Americanswers… on 5Live! Why is Trump’s White House comparing the war in Iran to a video game?

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1:13Anthony:Is Iran's oil a factor in Donald Trump's decision to start a war? Is he after that oil? Some of you are asking this. It is Monday afternoon here in the UK. We are answering your questions with Matt Chorley on Five Live. We're also talking about whether Donald Trump needs the help of European countries and indeed whether they want to help him. Plus, what do Americans think of British royalty with calls for King Charles' upcoming White House visit to be cancelled? We also talk about Kristi Noem, Donald Trump's Homeland Security Secretary, who he has got rid of after a disastrous performance in a Senate hearing last week, something we did sort of predict on our own pod last week.

1:55Anthony:So, Anthony, Marianne and I discuss all of this and more. Welcome to AmeriCanswers. 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 derangement syndrome. I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

2:29As you will expect, we've had an awful lot of questions about the situation in the Middle East, the war in Iran, and what is the plan? And I was quite struck on the subject of what is the plan. On Friday on Newsnight, I spoke to John Bolton, former National Security Advisor, President Trump. He was sacked in part because of disagreements over Iran. He's long been an advocate of regime change in Iran. But he gave me this assessment of how Donald Trump had handled the war so far. I think he is headed in the right direction, although the idea that somehow the current regime could come up with a new supreme leader that he could talk with is delusional.

3:10I think he's got a real problem within his administration and with his political base. the isolationists, up to and including J.D. Vance, I think are in meltdown right now as to what's happening. The administration can and should be criticized on several respects. Number one, not laying out the very strong, compelling case for regime change more in advance of the attack to the American people, briefing to Congress, consultation with allies. And I'm most worried about the extent to which we're cooperating with and providing assistance to the opposition inside Iran. Now, Anthony, I was just struck by this is a man who supports the exact thing that they're doing, laying the charge sheet of he's not made the case to the American people, not made the case for Iran, not made clear what regime change.

4:01There's quite a lot there. And this is someone who's supporting what he's doing. Yeah, he likes what they're doing, but he doesn't like how they're doing it. John Bolton obviously spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to topple the Iranian government. And the fact that he is saying that they're going about it all wrong, or just not thinking about how to do this, that's pretty damning. And you asked, what is the plan? And I chuckled. And it is because it depends on what time of day it is from this administration. And you've heard them talk about regime change. You've heard them talk about taking down Iran's military so they're no longer a threat in the region.

4:43You heard Donald Trump just recently again point towards just removing the nuclear arms threat, the threat of Iran developing nuclear weapons as a purpose for this. It is a hodgepodge of things. And all of these ideas are being kind of thrown out there. But they weren't, as Bolton rightly notes, They weren't really substantively aired and detailed in the run up to the war. So trying to do all of this after the fact and tell the American people that the sacrifices they're making for the economy, for higher gas prices are worth it. It's hard to do that after those sacrifices are already being made.

5:19Justin, is there a counter argument that says if he does have a plan, he wouldn't necessarily say it all in public when that is the nature of war?

5:26Anthony:Well, also that if he has a plan, it probably isn't John Bolton's, actually, because John Bolton, as you sort of heard in that clip with you, I mean, he'd like to get rid of the entire regime. He'd like to go back to Iran as it was back in the days of the Shah or before that. So given that most people think that's unrealistic or not achievable without kind of enormous cost and people on the ground and all the rest of it, and that isn't the Trump plan, then the White House plan is different. The White House plan is to win. And when they will define winning, when they've decided, along with the Israelis, what winning could reasonably be.

6:06Anthony:But it was always going to be considerably less than the overthrow of the mullahs. it involves whether or not it's realistic or not as you can sort of put to one side but it involves managing to find some sort of subset of the current regime in iran that would be pliable and able that they're able to do business with and that i think you know that is still the plan in as much as how you get to the plan of course is a different matter and that does seem to be really up in the air at the moment with the possibility that they've utterly underestimated the ability of the Iranian regime to fight back.

6:45Mariana, it's one of these things where we've talked before about how Donald Trump said he wants to end forever wars and bring the troops home in America first and all that, and then he embarks on the things which seem to contradict that. And up until now, what we've seen is that actually his supporters will go along with almost anything. But then there is a section of the MAGA base that we've spoken about before, the ones who were very critical of Donald Trump over Jeffrey Epstein, the ones who kind of listened to Marjorie Taylor Greene, who you remember has sort of gone her separate ways from Donald Trump, and who are much more critical of this kind of the war that seems to have provoked rather than ending it, like you say, the promise that, you know, the fighting is going to stop and we're not going to be spending American money elsewhere.

7:27So there's that kind of divide going on in the social media world within MAGA. But what I would say is, and I think one of the most interesting things, has been watching how the official channels of, you know, Donald Trump et al, everyone else involved here are posting about this. And that real kind of like trolling approach to war or that display of strength gaming thing, which loads of other world leaders are kind of following suit with, including Keir Starmer, actually, with varying responses, because Donald Trump is the only person who seems to be quite good at that sort of content.

7:59Anthony:Just to add to that, one of the things that Bolton said to you was it goes all the way up to J.D. Vance. It's what Marianne has just been talking about, those people she's just been talking about. And that's the interesting thing, the extent to which those people exist in a more powerful way than just out there doing all these memes and all the rest of it. And people either enjoying it or hating it or whatever. But actually, do they have a hotline to the vice president? Because in theory, they would have because he is very much, as Bolton was saying, sort of of their thinking when it comes to these things.

8:34Anthony:But but has he sealed them off? do they still have an influence? I don't know. Well, on the subject of the sort of clickbait, ragebait approach to social media, there's this extraordinary clip that the White House released a video. This was on Friday. We'll play a bit of it, although it might not be totally clear. It's basically film clips interspersed with footage of the war around. So it's sort of a clip of Superman followed by footage of a bomb going off. You've got Iron Man 2, Gladiator, Braveheart. Let's take a listen. I'm here to fight for truth and justice in the American way. I am the danger.

9:12Time to find out.

9:15Anthony:Maximum effort. Punisher. Here it comes. More now in this flawless victory. And in fact, we've got Mike from Birmingham is on the line now. Hello, Mike. Hi, Matt and Tim. what is your question for the team off the back of that extraordinary clip yes my question relates to the sort of barrier for controversy in the u.s so back in the day obama wore a tansu or a mustard shaker which broke the american news machine for a couple weeks but now it feels like we have daily ai and movie-based propaganda videos with little to no consequence on news coverage is it a double standards for democratic presidents or is it just a sign of the times.

9:58I would say, Mike, that I think it is actually, well, I think there's two layers, there's layers to this. I think that in some ways it is a sign of the times, like this is how politicians are doing politics across the political spectrum, because it's about gaming the algorithm, because it's about getting your content pushed to as many people as possible, sparking outrage or a reaction or what have you. And then people either love it or they hate it, or they find it funny, or they find it disgusting. And that in turn gets it, you know, more eyeballs some more attention. Now, it's a separate question whether that is a good or a bad thing, particularly when it comes to war, people are being killed, there's violence on the ground.

10:34It can feel like there's this huge gap between what's going on on social media, like I say, this kind of hyper-realist gaming type, yeah, the sort of gamification of war online and then the reality of what war is and people losing their lives and what those actions mean politically. But I think Donald Trump, in many ways, pioneered that rage bait approach and was held perhaps to different standards at times because he made a kind of virtue of it. It's like, this is what I'm like. I'm a bit of a troll online. And that's, this is the kind of content I post. But now everyone is copying him. And like I kind of mentioned earlier, but like Keir Starmer posted this montage about Iran, which really felt geared up for more so a US audience than a British one in terms of, you know, it was very similar to Donald Trump style, but that's different because Keir Starmer is not Donald Trump.

11:19And so, you know, you then have questions about the sort of how genuine or disingenuous those kind of posts seem and whether they actually land with the people you want them to and whether they actually seem like they're not very tasteful. But again, the taste point, I guess, social media forgets taste quite a lot of the time. Well, I suppose the point is, Anthony, is that Barack Obama didn't wear a tan suit to outrage people and have a whole sort of national discourse about it. Whereas the very purpose of these clips is to create the row, often to drown out debate about other things. Yeah, Donald Trump and his team, because it's not just Donald Trump.

11:58I mean, it's the people around him as well using these things and tapping into kind of cross currents of social media and gaming culture that Donald Trump probably has no idea about. But they are they're doing it in a way that no one has done it before. I mean, the Obama administration and Tansuitgate and all of the kind of scandals of past administrations, cultural scandals of past administrations or incendiary things, it seems so far removed from what this is now. The Justice the American Way slogan that was put on that video after it all played out. And there was another one that showed a clip from the actual video game where someone was calling up an airstrike on the video game.

12:43And then clips of actual real bombing and buildings being destroyed were played after it. That is a remarkable kind of a change in the way wars are being packaged and presented by a country. And whether it works or not, I think there are people who probably are bravo, America sees that. But I think there is a pushback to it. Maybe it's a reaction, like Mariana says, that they want. But there is a chance that if Americans are watching service members come home in coffins, If they're watching their gas prices go up, if they're watching their stock market portfolios drop precipitously, then seeing an administration kind of playing around and having fun with this and making these slick package videos of what they're doing.

13:28I think that could that could end up being being something that that hurts them more than it helps them. Mike, great question. Thank you for that. That's Mike in Birmingham. Let's move on. We've got we've got absolutely loads of questions. We've got a question from John, different to John Bolton. sent us an email. Is Trump so annoyed with Stalin's decision not to support America's illegal war because it demonstrates the White House is losing international influence and by extension that Trump's policy of bullying America's allies is beginning to come undone? Justin.

13:59Anthony:No, I suspect not. I think you can't overestimate how unimportant Britain is in the thinking of the White House and Anthony's too polite to say this out loud. No, but you're right. I'm right, aren't I? Yeah, yeah. There you are. He got it from the mouth of a real American there. Not only a real American, a Texan American. So he's telling it like it is. I mean, it's not just this. It's not just now. It's not just in this crisis. It's in previous crises as well. This constant sort of rather bleating thing that some British politicians have and some British commentators, this endless special relationship stuff that is just it's all one sided.

14:36Anthony:Not to say that there aren't deep and abiding security, cooperations and love and interest among peoples and all the rest of it and cultural togetherness and whatnot. But the idea that there's a sort of special relationship that means they look first to what's happening in Britain and then the rest of the world is just wrong. And it's borne out really by what's going on at the moment. So our questioner mentions sort of European leaders, etc. Look at the European leaders that Trump is turning to now. Mertz in Germany, who seems not to be worried about the legal side of things, very much Trump will approve of that and does approve of that and would regard Mertz now, I think, as more of an ally than Starmer.

15:15Anthony:But also Macron, who takes the opposite view, actually says very openly, more openly in the British government, we think this is illegal, they shouldn't have done it. But he's now, where is he? He's in Cyprus. He's talking about defending the Strait of Hormuz with Western military assets, etc., etc. because he can, because France has still got those assets. So, you know, the idea that Britain really matters at all to Trump outside the royal family, I think, is for the birds. Well, that's a big question, because there's been talk in Westminster, Anthony, of the Lib Dems calling for the king to cancel his state visit.

15:49Is that the sort of thing that Donald Trump... Take that, Anthony. I mean, Americans love the royalty. Donald Trump clearly loves the pageantry and the pomp and circumstance that goes along. with the British royal family. So I think, yes, I think if King Charles backed out of this, Donald Trump would be upset. He would be angered by it. I think Americans who like seeing the royal family and like following it almost as a kind of a soap opera that we don't have an invested interest in, we watch it purely for entertainment purposes, I think that would definitely get some attention here, even if the long-term consequences would not be that great.

16:32I think it would definitely be something that we took note of. Well, we'll see. I mean, there's so many posts that I'll be able to study the questions I've been asked. Let's crack on. We've got a voice note now from James in Leighton Buzzard.

16:42Anthony:In all the discussions about the war in Iran, no one has really mentioned the big O, oil. Iran is an enormous oil-producing country. Surely it cannot be a coincidence that Trump has attacked yet another country renowned for it, Venezuela is too and while very different Greenland has many valuable natural minerals is this not all very suspect? I think I'm right in saying most Iranian oil anyway goes to China so it doesn't have a big impact on the rest of the world would the American oil majors like to be in Iran again as they once were? yes but that's probably easier for them to get to be in Russia again which they'd much prefer because it's sort of easier because they can just turn on spigots that are already operating so I mean Now, you know, oil is obviously hugely important.

17:26Anthony:I think that's true. But the idea that this is an American effort to seize Iranian oil, I don't think is right. It's an interesting one, Anthony. Are people talking about the impact on China? Because Trump, of course, is about to go to China. One impact would be that the Iranian oil doesn't get to China and China has considerable difficulties. I mean, could you argue that this is all about China? It's an effort to put pressure on China? China also gets a lot of oil from Russia. So honestly, it's Japan and South Korea and the other Asian nations that are particularly panicked over having the Gulf oil cut down because their economies rely on it.

18:06I think there is thought within this administration on how these sorts of moves, the moves on Venezuela, for instance, and the attempt to exert more influence throughout the Western Hemisphere, the moves in the Middle East, how they affect this kind of larger game between great powers, the United States and China, whether this move in the Gulf was particularly an attempt to address China. I'm not sure there's quite as much evidence there. But getting back to the conspiracy theories about oil, I mean, Donald Trump talked about the oil in Venezuela from the very beginning. So I can see how people would see that.

18:45So he probably wouldn't hide it if that was the motivation in Iran. Exactly. Well, thank you, James. There is a concern about the Gulf, the Arab nations and their oil supply, and this would be a way of keeping Iran from threatening that. So oil does play a part in this action, clearly, but maybe not designed over the 4 % of the global production that Iran has right now. Thank you for that, James. There's James Leighton-Buzzard there. Right, now, in the last week, we've had several messages from listeners on the same topic. One of them is Rachel, who's on the line now in Leicester. Hello, Rachel.

19:23Hi there. Hi, Matt and everybody. What is your question for the tea? My question is about Pete Hegseth. Is he the Secretary of For Defence or is he the Secretary of For War? I know there was an executive order signed apparently last year that he was to be given the title Secretary of War. So which is it or does it have to go through Congress? Now, this is particularly important because basically listeners were telling me off last week because I kept calling the Secretary of Defence. So, Anthony, can you clear this up? Well, Congress would be the one that officially changes the name of the Department of Defence to the Department of War.

20:02And they haven't done that yet. What the Trump administration and the Pentagon have done, however, is change one of the alternate names of the department to the Department of War, which is why they've been able to change the branding on their website and the signs outside the Pentagon and why Pete Hegseth has decided to start referring to himself as the Secretary of War. So that's why it's not inaccurate for us to use that as a means of referring to him, because that's how he refers to himself. But legally written in the defense authorization bills by statute, it is still very much the Department of Defense.

20:40And it'll be interesting to see what if the Congress manages to change that sometime in the next few years. and two, if a Democrat takes control in 2029, whether they just go back to calling it the Department of Defence and try to erase everything that Donald Trump has done with that name change. And lots of media organisations have stuck with, including the BBC, seem to have stuck with the Secretary of Defence. Is that right? I mean, I think, you know, we've said that on the podcast kind of both ways. But yes, in writing, we say Secretary of Defence, Department of Defence. There we are. Rachel, has that helped you with your conundrum?

21:13That's helped me because it's been driving me crazy all week, but thanks for clearing that up. Let's turn our attention to the departure of the Homeland Security Secretary, Christy Noem. Mandy sent an email saying, well done, people, for predicting her termination in a recent podcast, but you should all be ashamed of yourselves. Anthony for slipping the phrase, Christy Noem is on thin ice into the conversation, and the rest of you for letting it pass about the obligatory bad pun groan. So she was fired because of her disastrous performance at last week's committee hearings in Congress. The big thing, of course, was sacking were the TV ads that cost$220 million, which she said Trump had signed off.

21:53Here's a bit of the ad. Our greatness calls people to us for a chance to prosper, to live how they choose, to become part of something special. Anyone who searches for freedom can always find a home here, but that freedom's a precious thing and we defend it vigorously. You cross the border illegally, we'll find you. Break our laws, we'll punish you. Harm American citizens, there will be consequences. But if you come here the right way, your American dream can be as big as these endless skies. And also, we can't not mention this specific audio from the Senator Tom Tillis, who also berated Kirstie for having bad judgment, picking up on something she wrote in a book.

22:38The passage where you talk about killing a dog that was 14 months old. I train dogs, all right? And you are a farmer. You should know better. You should know that if you're going out to a hunting lodge and you're putting pheasants out and you're putting dogs out, you don't take a puppy out there. A 14-month-old dog is basically a teenager in dog years. You decided to kill that dog because you had not invested the appropriate time and training, and then you have the audacity to go into a book and say it's a leadership lesson about tough choices. normally we try to play clips to sort of help illustrate a point and bring some clarity and I feel like our listeners might be even more confused

23:16Anthony:okay she wrote a book in which she admitted acknowledged, actually boasted about in a way, killing a dog from memory Anthony the dog's name is Cricket which I always thought was a bit odd but anyway she killed Cricket shot Cricket because she got annoyed with Cricket so she's the South Dakota governor at the time and she grows up on a farm and it's all very midwestern country fied and you do brutal things but the killing of the dog the murder of the dog as i might put it as a dog lover was thought to be at the time that she put it in the book a remarkably strange thing for someone who wanted to be a top politician to stick in the book and it is amazing that actually It sticks with her all the way through to these Senate hearings that frankly are about, in many respects, more important things.

24:11She also killed a goat, but no one talks about the goat. No one talks about the dog. But Americans, Americans, Americans probably killed a few spiders in a time. What's the significance of her departure, Anthony? Well, I mean, she heads the third largest department in the federal government. She had been a lightning rod of controversy, not just for the ad campaign that we heard the clip of, but also for her handling of the immigration crackdowns in Minneapolis, where the two American citizens were killed by immigration enforcement officers. She had taken on a very visible role throughout the first year plus of Trump's second term, going down and posing in front of those that Seacott prison cell in El Salvador, but also traveling around the country on a private jet.