Donald Trump and his unelected co-President Elon Musk at the SpaceX Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas, November 19, 2024 (Brandon Bell/AP)
EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Can Ukraine and Europe Get Trump Administration’s Support?
EA on International Outlets: The US Has An Authoritarian Regime
UPDATE, APR 29:
I joined BBC Radio Ulster on Tuesday morning to summarize the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s second term in office.
The other guest is Republican strategist Matthew Bartlett.
Listen to Discussion from 2:23.52
We are in a very dangerous period. Trump is gutting US agencies. He is breaking alliances and hurting allies. He is trying to defy courts. He is trying to suppress the media, universities, and other institutions. He is cutting vital programs.
If this was happening in any other country, we would call it authoritarian rule.
I knock back the defenses of and excuses for Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine to Russian invasion, and I look to whether the dangers ahead can be averted.
Not just the Democrats but all good Americans have to get their act together. Donald Trump is at a record low in opinion polls for a President in the first 100 days of his term, but he is causing great damage.
You have to call out that damage, and you have to say that as Americans we cooperate rather than confront each other.
UPDATE, APR 25:
I joined the Irish Examiner’s Mick Clifford Podcast on Friday for a 41-page review of the first awful, destructive 100 days of Donald Trump’s second stay in the White House.
I begin by evaluating Trump’s failed attempt to bully Ukraine into giving into the demands of Russia’s invaders.
Trump projects success by bullying everyone into his “Art of the Deal”. He charges in, says, “Here are my terms. Accept this.”
What happens when a bully doesn’t get his way? That’s when Trump runs into trouble. When a bully get punched in the nose, does he double down or does he find another playground and beat up some other kids?
When it gets tough for Trump, he doesn’t know where to go next.
Then we discuss Trump as both “economic moron” and bully with his tariffs threat, and his wider attempt at authoritarianism, bashing agencies, courts, universities, and other institutions into submission.
The United States often has not lived up to its values, but those values are still important — the ideas of rights, justice, and equality.
You have an Administration that does not recognize any of those. The threat is here.
We conclude with a look at the resistance, discussing what Democrats can do as an effective response to the bullying and authoritarianism.
UPDATE, APR 20:
I spoke with LBC’s Matt Frei on Saturday about the threat of the Trump Administration, including its attempt to claim absolute authority by quashing the courts and “disappearing” migrants in foreign prisons.
If it had happened in Russia or in North Korea or in Syria or in Iran, we would come out and say that these are authoritarian systems that are committing human rights abuses.
Now you have an administration that says it is not only migrants who can be sent to El Salvador’s prisons. Donald Trump says US citizens can be sent there.
That’s how far we’ve gotten with an administration led by a convicted felon.
We cover other aspects of Trump’s authoritarian quest. Then Frei concludes — amid the reality TV star’s State visit to the UK later this year — by noting the irony of a US President trying to rule like a mon
I respond, with my tongue wedged in my cheek, “All hail King Donald.”
ORIGINAL ENTRY, APR 19: I joined Poland’s TVP World on Saturday in a 12-minute analysis of the first three months of Donald Trump’s second stay in the White House.
I evaluate the chaos, the vitriol, the destruction at home and abroad, beginning with the Trump Administration’s disregard of the judiciary over “disappearances” of migrants.
For the first time in my life, for the first time in US history, we have an Administration trying to be an authoritarian regime.
I also discuss the Administration’s attempts to crush the independence of universities and the media, and I consider its latest muddled approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
