Americanswers… On 5 Live! Why has the US been accused of war crimes off the Venezuelan coast?

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1:11Visit schwab.com to learn more. Hello all, we're back from Thanksgiving, back on Five Live as well, answering your questions, including some mentions of Thanksgiving itself, particularly the travel surrounding it, and Turkey pardoning as well. We also talked about Donald Trump's permanently pausing migration to the US from those countries he calls the third world. And lots of discussion about what is going on off the coast of Venezuela, because we've got the defence secretary or the secretary of war, as he likes to be called, Pete Hegseth, accused of committing war crimes, essentially, whilst firing strikes at boats off the coast of Venezuela.

1:49He denies that he's done anything wrong, but this is becoming a major row in the US. So if you stick around after listening to the Five Live bit, We've got some extra chat on that just for the podcast listeners at the end. Welcome to America Answers with me, with Sarah and with Anthony and, of course, with Matt Chorley on Five Live.

2:10AmeriCast. 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?

2:37So, welcome back after Thanksgiving, Sarah Anthony. Sarah, did you have a good Thanksgiving? Yes, we had a wonderful time. I didn't travel anywhere, thankfully, because that can be a bit of a nightmare over Thanksgiving period when the entire country seems to be on the move. So we hosted at home for 14 people. And this is basically an excuse to have a second Christmas. Big turkey, family dinner. It's brilliant. Yeah, but you don't have to worry about getting people presents. You can just focus on the food and the drink and having a nice time together. I think it's the perfect holiday, as they call it here.

3:11It's actually even better than Christmas, and I really enjoy it. I think it's one of the best things America has invented. Anthony, how did you mark one of the best things America's invented? Well, I went over to a friend's house. I helped him fry a turkey, which was delicious, nice and succulent. Then I watched football. Texas won on Friday night, so I was very happy. Deep fry, yeah. I'm not sure about that. Is that nice? It is a thing, isn't it? It is, actually. It's not like breaded. It's just crispy on the outside and really juicy on the inside. You boil it in a big vat of peanut oil. Presumably you, Mark, Thanksgiving.

3:46Yeah, we used to do all these things. I'm envious of them both. Sarah's dead right. is easily the best holiday in the world that anyone ever celebrates. Largely because there's no gift sort of anxiety associated with it, but also for all the other reasons, it does involve genuinely everyone. It's marked by everyone. It brings together families and they have great arguments and things and comings together and all the rest of it. And then there are a load of sales afterwards and they all go off to the shopping malls. I don't know if Anthony and Sarah both do that. But it is a really wonderful thing.

4:18and it's just that part of the season where you need a bit of a lift too. Now, Sarah mentioned that she didn't go travelling. Now, I'm interested to know if it was because of what the Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, has been saying, urging air travellers to dress better and be more civil. Launching a campaign last week titled The Golden Age of Travel Starts With You. Things aren't what they used to be. Some would call it the golden age of travel. Let's bring civility and manners back. Ask yourself, are you helping a pregnant woman put her bag in the overhead bin? Are you dressing with respect?

4:54Are you keeping control of your children? Are you saying thank you to your flight attendants and your pilots? Are you saying please and thank you in general? The golden age of travel begins with you. So, Anthony, do you feel like you're living up to all of this? I do my best although I feel like cattle in a cattle car when I fly domestically here in the United States so it's very hard to say please and thank you when you're being squeezed into little seats and waiting with delays and long flights to get to your destination I wasn't sure so if he's just been watching too much Mad Men or something some sort of 1950s thing and thought what's that so much nice about then yes so much more glamorous and or you could think maybe he's just urging American travelers to try and be a little bit more British about the whole thing just a little bit more polite and buttoned up.

5:42But it is true. There is something absolutely awful about air travel inside America, which is actually, it's not just that it's not glamorous anymore, it's less comfortable than travelling by bus. You're herded around in such an undignified way, it's not really surprising that temper's free. And there's nothing to eat in any of the airports too, let me add. Even really big ones. You don't need anything to eat if you've just eaten a deep-fried turkey. Well, that's true, I suppose. It's all right for Anthony. But for the rest of us, looking for some sort of healthy, relatively healthy food in an airport, even a hair in Chicago, where I was relatively recently, it's staggering.

6:18The absence of choice when you compare it to other big airports. Americans themselves notice this. Yeah, interesting. They go to, you know, to Singapore or to Dubai or to Europe and to London and just see the difference in facilities. So no wonder they behave badly. There was a great internet thing during COVID of Americans fighting on planes. Do you remember that, Sarah and Anthony? It was a thing for a bit. People posted pictures of people slugging each other across the aisles. No, they're both denying you fighting anyone. Yes. The whole thing reminded me of when... It was 2010... No, 2010 or...

6:59Yeah, 2010 UKIP general election wanted to introduce a dress code for taxi drivers. and soon after that, Nigel Farage disowned the whole thing. So whether or not this catches on, this new polite way of travelling, we'll have to wait and see. Let's get stuck into questions. We've got absolutely loads. Let's start with Donald Trump's approach to Venezuela. Helena in Wanstead has sent in this question. In light of President Trump's proposed threats to Venezuelan airspace and Hegseth's Leave No Survivors, alleged instruction, on boat attacks in the Southern Caribbean, or Caribbean even, Does it look like the president is not sticking to his clampdown on drugs, keeping out of foreign wars, and his pursuit of the Nobel Peace Prize?

7:39I mean, where to begin with all of this? Sarah, take us through what is going on and how it might fit with consistency, if that is such a thing in Trump, lad. So there is a lot going on, and we're not quite sure what the ultimate purpose of it all is yet. But it seems as though the administration, President Trump, is pursuing some kind of regime change in Venezuela, even if they haven't completely decided how far they want to go to try and make that work. I believe there's a cabinet meeting here this afternoon, five o 'clock, just being arranged to discuss Venezuela. So maybe they will make some important decisions there.

8:12Over the weekend, President Trump said that people should just sort of operate as though Venezuelan airspace is closed. But we're not absolutely sure why. And he seems to indicate that he is ready to order land strikes, possibly, on Venezuela. So that would be, yeah, definitely getting involved in a foreign war in a way that he suggested he wouldn't during the election campaign. And there have been these attacks on boats that the administration say are smuggling drugs to America. Sometimes Venezuela claims that they're just fishing boats, but there have been over 20 lethal strikes on these boats, blowing them up.

8:48It's moving fast and very febrile what's going on and all of the actions that Trump seems to be taking against Venezuela. Explain why he's so focused on Venezuela, Justin. Well, nobody can. I mean, it's interesting. He doesn't like Maduro, and lots of people don't like Maduro. Maduro has stolen an election, almost certainly, and is from that left tradition of Hugo Chavez, etc. So nobody would suggest that he's going to be a pal of Donald Trump. But on the other hand, the whole idea, as Sarah was saying, the whole idea of Trump, or used to be, that he sort of lets people get on with whatever they want to do.

9:24So why is he picking this fight? Is it just about drugs? Well, if it's about drugs, why is he also just pardoning a former Honduran leader who was in an American prison having been convicted of smuggling drugs into the United States? Why is he pardoning him, sending him home? So there are kind of mixed messages, to put it mildly, about what his policy on drugs is, but also what his wider policy is towards intervening in countries where he feels he can intervene and get a bang for his bucks. Maybe Anthony knows. I certainly don't, really. I mean, there are certainly some people within the Trump administration, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state in particular, who have been Venezuela hawks for quite some time.

10:06Obviously, there's a large population in Florida where Marco Rubio is from that are expats from Venezuela and would love to see the government there toppled. So maybe that has Donald Trump's ear and that is pushing him towards towards some sort of military confrontation. But to go back to our question, I don't I don't think it will help a Nobel Peace Prize campaign if while on one hand you're brokering peace deals in the Mideast and Ukraine, on the other hand, you're instigating the beginnings of military strikes on a neighboring country. So it is a complicated terrain for Donald Trump. It's not really clear what military airstrikes would do, whether that would really destabilise Maduro enough to topple the Venezuelan regime.

10:49That's a great question. Thank you for that. Let's broaden it out a bit wider on international diplomacy and Donald Trump's approach to the word generally. We've got Terry in Ripley on the line. Hello, Terry. Hello, Matt. Good to have you with us. What is your question for the AmeriCasters? Well, I was just wondering how President Trump's more transactional and business-focused international diplomacy is viewed in America, and in particular whether his base welcomes this as a genuine attempt to grow the US economy and address unemployment. Good question there, Anthony. Because sometimes it's important to remind ourselves of how things might be viewed by Americans in America who might have voted for Donald Trump.

11:28So how is his how is it that his international diplomacy is viewed? You know, I was just over in Tennessee in Nashville last week covering a congressional special election. And and I did speak to Trump supporters there out in the middle of the country. And I asked him about trade policy and whether they like what Donald Trump is doing with terrorists, because there are a lot of agricultural factories, soybean farmers, meat packers and things in Tennessee. And they viewed this transactional kind of trade policy as a way of getting the best deals for the country. They understood that there was short term pain.

12:04They seemed fairly willing to tolerate it as long as it was in a larger goal of getting deals that would make other countries treat the United States the way they view the United States treating other countries. Now, whether that is sustainable, if prices keep going up, if people start feeling kind of the pain in the economy, whether it's directly resulting from these tariffs or not, then they might start to split away. Although, once again, Donald Trump's MAGA, hardcore supporters pretty much believe in him through thick and thin and believe that whatever he does, he's doing in their best interest.

12:36And it's worth adding to that that this is a kind of bipartisan thing. I mean, there is, Anthony's dead right about Trump supporters, but actually it goes wider than Trump supporters. There is a kind of strand of left thinking in the Democratic Party that also thinks that trade should be transactional and actually regrets the opening up of world trade, the allowing of China into the world trade system, etc., etc., that led to all the changes that there have been, the kind of globalization that there was in the early 2000s. That actually they think that has led to a loss of jobs, has led to a loss of income for American workers.

13:08And that is not merely something on the American right. It is also felt quite across the board. And the other thing, the really important point, a kind of global point about it all, is that we tend to see the United States through rather British eyes when it comes to trade. And I think I'm right in saying our trade, so our GDPs, roughly a third of our GDP, this certainly used to be the case, is dependent on exports. For America, it's about 10%. I mean, and 10 % matters, but it doesn't matter hugely, hugely, hugely. It doesn't matter as much as 30%. So you think the American economy at the moment is growing 3.8%.

13:46I don't know what ours is. One, one and a half. Yeah, I mean, it's not even one, is it? It keeps getting downgraded or regraded. It's a percentage of a percent. America manages still, even in these tariff-filled times, to buck every obvious economic hurdle, if you can buck a hurdle, that is put in front of it. And that really... America is just a different kind of economy and it's a different size of economy, but also, frankly, it's a different strength of economy. Great question. Thank you for that, Towie. Let's move on, because I want to try and get through as many as we can. Let's turn attention to the National Guard shooting.

14:26You may have seen this. You almost certainly did. Last Wednesday, two members of the National Guard were shot and seriously wounded just blocks from the White House. One died, another remains in a critical condition. And the suspect is an Afghan national who's in custody. It was then announced that the US will permanently pause migration from all third world countries. Well, AmeriCast favourite Bob in Minneapolis is on the line. Hello, Bob. Hello, man. How are you? I'm very well. It's one of these situations. I suspect you'll probably know the answer to your own question, Bob. But go on, what is your question for the AmeriCast?

14:59Well, it's been said that when a difficult issue arises, politicians can do one of three things. They can ignore the issue. They can take steps to understand and fix the issue, or they can exploit the issue. And within that context, I'm curious to know what your team thinks or how they would describe President Trump's response to the shooting, again, within that context. Well, I don't think anybody would be terribly surprised to hear that Donald Trump would pounce on an opportunity like this to exploit or manipulate an issue to suit his own agenda. But I mean, first thing to say is, I mean, this was truly, truly shocking and absolutely awful thing, regardless of how you feel about the National Guard being on the streets.

15:41Many people are very opposed to it. This really, really did shock people and bring everybody up pretty smartly. But, of course, the administration is now launching a whole series of different policies for limiting visas for people coming from about 19 different countries and pausing all asylum applications and using this as a way to review the immigration status of quite a few people who've even got green cards already in the United States, while at the same time sending 500 more National Guard to the streets of Washington. So, I mean, there's absolutely no retreat from having them here patrolling the streets, a real doubling down on this issue, which is probably not surprising, given that immigration is such a very, very high focus of the administration and a massive blame game going on now, because this guy, the gunman, was granted asylum this year under the Trump administration.

16:33But they're working very, very hard to try and make it look as though every decision to allow him into America and to allow him to stay was all taken by the Biden administration as well. Because the last thing they want to do is admit that they would make a mistake like this and allow somebody who did turn out, obviously, to be very, very dangerous and to give him asylum to stay in the US. And I just want to chip in here, because when Donald Trump says a permanent pause in migration from third world countries, that those are Donald Trump's words. That's Donald Trump's definition, third world countries that this migration is being paused from.

17:08And he is yet to really explain what constitutes a third world country, which countries are included in that, although they point back to previous decisions of a list of countries that that they might be pausing from. I'd say it's two and three of Bob's list, isn't it? I can't remember what the precise categories were. Take steps to understand or resolve the issue or they can exploit the issue. Yeah, I mean, he would say they would say they're taking steps to resolve it in as much as they're pausing asylum. And if they do pause asylum, of course, in kind of world terms, that's a very big deal.

17:41And blaming people, using it as a wedge issue, even down to the language, third world. I mean, Anthony's quite right. It's not a language we'd use, but it's very much language that Donald Trump would use. And it gives him an opportunity to use it again. Bob, how would you answer your own question as an American? I would think that I'd like to think they're trying to do something but the problem is the response came so quickly before we really knew the shooters motives and just because of the broad scope of the proposals I'm afraid I'm looking at it as some exploitation Bob, good to speak to you, that's Bob in Minneapolis.

18:18Now, we started off by talking about Thanksgiving and a big part of that was obviously turkeys well Trump has been talking turkey, but particularly Joe Biden's turkey pardons saying that they were invalid because of alleged auto pen use. Terrible situation caused by a man named Sleepy Joe Biden. He used an auto pen last year for the Turkey's pardon. So I have the official duty to determine and I have determined that last year's Turkey pardons are totally invalid. As are the pardons of about every other person that was pardoned other than where's Hunter? Hunter Biden obviously being Joe Biden's son.

19:00Donald Trump went on to say he had retroactively pardoned last year's turkeys, peach and blossom. Well, Steve in Portsmouth is on the line. Hello, Steve. Hello, guys. Lovely to be on board as well. Thank you. Great to have you here, Steve. I mean, where to begin, really? What is your question? I might have some questions of my own. OK, it's just literally, I mean, I saw this message that popped up about, It was on Truth Social, which I occasionally drop into just for a laugh. But it's just about the way that Trump seems to say, you know, we've got Truth Social. I've got the auto pens. How can he just overturn everything just because the auto pens been used?

19:45And I think even Trump has used an auto pen. It's been going for years. I know Barack Obama used one quite happily and it's been going for about 1930s. Is that legal? Is he allowed to do this? That's my question to the team, really. Sarah, first of all, can you explain for listeners who don't know what an auto pen is and why it seems to be at the centre of everything in American politics? If you get a Christmas card from Sarah, this is right.

20:14So it's a device that moves a pen automatically. It's like a robot signing your Christmas cards or your pardons or your documents with a replica of what the president's signature would have looked like. And it has been used for generations and included and also by Donald Trump. But he has taken to claiming that Joe Biden used it all the time, that he barely ever signed anything with his own hand and because he was too old and feeble, according to Donald Trump. And he likes to say that anything that was signed that way, like a piece of legislation and now he's claiming pardons are invalid because they weren't signed personally by the president.

20:52And so, yes, he announced that every pardon, including that of the Turkeys, was being overturned. Now, he cannot do that, is the truth of the matter. And he also tried to say every executive order that was signed by Otto Pen under the Biden administration is also automatically overturned. And he cannot do that either. But he loves going on and on and on about the Otto Pen as a way of undermining the whole of the Biden presidency, essentially. He's set up in the White House. This walk of fame where along a long corridor, there are photographs of every single president going way back, portraits of other ones.

21:31But in the place where Joe Biden would be, where the 46th president is, there's just a picture of the auto pen. So this entire gallery has been arranged just to mock Joe Biden and his use of the auto pen. It's one of Donald Trump's favourite themes. Does it make any difference, Anthony? Is it just a bit? Is it just a gag by Donald Trump? does it actually hold up at all? It's going to be difficult for this to hold up. Definitely. I mean, there was a 2005 opinion by the Department of Justice. So that was during George W. Bush's presidency, a Republican that said that a president doesn't have to physically sign every piece of paper because some of these commutations, some of these pardons where you're pardoning a thousand, several thousand people for minor drug offenses, the president is not going to sit there and sign every single one of them.

22:20So Trump can post on Truth Social that all of these previous auto pen signed Biden orders are null and void. But that doesn't that doesn't change anything until he actually tries to enforce that he tries to ignore something he tries to tries to nullify a pardon that was enacted by Joe Biden. And then there'll be a lawsuit and then the court will look at it. And likely the court will say, no, this is this is Joe Biden. He actually did intend to do this and Biden himself, who has still said that he intended all of the pardons. He intended everything that was auto pen signed. It wasn't like there were people manoeuvring behind his back to get things signed that he had no idea about.

23:04So sometimes it might be because there's lots of these things to sign. I was looking at one of the times was Joe Biden was traveling and something needed to be signed because otherwise there'll be a lapse in some regulations or whatever. But, you know, there's what seems to be a perfectly straightforward explanation as to why these things might be used. Yeah. And in a way, the actual explanation doesn't matter to Donald Trump, does it? It's a wider point that he's making that he's energetic. And Joe Biden was moribund when he was towards the end of his presidency. In fact, he would say throughout the entire presidency.

23:30And, you know, he has a point, doesn't he? Joe Biden, there was a lack of vigour, let's put it that way, in the last year or so of Joe Biden's presidency. And any time that Donald Trump can remind Americans of that, he will. And so if we're having an argument or a conversation about auto pens, what is that? Perfect. It's reminding Americans that Joe Biden, in the view of Donald Trump, was not up to the job and needed to use an auto pen because he could barely pick up a pen himself. And if what Anthony's just said comes true, which he could do, I suppose, if they tried to put someone back in jail who'd been pardoned by Biden, I don't think they would.

23:59But if they did, and it did go to the Supreme Court, I doubt the Supreme Court actually would even take the case. I think they probably wouldn't bother. But it would do the work, the political work, that Donald Trump wants it to. But most importantly, although he said the pardon for peach and blossom, the turkeys was now invalid. He's now retroactively pardoned them again. So that's that's the most important thing. I think they're on a farm somewhere now. So I'm sure they're very relieved. As long as they're not in your deep fire. That's not yet.