be purging disloyal or quasi-loyal members from his party, and next year they may be replaced by a real diehard MAGA faithful. But in the meantime, he's making a lot of enemies in Congress and in the Senate, and he's also creating a lot of freewheeling members who are retiring either forcefully or by choice, who may not be willing to march in lockstep with Donald Trump's legislative agenda for the rest of this year.
Juontaja Erja Hyytiäinen Juontaja Erja Hyytiäinen
Se voisi tehdä sen jälkeen sennetin tehtävä rauhassa. Se olisi yllättävää, jos Donald Trump olisi saanut tehtävä sen tehtävä rauhassa. Demokraatit ovat odottaneet sitä vuosia. Tämä on heidän parhaansa mahdollisuus. Vähintään republikaatit tarvitsevat paljon enemmän rahaa tämän rauhan, kuin jos Cornyn olisi saanut rauhassa.
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Chapter 7: How does the creation of the compensation fund affect Trump's allies and opponents?
Kyllä, ja sinä olet ollut erittäin yllättynä sanomaan, että jolo-yhteisö. Olen nähnyt sinut joillekin yhteisöjen tekstissä kutsumaan niitä jolo-yhteisöä tai DGAF-yhteisöä. Meidän pitäisi kertoa, mitä se akronyymi tarkoittaa. He voivat googlaa sitä. Minä huomaan, että mitenkään amerikkalaisilta ei tiedä, mitä se tarkoittaa. Mutta jos he eivät, niin internet on heidän kanssaan. Mutta katsotaanpa, Anthony, mitä sinä puhuit tuossa. Tämä uusi rahoitus, joka oli kuulunut eilen.
It's not quite 1.8 billion dollars, it's 1.776 billion to commemorate America's 250th birthday. What better way to commemorate it than setting up a fund that looks as though it's there to reward Donald Trump's
Ystävät ja ystävät, koska se tulee sitoutua justiokouluun. Ja jokainen, joka ajattelee, että he olivat vahvistuneita, kuten Donald Trump aina kutsuu, että ne, joita hän sanoisi, ovat valitettavissa, ovat ne, jotka olivat valitettavissa ja valitettavissa Biden-administraatioissa. He voivat nyt sovittaa se, että he ovat valitettavissa.
It will be decided by a panel of five people, not been appointed yet, but will be appointed in fact by one of Donald Trump's appointees, Todd Blunt. And so the criticism is that this is just there to reward his friends. But the reason it came about was also kind of astonishing, wasn't it, Anthony?
Donald Trump was suing the IRS. The president was suing his own IRS for the unauthorized release of his tax returns, years of his tax returns that took place. They were leaked to the New York Times in September of 2020, so just before that 2020 presidential election that Donald Trump lost. He was seeking damages, $10 billion in damages from the IRS. It turns out this was
A contractor who got a hold of them and leaked them wasn't some sort of an IRS official. So Donald Trump still was saying that this was the IRS's responsibility and he should be compensated. But then Donald Trump dropped it, striking a deal with his own Justice Department. And this $1.8 billion slush fund is the result of it.
Yeah, it's amazing, isn't it? So you've got a judge who wasn't sure that she would allow the case to proceed, because basically you've got Donald Trump in the White House, but you've also got Donald Trump in charge of the IRS. So it's not right that they should be engaged in a legal battle together, but it's absolutely fine for them to make a cosy little sweetheart deal behind the scenes and come to a settlement. It doesn't really seem to me like that's certainly any more ethical, even if it might be a little bit more legal. So yes, you've now got this fund, and not total clarity.
on who is going to be able to apply to it or what the criteria would be to get compensation. Because if it is the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, who of course used to be Donald Trump's private personal lawyer as well, very, very loyal to Donald Trump, he's going to appoint the panel that will make the decisions here. And I guess the people applying could include Steve Bannon. For instance, he went to jail for a few months during the Biden administration for refusing to testify in front of Congress.
But really controversial would be if Jan 6th rioters, some of whom were convicted and imprisoned, but then were pardoned by Donald Trump on day one, they might not just be taking those pardons, they now might be looking for compensation. And that caused a bit of a fuss yesterday. I was in the White House briefing room when the Vice President J.D. Vance came to talk to us. And he was asked several times about this and whether or not it would be right
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Chapter 8: What are the potential legal and political implications of Trump's actions discussed in this episode?
if Jan 6 rioters who had attacked police officers were to be compensated out of government money. You previously told me that anyone who assaulted a police officer on January 6 should go to prison. So why not rule out giving them taxpayer-funded money?
Katelin, sanoin, että käsittelemme kaikkia asioita kohdallaan. Mitä tarkoitat? Katelin, minulla on ihmisiä, joiden ominaisuudet eivät tiedä, eivätkä määrittele niitä kategorisesti, kun en tiedä mitään ominaisuudesta. Esimerkiksi, jos joku on huolissani,
A person is accused of doing something that they never actually did, that they got a kangaroo court, that they had a judge who mistreated them. I think that we should look at those things case by case. We're not making commitments to give anybody money. We're just making commitments to look at things case by case.
Vice president wasn't the only person being asked about this fund. Todd Blanche, who as we've said was Donald Trump's own personal attorney, now the acting attorney general, was giving evidence in front of Congress also yesterday. So he too was being asked about this slush fund. And he said he couldn't rule out money being used to compensate January the 6th rioters. Here he is being questioned by the Democrat Jack Reed.
This all seems to be an obvious abuse of power by the Department of Justice, by the President. He negotiated essentially it himself. You're his appointee, the IRS are his appointees, he's the plaintiff.
Amerikkalaiset eivät ole yllättäneet, että kaikki tämä rahaa menee hänen ystävänsä tai ihmisille hänestä. Oletko varma, ettei mitään rahaa mene jokaiselle valmistelijalle 6.5. kohdalla? Järjestäjät tarkoittavat, kuka saa rahaa. Ja kuka on järjestäjät? Ne eivät ole vielä kertoneet. Kuka ne kertoo?
Minä olen. Tai puheenjohtaja. Se ei ole minä. Joten presidentti Yhdysvaltain puheenjohtajan suosituksena. Kysy minua. Presidentti Yhdysvaltain puheenjohtajan suosituksena. Minä en teke suosituksia. Ei, ei. Hän tekee suosituksia sinulle. En tiedä, onko hän tekemässä suosituksia tai ei. En todellakaan. En tiedä, onko hän tekemässä suosituksia tai ei.
I would be shocked if he didn't tell you exactly who to put on, and I'd be more shocked if you did not put them on. This is...
...travesty of the law in the United States and the Constitution. You know, this whole hearing, I think, is exposing something, which is to me very frightening. You're a very gifted lawyer, but from my perspective, you have very little faith to the Constitution and the people of America, and you're the president's consigliore. Your perspective is completely wrong, Senator, respectfully. Well, I think the facts will prove me right. Thank you.
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