Americanswers! Is Iran really trying to kill Trump, and why is he threatening to bomb Oman?

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0:37Matt Shorley's away this week, which means we have a traditional edition of America Answers and the traditional range of issues. So, for instance, Caroline Levitt, the press secretary, leaving the White House. Why? What does it do to the balance of power within the Trump White House? Plus, is Donald Trump morphing into Jimmy Carter, his worst nightmare? And what about the Air Force One palaver? The whole business of Donald Trump apparently being on Air Force One and then not being on Air Force One and the potential dangers that there were for journalists because apparently there had been a threat to that aircraft.

1:13What really went on? What do we know about it? And where does it leave the relationship between the press and the presidency? Welcome to America Answers.

1:24Marianna Spring: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.

1:50Hello, it's Sarah in the BBC's Washington Bureau. And it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And Marianna, I am pleased to say, is not yet here, but is on her way here. So she's going to be joining me in just a few seconds time. But let's start without her, Sarah. And let's start with this question from Anna in Buckingham, who asks this. When Trump took up office for the second time, he seemed to have appointed a larger proportion of women to top jobs in his administration. With the announcement of Caroline Levitt's resignation, it occurred to me that his inner circle is gradually becoming more testosterone-driven as the midterms loom.

2:28Thoughts? So Caroline Levitt is leaving as press secretary. She said because having come back to work after the birth of her second child, the job was too all-consuming and she wanted to go and spend more time with her family, which is, of course, always a terrible cliche in political resignations, isn't it? But on this occasion, it does seem to be true. There's no signs whatsoever of a falling out between her and President Trump. And he was incredibly generous about her when he was posting on social media saying how much he would miss her and what a great job she was doing. But Anna is absolutely right that two cabinet ministers who've been fired were both women, Pam Bondi as attorney general and Kristi Noem as the Homeland Security secretary.

3:07And they were both replaced by men. Susie Wiles is still absolutely at the centre of things, though, as the chief of staff. Now, she's getting treated for breast cancer at the moment, but she's still at work and seems to be one of the very, very few people in the White House who can kind of speak truth to power, as we say in journalism, who can tell Donald Trump that he's wrong. Now, she can't necessarily stop him doing things that she advises against, but he is prepared to listen to her in a way he doesn't listen to other men, interestingly. And Caroline Leavitt was one of the people also, I think, who was very close to him and could speak frankly to the president in a way that some other people simply don't dare.

3:48And it's an interesting dynamic that some of the people he seems to be prepared to listen to are women, not something you would necessarily have assumed about Donald Trump. But it is true that, yes, there are more and more men entering the cabinet as the women depart. We don't know who's going to replace Caroline, though. On the subject of powerful women, I'm delighted to say that Marianna is here with me. Hi, Marianna.

4:10Marianna Spring:I'm mimicking being sick. The point that Anna is making, Anna from Buckingham, is that he likes women to be around, but that actually he also likes men to be in charge. That is the shtick, exactly as you've been saying. And the great thing that sort of disproves that, I suppose, is Susie Wiles. And to an extent as well, it's been Caroline Leather. And it was interesting. He's not always very generous about people, is he? It has to be said. And it is interesting listening to him. He really is about her. Isn't she great? Is Caroline great?

4:47Marianna Spring:You know, when she goes on television, Fox, like, I mean, they dominate. They dominate when she gets up there with that beautiful face and those lips that don't stop. Like a little machine gun. She's become a star. It's that face. It's that brain. It's those lips. The way they move, they move like she's a machine gun. Is she in the room? She's in the room. She's a star and she's great. She's a great person actually, but she's I don't think anybody has ever had a better Press Secretary than Caroline. She's been amazing. How's Caroline doing? Is she doing good? Should Caroline be replaced? That's up to you, sir.

5:28It'll never happen.

5:29Marianna Spring:Nobody wants to stand up for real. She did a great job. Thank you, Katie. That face and those lips, they move like a machine gun, right? And our country will be made wealthy again. And I think it's insulting that you're trying to test my knowledge of economics and the decisions that this president has made. I now regret giving a question to the Associated Press. Mary, go ahead. So is President Trump going to send the Statue of Liberty back to France? Absolutely not. and my advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that it's only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now.

6:11Marianna Spring:So they should be very grateful to our great country. She was a remarkably effective press secretary, not just because of her machine gun lips, as Donald Trump wants to talk about, but you can hear there that she actually was very, very on top of her brief. She gave extraordinarily confident press briefings when she held them And most of the press corps as well also think that she's actually been quite reasonable to deal with behind the scenes and will be missed by quite a lot of the journalists who had dealings with her. There's a lot of conspiracy theory content because the timing of this coincided with this, you know, this mad story about Donald Trump being smuggled off the plane because there was a threat to his life.

6:48Marianna Spring:And there are quite a few people making completely unfounded allegations that the reason that she decided to step aside was actually because he was willing to sort of put her in the line of fire and let her stay on the plane rather than escape with him and all this sorts of stuff. There is no evidence to support any of that. And the tone that Donald Trump has taken with saying goodbye and it all being very amicable and good vibes, as we would say, points towards actually him being quite endorsing of the women can be mothers too thing, which is quite interesting when you think about the kind of conservative values.

7:16Marianna Spring:So if we think about influencers on social media, there's an interesting subset of kind of trad wives, e.g. women who position themselves as kind of wives, but actually almost run like multimillion dollar empires. Right. Like they and in some ways she's slightly symptomatic of that. Obviously, she's not a tradel wife. She's a very capable press secretary. But it's like you can be everything. And that is, I think, an image of womanhood that Donald Trump is quite keen to sell, which is like sort of like you can be everything. You can be really capable at your job. You can also be a mum, but maybe not at the same time.

7:46Let's get another question.

7:47Marianna Spring:Hello, AmeriCast team. With the recent news that President Trump swapped planes due to a risk of Air Force One being attacked, leaving everyone on board, how aware are the journalists who travel on the plane of the risks? Further, when were they told of this threat and that the president wasn't on the plane? Was the announcement made while handing out complimentary plane cards? So basically what seems to have happened is that there was a threat against the president, that the Secret Service had this idea that he should somehow travel in another plane, that he actually secretly swapped planes and did it in a way in which no one at the time knew that it was happening.

8:25So he was eventually asked about it. Here's what he said.

8:29Marianna Spring:Can you tell us about your ride on the airport catering truck in Perky? Why did you need to do that? Well, it's only up to Secret Service. I just follow what they'd like to do. So I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety, but they wanted me to do it, so I do it. I do what they say. Why did they want to do that? I guess there was a threat out there. I didn't really ask that much about it. I get a lot of threats. Why was it too dangerous for you to fly on Air Force One, but not too dangerous for the threat? Actually, the plane that I flew on was at greater risk.

9:08Marianna Spring:Why are you saying that? Because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for. Well, that would rather deny the entire purpose of this subterfuge because Donald Trump left Air Force One hidden inside a catering truck and was taken over to this other military flight because of what the Secret Service thought was a credible threat against Air Force One as it was leaving Turkey, which, of course, shares a border with Iran. Now, Donald Trump will have hated having to do this and this story coming out, and it was weeks after this happened that we finally found out about what was going on.

9:45The idea of him sort of cowering inside a catering truck as he's moved from one plane to the other is not something that he will like being out there. But the question was, when were the journalists and the other staff on board told of the risks? Well, not until the story came out in the Washington Post last week, several weeks after this happened, because certainly the press who were on board were not told that Donald Trump had switched planes. And in fact, there was a whole subterfuge going on where somehow he snuck back onto Air Force One when it landed in the UK at an RAF base for refueling.

10:17And he walked down the steps as though he had flown on the aircraft the whole time. I don't know whether the cabinet members who were left on board, like Marco Rubio, were aware of the fact that the president wasn't there and that basically they had been left as decoys or targets, as some would put it. There is, of course, a very serious side to this, which is that idea that individual journalists should be allowed to bear witness to the president, not every minute of the day, not necessarily in the same room, but very close. And that's been something that's been there, well, for a long time, ever since the mass media became a thing.

10:54And it was hugely, hugely important way back during the Kennedy assassination and the immediate aftermath when people were on the plane back with Lyndon Johnson and he was sworn in, et cetera, et cetera. And all the way through, actually, there's a wonderful book about covering the presidency called The Boys on the Bus, in which the author, Timothy Krauss, actually talks about, after all the assassinations and attempted assassinations of the 60s and early 70s, the feeling that individual journalists had that they always needed to be on the bus as it was in those days and on the plane with the candidate and with the president because of the risk that something awful happened and they needed themselves personally to see it.

11:36And so I think all of that sort of feeds into this idea that it is simply wrong, this subterfuge, where no journalists at all were able to know where the president was and indeed they were misled into thinking that he was in a place that he wasn't. Before we go on to other subjects, I should say a huge big thank you to the many AmeriCasters who have expressed concern, Sarah, for you and for Anthony, because you often go on Air Force One with the president. And until now, we have not realised the extent to which you're putting yourselves in danger. Yeah, well, that's very sweet. And now, of course, we are left with a dilemma, although it's, well, it's not up to us which plane the president flies in.

12:13But of course, he flew to Turkey on the new Qatari-gifted Air Force One, which he prefers, which is much more plush. And I believe, even back in the press cabin, has fully reclining seats and all sorts of wonderful things like that. So that would be a pleasure to travel on. But it doesn't have absolutely up-to-date security measures. That's why he was transferring onto the old Air Force one to leave Turkey, but then a further security threat meant he snuck off that plane. So to another question, this comes from Diana in Cheshire. Please could we have an update on the activities of ICE and the reactions of local communities to these activities?

12:48Also, what's happening to the people who've been detained? What are conditions like for detainees? Have any of them come to harm while in custody? One of the challenges, Sarah, hasn't it, has been just finding out actually what the conditions are. Yes, there's very, very little information about it. We know that some detainees have died and we have heard from people who've been released that the conditions are really bad and that people who are asking for their medications and trying to warn people that they have different kind of medical conditions are generally ignored until they have to be hospitalised.

13:24And so there is a great deal of concern, actually, about what's going on inside some of these detention centres without very much access to be able to verify some of these things. And ICE have massively ramped up their activities recently. There were more detentions and deportations in July than there had been for months and months and months. After all of the controversies at the beginning of the year with two protesters who were shot dead and questions about the use of force against other detainees. It had died down a bit, but they're back up with a target of detaining 2 ,000 people a week. And so armed ICE officers are back on the streets of several cities.

14:04And as a result, we're seeing more incidents happening, two fatal shootings carried out by ICE officers in Texas and in Maine in the last few weeks, and more incidents with protesters as well. There's a video, I'm sure you've seen it, Mariana, that went quite viral of a woman in Virginia who was just happened to be in a parking lot where ICE officers were carrying out some kind of action. And she yelled at them out of the window that they should be ashamed of themselves. And then suddenly they ended up surrounding her car and accusing her of trying to attack them with her car and pointing guns at her and telling her to get out of the car.

14:39You're not funny. You're not funny. I will arrest you. Keep it up. I'm a legal citizen. I don't care. Oh, my goodness. We have to call back you up.

14:47Marianna Spring:OK, for what? The one that tried to run us over. Run you over when? I got recording. I got dash cam. I got dash cam. That's a lie. It's back in the news, basically, that ICE are behaving very similarly to the way they were at the beginning of the year. And it is putting people off, even people who were 100 percent behind the idea of detaining and deporting illegal immigrants who were living in the United States, do not like what they see of the way it is being done. I think one of the reasons, like you mentioned, Sarah, that, you know, that incident, for example, of the ICE officer pointing the gun at that woman in Virginia.

15:22Marianna Spring:I think it's that kind of stuff that has really impacted public opinion because it really, really cuts through. Like it's very emotive content. You see it. And most of the time, the people who appear to be the subject of quite violent encounters with ICE officers or at least quite kind of intimidating, threatening ones, although they might argue otherwise, are what you would consider kind of the average person. like it could be anyone. The woman, for example, in Virginia, we know was a licensed mental health therapist, was there to speak with immigration lawyers. And so the perception is that the people being targeted are not people who are causing trouble necessarily.

15:55Marianna Spring:Although I did say that this woman was driving around in circles and that was part of the reason for the confrontation. You know, they came out and said, oh, well, she was being a bit of a menace essentially. But I think broadly the public perception is that those who are being targeted in this way, aside from the immigrants themselves, are kind of the average American. And I think that perhaps is playing a bit of a part in why the independent could go either way voters are sort of like, oh, actually, I don't know how I feel about this. OK, on to another question. It comes from Simon, who says, I'm of an age to remember the Iran hostage episode with Jimmy Carter and can't help thinking Iran may play the same cards with a view to US elections.

16:33Do you think Iran will spin out any negotiations until the midterms, hopefully, from their point of view, go badly for Donald Trump? Really interesting question because I am of a similar age to you, so I also remember Jimmy Carter. One of my first memories of the news, actually, is that those helicopters that had crashed in the desert, were they helicopters or planes? Anyway, American forces.

16:55Marianna Spring:I love how you're looking at me. I definitely wasn't around. Anyway, so the thing that I think is interesting about the Jimmy Carter analogy is that it's the loss of control. So if anyone looks back to what happened with Carter, So number one, he mounted this rescue effort to try to get the hostages back, the hostages who've been taken by militants in Iran just after the revolution. It was a disaster. They lost equipment in the desert. They looked as if they didn't know what they were doing. It all went terribly wrong. And the risk, I think, for Trump is that this is a kind of Carter moment, that he looks similarly completely at sea with what he's trying to do and his ability to actually make anything happen in Iran.

17:37So that side of it is the same. Simon says, is Iran going to spin out the negotiations until the midterms to sort of do damage to Donald Trump? The issue is slightly different there because the Iranians back in the day were spinning it out in order to do in Jimmy Carter and with some connivance, actually, from Ronald Reagan. And I think at the time it was denied, but I think historians are now pretty clear that the Reagan, the incoming Reagan administration rather liked the idea of it being spun out because it put him in a very good light when he eventually got the hostages home. That's really not the same now, is it, Sarah?

18:17Although they're very aware of American politics in a broader sense. They are just very aware of the difficulties that Donald Trump is in. And that, I suppose, is a similarity. Yeah, I think it's quite a good analogy. And when you say that the US president has lost control of the situation and the Iranians are playing it out for electoral advantage, not for themselves, but to damage the sitting president. And it is doing a huge amount of damage to Donald Trump, who really needs the Strait of Hormuz to be opened, international oil flowing again and something that looks like some kind of success after months and months of conflict with Iran.

18:54and he has completely lost charge of any sense of direction with this. And the Iranians know they can wait it out until the other side of the midterm elections. And goodness me, I mean, I think it's very smart from Simon to come up with this analogy, not least because if there is one single president in history that Donald Trump does not want to be compared to, it is Jimmy Carter. He goes on all the time about how weak Carter looked over that hostage situation. and of course he wasn't elected to a second term as a result of it. And yeah, yeah, he attacks Carter all the time for precisely this and as Simon says, he's got himself into a pretty similar situation.

19:33And evidence of him flailing about, it seems to a lot of people, doesn't it Sarah, is this latest thing that actually just happened just a few hours before we recorded this episode where he's now saying he's going to bomb the whatever out of Oman, potentially, if Oman gets in the way of the deal that he wants to do over the Strait of Hormuz. Oman, of course, has been talking to Iran, but is by no means on the Iranian side in all of this as a Gulf country, an independent Gulf country, and previously, actually, an ally of the United States and a country that is very much kind of in tune with US thinking.

20:12But I mean, it does sort of feel, doesn't it, to anyone who has a reasonable overview of these things, as if, to put it mildly, there's not a lot of planning that's going into this. No, I have no idea why Donald Trump is threatening to bomb the bleep out of Oman. They're talking to Iran about getting a corridor open with the Strait of Hormuz. As you say, they're a long-term American ally. I mean, presumably he wants to pressure them into not doing some kind of deal that he doesn't think would be advantageous for the United States. But I mean, they need a deal to be done to get it open. Today was the final deadline for the 60 days that they were supposed to have to negotiate some kind of settlement when they first signed a ceasefire agreement a couple of months ago.