Donald Trump wants to abolish the US emergency response agency
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This is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Paul Moss, and at 1400 Hours GMT on Thursday, the 23rd of January, these are our main stories. Donald Trump wants to abolish America's emergency response organisation FEMA, and he's hinted he may seek to prosecute Joe Biden. The ICC takes on Taliban leaders over their treatment of women and girls. Gaza's ceasefire is holding, but death and destruction continue in the occupied West Bank. We'll hear why some electromagnetic waves from space have got scientists excited. Apparently, they're like the chirping of birds. Also in this podcast... the French film in Spanish set in Mexico that's cleaned up in the Oscars nominations. There's a saying often quoted in Britain that a week is a long time in politics. You do wonder if Donald Trump has taken this to heart as he continues the breakneck speed of his first few days back in the White House.
He's issued a slew of executive orders, pardoned several hundred January 6th rioters and committed to pulling the US out of major international bodies like the World Health Organisation. But Mr Trump also has his eye on organisations closer to home. The latest to find itself in the presidential firing line is FEMA, the Federal Emergencies Management Agency.
What they've done with FEMA is so bad. FEMA is a whole other discussion because all it does is complicate everything. FEMA has not done their job for the last four years. You know, I had FEMA working really well. We had hurricanes in Florida. We had Alabama tornadoes. But unless you have certain types of leadership, it's really it gets in the way. And FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly because I'd rather see the states take care of their own problems.
Mr Trump was speaking on Fox News in an interview which also touched on his plans for tougher immigration control, with 1,500 troops dispatched to the US border with Mexico. But then there was a hint of something else, that Mr Trump might try to prosecute Joe Biden, as our North America editor Sarah Smith explained to the BBC's Emma Barnett.
Donald Trump repeatedly brought up the pardons that Joe Biden had given to family members and people who were part of his administration. It was feared that Donald Trump might try to wreak vengeance on people who he blamed for the prosecutions against himself. And President Trump kept pointing out that President Biden hadn't pardoned himself, saying that he maybe hadn't realized that family members and other people could now be compelled to testify against him if he was being investigated or prosecuted. Now, he'd previously said that he wouldn't go after Joe Biden, but when he was asked about it, he said, I went through four years of hell, so it's hard to say that they shouldn't have to go through that also, which is quite intriguing. He did sign an executive order in the last day or so, which is called ending the weaponisation of the federal government.
But actually, if you read it, it looks a lot like it would, in fact, empower the Trump administration to go after people who they blame for some of what's happened over the last four years.
Talking then about what Donald Trump's going to be doing, you know, far beyond the Biden administration. What is the latest that we know about his crackdown on the border?
He's signing more and more of these executive decrees that mean that he can, without having to pass a law through Congress, order certain things to happen. and that is more troops going to the border. He's particularly keen that they start constructing more physical barriers.
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Speakers
17 identified
Paul Moss 7 min
Sarah Rainsford 3 min
Anna Holligan 2 min
Richard Hamilton 2 min
Jonathan Beale 2 min
Kalkidan Yebeltal 1 min
Yolande Nell 1 min
Miranda 1 min
Narrator 1 min
Gay 1 min
Shaima Khalil 1 min
Georgina Ranard 1 min
Unnamed Woman
Donald Trump
Cindy Crawford
Charlotte Gallagher
Emma Barnett