Americanswers... On 5 Live! What do Americans really think of Donald Trump?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

0:30And to think, that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need, all in one place, so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Sarah Smith has gone viral. It was always going to happen. Sarah, why? Yes, I've only just discovered that there have been millions of views of me asking Donald Trump a question in a press conference on Friday afternoon, which was a bit of a bizarre affair and included somebody asking him about a pin, a little badge that he had on his lapel, as well as the American flag.

1:14He had a tiny little badge of himself, of Donald Trump, which he said was a happy Donald Trump pin, even though he was never happy or satisfied. Someone had given it to him and that was what he was wearing on his lapel. It was it was an odd afternoon, Justin. OK, we'll hear a bit more about it in a second. First, though, the two of us, plus Mariana, have been on Five Live as usual, Matt Chorley talking about people's questions about Iran, about the fallout from what's been happening recently in Minnesota, and also an interesting question about how the average American feels about Donald Trump after all the news from 2025.

1:52How do they feel at the beginning of this year? So we answer all of those questions. Let's get to it. Welcome to America Answers on Five Live.

2:03americast americast from bbc news when donald trump calls they say yes sir right away sir happy to lick your boot sir we are the sickest country in the world oh dear are you worried that billionaires are going to go hungry of course the president supports peaceful protests what a stupid question are you still talking about jeffrey epstein

2:29So, quite a lot to talk about on AmeriCansers today, so let's get stuck straight in with this one. On Air Force One yesterday, Donald Trump was asked about his threat to strike Iran over its targeting of protesters. Here's what he said when reporters asked about Iran's threats of retaliation. Well, if they do that, we'll consider things targets that they wouldn't believe. If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they've never been hit before. They won't even believe it. I have options that are so strong. So, I mean, if they did that, it'll be met with a very, very powerful force. So, Mark on the Discord asks, do you think Donald Trump can claim any credit for the current situation in Iran?

3:12More importantly, will it result in anything? Yes, he can definitely claim it, but not necessarily because of the threat of force now, But, of course, because of what he's done to Iran since he came to power. So there was this nuclear agreement signed between European countries, including Britain, but also involving Russia, China, that gave Iran some reduction of sanctions in return for not carrying out their efforts to build a nuclear bomb. That was the deal. I think it was signed in 2015, something like that. Obama was very keen on it. Western countries, including Britain, were very keen on it.

3:53The challenge always was that if you allow Iran to develop its economy, what do they spend the money on? And one of the things they can spend the money on, of course, is repression and there's all the things that they did abroad, including fomenting terrorism, according to the Americans and plenty of other people as well. So Trump took the US out of that deal, basically closed the deal, imposed sanctions. And those sanctions, it seems reasonable to assume, have led directly to this day and to the protesters on the streets, etc. So it's kind of irrespective of what he's threatening now. I don't think his threats now necessarily make a lot of difference to those very brave protesters in the streets.

4:35But the economic, the parlous economic state of Iran is at least in part due to him. And Sarah, how is all this then viewed in the US? I know we've talked about this many times before, but the man who was going to America first, no more forever wars, no more withdrawing troops and just looking after America itself. There's another front, if you like. How is the situation in Iran being viewed and Donald Trump's involvement or otherwise? Well, the involvement that he had in Iran last year with that incredibly successful bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities was celebrated by his base because, you know, Iran is the big bogeyman.

5:16And this was, you know, a fairly successful U.S. operation that was carried out without any retaliation against U.S. targets. So no American lives were lost and it didn't cost a huge amount of money either. Because I think we have to understand there is a difference between the forever wars in the likes of Iraq and Afghanistan that Donald Trump railed against, in fact, never supported in the first place. And these kind of short, sharp, targeted operations like he conducted in Iran last year or in Venezuela a couple of weeks ago, where you see American strength and military might being projected on the world stage, but without it getting embroiled in being stuck in the midst of nation building or trying to restore democracy to these countries at a great cost in lives and treasure.

5:59It's pretty clear Donald Trump doesn't care very much about restoring democracy in Venezuela, more interested in doing deals with the getting American oil companies in there. And I suspect the same is true of Iran, that although these are anti-regime protesters asking for more democracy, it's the fall of the current regime Donald Trump's much more interested in rather than meeting the demands of the protesters on the streets. But at a moment of weakness, he can see an opportunity to at least threaten striking against an enemy. And as long as he keeps it in this very targeted way, his base seemed to be perfectly happy with it, as we're all learning to accept that Donald Trump is not an isolationist, as we possibly thought 18 months ago.

6:37he is somebody who wants to get very involved in the world stage, but just not in a way that bogs down American troops year after year. And Mariana, obviously, from your perspective, looking at what's happening online and trying to get a sense of what is actually happening in Iran, turns out if they turn the Internet off, that's really hard.

6:55Marianna Spring:Yeah, it is. And it's really interesting because this is increasingly becoming a tool used by governments to try and sort of control protest movements, although often they will cite other reasons. We've seen it happen. I mean, we've seen it happen in Afghanistan in different ways. We saw threats about it when you might remember there were those protests that happened in Nepal and there were kind of threats being made about social media being banned and that kind of thing. That was slightly different to this. I mean, the Iranian regime is known for kind of doing these internet blackouts, but this one feels certainly a lot severer and stricter.

7:30Marianna Spring:I mean, it seems to have cut off even some of the slightly sneakier ways that people would mobilize and coordinate. And that does make it really hard. I mean, not least because also it's hard to have journalists on the ground there as well. It means that trying to actually figure out what exactly is going on and what's happening to who and everything else is very, very difficult. And I think from a kind of public opinion point of view, that is kind of interesting because the news is coming out obviously through outlets like the BBC or wherever else. But if you're someone in the US who's scrolling on your social media feed, you might see some of the content, but you won't be seeing huge volumes of this stuff popping up on your feed, and that could affect how invested or not you are in it from sort of Donald Trump's perspective in terms of how much credit he does or doesn't take.

8:11Well, it's a great question from Mark, and obviously it's an evolving situation, so we'll obviously keep an eye on that. But we've got many other things that we need to get to. Let's turn our attention to what's been happening inside America and in Minnesota. We have got Kevin on the line. Hello, Kevin. Hello. Where in the world are you, Kevin? I'm in Stuttgart in Germany. Excellent. Excellent. What is your question for the Americas? On the killing of Ms Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota, can the FBI, a federal agency, be trusted to investigate her killing in an unbiased and fair manner? That's a good question.

8:51Sarah, take us through what's happened here and the role of the FBI and, you know, in a way that we don't really see in the UK, law enforcement, justice, judges and so on, you know, sheriffs being politicised. If you could sort of take us through that before we get to Kevin's question. Yes, of course. And yeah. And the other thing we don't have in the UK is quite as many different police forces and law enforcement agencies all overlapping. But briefly what happened last week in Minneapolis, in Minnesota, there were customs, immigration customs agents on the ground conducting immigration raids.

9:29And Ms. Good had her car parked in the street. ICE agents told her to get out of it. Instead, she appeared to be trying to drive off. And in the midst of that, she was shot dead by one of the ICE agents in front of the car. Very, very controversial circumstances. And there are lots and lots of different videos all over the Internet and social media showing you different angles of this. When people have looked at it, they seem to have seen entirely opposite things. People in the Trump administration and their supporters see an ICE agent whose life was in danger, who took an action in self-defense, shooting Renee Good.

10:04Other people think that this looks like a murder on the streets of Minneapolis because he wasn't in danger at all and he had no reason to be shooting at her. It's become a very, very controversial issue. Obviously, it will need to be investigated whether or not the agent acted properly within his training, within the rules. The Minnesota state authorities want to investigate that. And the governor of the state, Tim Walls, we've heard of him before, ran as vice president with Kamala Harris. He says that he doesn't trust federal authorities to investigate this fairly because the Trump administration so quickly came out and took the side of the ICE agent and said that Renee Goode caused her own death, effectively, is what J.D.

10:45Vance said. What you see is what you get in this case. You have a woman who was trying to obstruct a legitimate law enforcement operation. Nobody debates that. You have a woman who aimed her car at a law enforcement officer and pressed on the accelerator. Nobody debates that. I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers. Normally, the answer to Kevin's question would be that the FBI is an independent agency who will look at this within the rules.

11:21But Donald Trump has politicized everything so much that he's put in real political loyalists into the FBI. As the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, and the deputy director as well, are very, very closely aligned with the Trump administration, make very political statements all the time as well. So I think there is reasonable grounds in this particular instance to think that if the Trump administration wants the answer to be that the ICE agent acted within the rules, it's very likely that that is what they will conclude for political reasons. But I suppose they do have to go to court eventually.

11:54And then you get to this business of whether it's a state court or a federal court. And it looks as if it would have to be because this is a federal agent in the commission of federal business, as it were, then he would need to be tried federally. And in order to stop that trial happening, he would have to claim that he was just carrying on his business and that he had reasonable cause to think that he was under threat, etc., etc. And it would be, I think I'm right in saying it would be a federal judge then. And this is the point that J.D. Vance has made, that actually he says the state authorities don't have anything to do with this because it's a federal agent.

12:30So you think back, for instance, to Derek Chauvin was his name, wasn't it? The guy who killed George Floyd. that he was prosecuted for murder in the state because murder is a state offence and he was employed by the state. He was a local policeman. This is a very different case because this guy, if it does go to court, this guy is a federal agent and he's involved in a federal law enforcement action and he would expect, I think, to go to a federal court and to try to convince the federal court that he was acting self-offence, in which case I would have thought if the court agreed with him that that's it, actually.

13:07I don't think it goes any further. If the court doesn't agree with him, then he could be tried. And to that question about whether or not... I suppose it goes to evidence, doesn't it, whether it's all been properly kept and all the rest of it. And there will be those who say it won't be because the FBI is involved and the FBI, as Sarah was saying, is run in a very politicised way. But I think if you're an FBI officer and you actually interfere with this case, you're still running a risk. and it goes for the same as a whole Justice Department and everything about the Trump administration. People say, oh, well, they're just going to do what he wants.

13:41Well, yes, you might, but you could then open yourself up to prosecution, really serious prosecution and prison time in a later time when there's a different president. And I suppose because it involves a death. Yeah, but you also get sacked if you don't do what Donald Trump wants. Yes, that's the invidious choice before you, isn't it? But because this case involves a death, it's perhaps less likely to go away in terms of the attention on it and the focus on it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it will go to court at some stage. Kevin, great question. Thank you very much for that. And thank you for listening in Stuttgart.

14:13We've got Matthew with us. Hello, Matthew. Where are you in the world? Good afternoon, Matt. I am sitting in glorious North Kensington. Very good. So not very far away at all. In fact, you're probably closer to us than Mariana.

14:25Marianna Spring:I knew that you were about to say that. You've made that joke twice now. It was less funny the second time. Well, there's an easy way to stop making it a third time, isn't there, Mariana? what is your question please my question is very simple what is the mass vote voter the mass population in America what do they think now of Trump we outside of America we're all aghast nearly every night at his actions and his un-statesman like behaviour and all the reporters on the BBC and ITV and other stations, it seems you report back from America in a favourable way. You can't speak out of turn, you'll get censored, you'll get thrown out of the White House, whatever.

15:15What is the mass vote in America feeling about Trump? Are they starting to see some reality that it's actually maybe he's not that great? Matthew, I'll come to Mariana in a moment because I want to know what your imaginary friends on the internet are saying. So just on that point about your ability to speak freely in America. Yes. So I do report from the grounds of the White House, inside their security bubble all the time, and they don't listen to what I'm saying. And even if they did, it wouldn't alter what we were saying. And there are plenty of people there who are critical of the president.

15:54There are some people whom they brought into the press corps who just applaud everything that he does because they work for right-wing outlets that exist in order to applaud the president. But that is not the BBC and there are no constraints on what I say. If you hear it, Matt, as sometimes positive, I mean, that's not what I'm there to do. I'm there to tell you what's happened. What I'm not is critical of every single thing that he says and does. And one of the reasons why we're not is that in many cases, it's either what he was elected to do by the people who put him in office or it does appear to be supported by a lot of people.

16:26So, for instance, this very, very controversial issue with the immigration officer in Minnesota. There's polling evidence that suggests that the mass of people in America, as you say, are getting more and more concerned about the tactics that immigration officers are using and the kind of aggressive raids that they've been conducting in some states. But there's still plenty of polls telling us that the vast majority of voters do support the idea that people who are living in the US illegally ought to be found and ought to be deported. And so, you know, whether you or we like it or not, that's what American people voted for.

17:02And we can't just throw criticism at every single thing that Donald Trump does. It's our job to tell you what he's doing and analyse what the impacts would be rather than to comment on whether it's right or wrong. So, Marianna, what do your...

17:16Marianna Spring:Hidden friends. Hidden friends. Your imaginary friends. What are your imaginary friends on the internet? My imaginary friends who are formerly... Explain to our listeners who your imaginary friends are. My imaginary friends are my undercover voters, fictional characters with social media profiles across the main platforms. And I think it's a really good question, a really interesting one, because I, as I bang on about, think that so much of... Like, people are now primed, because of what's on their social media feeds, the undercover voters included, to be receptive to certain narratives. And so this very same thing can play out through completely different perspectives in real time.

17:50Marianna Spring:That could be said of Minneapolis. That could be said of Iran. That could be said of Venezuela. And so people tend to be, as we know, in these echo chambers as the undercover voters are. So, for example, if you look at any of the events of the past couple of weeks on Britney's feed, she's very keen on Donald Trump versus, say, on Emma's feed, who really doesn't like Donald Trump very much. these are the characters um it's like they're watching different films like different tv shows and most of the time they're just getting stuff from people that they agree with because that's how the algorithms work they're pushing you stuff either that you agree with or that's provocative that you very strongly disagree with because that's the stuff that gets the likes and the views so i do think that you know a lot of the division in america can be at least partly explained by the way the algorithms work and therefore that helps sometimes to better understand why people are seeing all of these things through.

18:40Marianna Spring:So I would say that it feels kind of split, like the people who like Donald Trump are still kind of liking him and the people who don't aren't. And then the people in the middle, which is our Gabriella, who is our undecided voter. She's been getting more, like a lot of the meme content. So meme content around Venezuela. I would say around Minnesota, it's been a little bit more split. Like she's been getting both sides of it. So people saying, you know, different views. It's just, it's interesting. Can I tell you something about Gabriella? She doesn't care about any of this stuff. She goes shopping.

19:11Marianna Spring:Justin famously loves Gabriella. I love her. She looks after her family. She's got pets. I don't know. She goes to the beach. She will concentrate on politics. And I'm getting to our question now. It's looking quite wistful. She'll concentrate on politics when politics once again becomes saving in her life, i.e. the next, probably not even the midterms, that obsess us on AmeriCast. And I guess also, Justin, the other thing that she has always been concerned about is sort of the economy and money so as we've spoken about quite a lot the only thing that she ever tends to get political content about really I mean she gets funny memes and stuff but that's because they're really viral it tends to be about like you know eggs don't feel cheap or whatever that is yeah she'll see a meme of Marco Rubio as Shah of Iran which is one going around or boss of Manchester United I mean there are all sorts of these things and she'll look at it but I don't think politically and this goes to our questioner And it is such an interesting question.

20:07This idea that there's this great mass of people in the middle in America who will eventually say, hang on, this guy's a loser. We're going to get rid of him. It doesn't work like that.

20:25Right, we're off air with Five Live. Matt Chorley has gone away. So has Mariana, but Sarah and I are still here. Sarah, let us talk now about your interaction with the president that has had these millions of views on social media. Let's start by listening to it. Why is it so important to you to own it when you have a military presence there, which you could expand to affect security? Because when we own it, we defend it. You don't defend leases the same way. You have to own it. If we don't do it, China or Russia will. Not going to happen. We are not going to have. And I like China. I like Russia.

20:56I love the people of China. I love the people of Russia. I get along very well with President Putin, but I'm very disappointed in him. I get along very well with President Xi. I'm going to go over to China in April. But I don't want them as a neighbor in Greenland. Not going to happen. And and by the way, and NATO's got to understand that I'm all for NATO. I saved it. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have a NATO right now. But we're not going to allow Russia or China to occupy Greenland. And that's what's going to happen if we don't. So just to be clear, Justin, President Trump's not a mind reader.

21:30I did start off that question by saying you've already been talking about Greenland and on Greenland. Why is it so important that you own it? It's just that the women who were operating the White House microphones, they come running along to you with a microphone. Didn't quite get to me in time to get the beginning of the question. So this was a slightly bizarre experience all round, not least because, as you can hear from Donald Trump, that's a really long answer. And I was very, very keen to ask him a follow up because he interrupted with his answer before I got to say, You've said that you can do it the easy way or the hard way to take over Greenland.

22:01What would the hard way be? What would that involve? And I want to try and ask that as a follow up. So that meant throughout that long and rambling answer about China and Russia and NATO, I was having really sustained eye contact with him because I would desperately keep looking at me so that he would allow me to interject with a follow up. But sadly, just before the end, as everybody else started yelling at him and shoving their hands in the air, he went off and took a question from the other side. But, yeah, it's quite an experience, I have to say. You're looking Donald Trump in the eye for a good few minutes.

22:31Yeah, and the fact that he took a question from you at all, did he know that it was the BBC? Had it been prearranged? No, it hadn't been prearranged. I don't think he knows that I'm from the BBC. And I was thinking, just to test the waters with how he's feeling about the BBC these days, because, you know, we had an interesting time with the White House at the end of last year. And I was going to say Sarah Smith through the BBC and then ask my question. But about three or four people had asked questions before beforehand and none of them had done that and so I thought oh does it look a bit grandstanding to to say your name and your organization it would have been interesting to see the look on his face when I said BBC but I don't know maybe it would have stopped us getting an answer yeah well look it was a really good question may I say fawningly but I mean I genuinely mean it because it's fascinating because here in Britain one of the big issues has been people saying and I talked to the former prime minister of Denmark the other day there we are name dropping as well not not quite as senior as Donald Trump in terms of world power stakes.