Donald and Melania Trump at the National Prayer Service in the Washington National Cathedral, January 21, 2025 (Evan Vucci/AP)


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I joined the Irish Independent’s Indo Daily on Wednesday to assess the first 48 hours of Donald Trump’s destructive second term in the White House.

Listen from 3:46:

I chat with host Kevin Doyle about Trump’s declaration of a national emergency so he can use the US military in the possible deportation of migrants and asylum seekers.

Trump is threatening to deport every undocumented immigrant but that would cost many, many billions of dollars.

So the executive orders set up the foundation for when they want to move. It’s keeping every migrant and asylum seeker in a culture of fear, “You could be next.”

To do that, you have to put some infrastructure down.

I evaluate Trump’s threat to remove birthright citizenship, explaining the Constitutional, legal, and cultural barriers to that.

You grow up in the US with the idea of how lucky you are to be an American, and that has been extended since the early days of the Republic to those lucky enough to be born on American soil.

Trump is attacking that. We’ll see how far he gets culturally, but he also has a long legal road.

I look at Trump’s assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion, asking what that means for an Irish culture which has embraced DEI.

Let’s cut through the rhetoric.

Donald Trump is not ending the “culture war” by attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion.

To be diverse, to welcome women and racial and ethnic minorities who have had opportunities in the past — welcoming this is not a “culture war”. That’s trying to enhance your culture.

The person waging the culture war here is Donald Trump.

And I consider with respect to other orders from Trump’s purges of his “enemies” to his use of pardons to sweep away the Capitol Attack and his attempted coup in January 2021, “Can anyone stop Donald Trump?”