Americanswers… on 5Live! Will Trump lose his MAGA base over Iran?

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0:53They are not MAGA, I am. And MAGA includes not allowing Iran, a sick, demented and violent terrorist regime, to have a nuclear weapon. Those are the words, you may have guessed, of Donald Trump. And he is attempting to rally his own troops, his MAGA army. Make America great again, they said, and they rallied round him. But now it seems they are rallying round all sorts of flags, not necessarily his. So how serious is that for him, for the American right? Marianna, Sarah and I take your questions on this with Matt Chorley on Five Live. We also talk about whether America adequately planned for Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz.

1:32Is NATO under threat? Plus the Oscars and Donald Trump's relationship with Hollywood. Welcome to America Answers on Five Live. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. Nicolas Maduro, he effed around and he found out. 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.

2:09Yes, right, let's get stuck right in with, as we know, Justin always likes if we kick off with a showbiz story. So last night was the Oscars. and actually the thing that struck me when I woke up this morning, there'd be lots of clips of people being rude about Donald Trump or whatever and actually there wasn't really and I wonder what that tells us, Justin. Here I'm broken record again, these people don't matter and I think it's beginning to get through even to them that they don't matter and there's no sort of Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes equivalent at the Oscars and it's all very lame and so there is a bit of politics there and, as you say, it's kind of the obvious politics, the sort of establishment politics.

2:50Not many jokes made about the mullahs or any kind of difficult subject that they might find difficult. So, you know what? Most people, most Americans, I think, just raise their eyes to the skies and just not that interested in them, and I think that has got through. So the only thing Jimmy Kimmel said, we hear a lot about coverage at shows like this, but telling a story that could get you killed for telling it is real coverage. As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don't support free speech. I'm not at liberty to say which. Let's just leave it at North Korea and CBS. Because he was taken, when was that?

3:23He was taken off air. It was all around after Charlie Kirk was assassinated and he made a joke and then he got taken off air for a bit and then he came back on and there was this whole big kind of debate about freedom of expression at that time. I think it's interesting, the political point. I know that me and Justin probably have this conversation on repeat. There's a blueprint for it now. But I also wonder if it's almost the other way round to how you're describing it. It's not that they think they're not important. I don't think any famous... No, that's true. Yeah, you're quite right. ...any celebrity ever has ever thought that about themselves.

3:50But what I do think is that they realise that it's not perhaps beneficial to them to talk about politics. Really? Are they that clever? I don't know, but if you're thinking about it from a PR point of view, it's kind of about, like, how do... For example, what clips are going to get picked up? What are the things, like Matt says, like you wake up in the morning and you think, oh, that went really viral, and you wonder whether celebrities were thinking that more, which is actually, like, let's not do stuff that makes us open to then being criticised. I suppose there's two things, isn't there, Sarah?

4:17There's an individual in thinking, well, if I'm rude about ex-politician, do I alienate their supporters who won't go and see my film? But there's a sort of a bigger thing that we've seen in the media more generally. But in Hollywood too, when they want the American government to wave through mergers, takeovers or whatever else. And actually, a bit like we've seen it with the tech pros, we've talked a lot about the bosses of Meta and X and all of that who've basically sucked up to Trump. That's been happening in the entertainment world as well. Oh, absolutely. And you look at the battles. In fact, the reason that CBS was getting criticised was that it was part of a takeover, which meant that David Ellison ended up putting in a more right-wing news editor there in Barry Weiss.

4:58And this is happening, this consolidation across the sector where movie studios are being bought up, largely by people who are Donald Trump allies. Now, maybe they're not natural bedfellows with Donald Trump, but they've become so because they want approval for these mergers and takeovers. To do that, they've got to be very, very nice to the White House and they will do things like cut movie stars who are making it difficult for them. You're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars involved in these deals that they need to go through. They're going to get rid of any celebrity who's making trouble for that.

5:27And it's all part of the way that a smaller number of people owning all of these massive outlets, consolidating their power and their links with the White House is creating a sort of sense that Donald Trump gets everywhere in terms of allowing these things to happen. And at the same time, you've got the FCC, the body here that controls broadcasters, the chairman of that, threatening TV news stations with losing their licences if he doesn't like the way they're covering the war in Iran. So there is a sense of censorship to a degree kind of starting to creep across the wider media landscape. There is something very Trump-ian too, isn't there, about the winner or the big winner in the Oscars, this film One Battle After Another, which for people who haven't seen it, it's kind of chaotic is the best way to describe it.

6:16It's very loud and very brash and it's both serious and unserious, which just strikes me as very Trumpian actually, Marianne, when it comes to the experience you're having. I really enjoyed it actually, but I think people on the right are walking out of it because they think it's left wing. People on the left are upset because it teases wokeness at various stages. What is it? It's just, it's the modern life. Yeah, in some ways, I actually haven't seen it, but the parallels, there are kind of parallels when you say the serious, unserious thing between, like, for example, all of the comms. I mean, think about how we spoke about the memes last week on America Answers.

6:52Since then, there's been, like, a montage shared by the White House of, like, people playing, if you've ever played on a Wii, a Nintendo Wii, like, acting like that's the war. It's like that real, like, whoa, hang on, what's going on here? like reality films at once. But that's what this film mirrors. And I mean, anyone who's seen it, I suspect will agree with me that it's got all the chaos of times in it. I thought it was the same thing you were watching and I wasn't sure what it was. That's the thing. Sorry, go on. I missed that, Sarah. I didn't take that for a bit at all. It took me a wee while to realise that it was a comedy rather than something that was deeply serious.

7:23And there is that slightly chaotic attitude to it, but it is good fun. No, it's campaigning against white supremacy, anti-immigration policies. It's very much a sense of, in a kind of post-Trump America, the underground fighting back against the kind of things that the left accused the current administration of. And it's also got Sean Penn in it, for goodness sake, who won and didn't turn up, did he? Doesn't turn up, yeah. I didn't know that. Does he? Because he doesn't like the people. I'm the same. I don't turn up when I would have won. And the sort of Sean Penn character is both, it's struck me, immensely unappealing, and yet also played in a way that just made you laugh a bit.

8:04Sarah, that was the ambivalence for me. So let's turn to Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, which is this critical waterway which you'll have heard a lot about for global oil shipping, which Iran has made clear is close to its enemies. Trump says he shouldn't just be down to the US to try and deal with it. He says he's speaking to about seven countries, including the UK, about helping to police the strait. We are talking to other countries about working with us for the policing of the strength. Remember, like as an example, medications in NATO countries. We're always there for NATO. It's not the greatest quality of that.

8:44That's him saying it'll be interesting to see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavour. We've had loads of messages on this. So, Janet in Sheffield emails, may I ask you to comment on why America didn't think to secure the Strait of Hormuz at the beginning of the war, as clearly everyone else knew this would be a problem. Maybe it's just one of the many things that America didn't think about. John from Bexelon Sea says, I would imagine that before any armed conflict, the Pentagon would get war game all options and plan accordingly. If this is the case, why did America apparently make no plans to protect the Hormuz Straits?

9:19Sarah? It's baffling, isn't it? I mean, how on earth could they have missed what the most obvious play Iran was going to take in this war was? The best as I can understand it, trying to decode what various cabinet members and other people have been saying on the TV shows yesterday, all the Sunday shows and other interviews, is that Donald Trump was convinced the regime would collapse before it got to the point where they could threaten the Strait of Hormuz. So like within a week or 10 days or something, he was convinced that he would be able to overthrow the regime. What he seems to have completely not calculated was that if you make this an existential battle for Iran's rulers, that either the regime is going to completely collapse or they have to throw everything they've got at it, then, of course, they will fight to the death and do everything they possibly can to survive, including choking off the Strait of Hormuz and so much of the world's oil supply.

10:12It is staggering that this was not accounted for better by the administration, or for those people who did put it forward, it was dismissed by Donald Trump, who just a week ago was saying that it was too late for Britain to be offering warships to help because the war had already been won and is now asking for help from the UK and a bunch of other countries as well. But, yeah, baffling, and yet it is where we are. Justin, is that a sign that they miscalculated the Iranian response? That the obliteration or whatever hyperbole you use that they would inflict on Iran would make this not an issue?

10:52I was talking to someone who used to work with the CIA the other day and his view is exactly, to back up what Sarah is saying, He says that he thinks that they thought there was a big chance that the Iranian regime was like the Venezuelan regime in as much as it was full of people who are really interested in stealing money and being thuggish, but not actually ideologically committed to anything very much. And it turns out in Venezuela, that's pretty much the case. And the woman they've got now in charge, Chelsea Rodriguez, accused of widespread thuggery and theft and all the rest of herself. But she's now Donald Trump's woman.

11:27And it's sort of worked for them, at least for the time being. So this guy was saying to me, I think it's pretty much the same. They thought it would be the same in Iran, that actually people are not ideologically committed, religiously committed in a way that we've all suggested in the past that they might be. and that actually the Iranian regime, whatever the complications and the ethnic makeup and all the rest of it, fundamentally it's full of people and we do know this because the new leader, if indeed is still alive, apparently has a house in London and all over the world. I mean there has been, there's no doubt there's been bilking of money and these are not pleasant people in any way, shape or form, but they may well be more ideologically committed, even lower down the food chain as it were, than the Americans could manage to imagine.

12:11One of the things that's quite interesting is, I guess, because and it comes back to this actual gamification of war point that we've spoken about a bit. I've also spoken about on my other podcast, Top Comment, which you can listen to. But basically, because they've been so brazen, the Americans, I mean, I'm thinking about this from a social media strategy point of view, like Donald Trump's administration have been so brazen in the like, we're going to own them. And it's like a video game and blah, blah, blah. But all this kind of stuff then feels like it doesn't quite match up with the bravado that's being projected online, which is then what gives the kind of implication, what makes people think, oh, hang on a second.

12:45Did they actually just miscalculate this or they didn't quite get it right? But then I say all of that and actually, you know, people are more likely to remember the funny meme montage of like people playing Wii Sports than they are. If you're not that into politics to engage with the very specific thing of this like body of water. I suppose that might change when even when prices start coming up. Yeah, exactly. Well, let's stick with Iran and what Trump says on the future of NATO. He told the Financial Times it would be very bad for the future of NATO if allies didn't help secure the strait of our moves.

13:15So we've had this voice note from Kerry from the east of England. To me, from Trump's comments in the last 24 hours and in recent months, it seems like he views NATO as something that the USA is not part of or doesn't have any responsibilities towards. that he views NATO as some European group that the USA magnanimously keeps helping out when they don't actually need to and how we should all be so grateful. Why does he have this view that the USA isn't part of NATO? Surely the clue's in the name. It's NATO, not ETO. Thanks. Justin. Yeah, I think she absolutely gets to the heart of it. He doesn't really regard NATO as involving the US other than as a bit of a nuisance.

13:55And I think the threat is effectively a gun to all of our heads because what he seems to me, stripped of all the detail, what he's saying is, if you don't help me out in the Strait of Hormuz, you NATO countries, maybe I won't help you out with Ukraine. And maybe I wouldn't help you out in the future if it wasn't just Ukraine and if it became more of Western Europe. That's the threat, isn't it? And it seems pretty much as clear a threat as you can see. And actually, General Sir Nick Carter, former Chief of the Defence Staff, was on the Today programme this morning. And he was basically saying that NATO is a defensive organisation, was set up so that if one member were attacked, others would come to their rescue, which is not the same as to say if one member launches an attack, other people have to pile in.

14:43And that was, you know, there's two different world views there. Yeah, you can't launch a war of choice, as America and Israel did on Iran and then expect that your allies are bound to join you even when you didn't talk to them about doing this before you started a war. That's not what NATO was there for. But that doesn't mean that Donald Trump doesn't see it in an entirely transactional way, which is I need something from you, you better do it or I will take something from you or refuse to give you something in the future because he doesn't necessarily believe in the structure of NATO because he thinks America is so much more powerful that it doesn't need it, that it's geographically removed from a lot of the threats that NATO is defending against, that it's so militarily powerful that it doesn't need the help of allies.

15:30Well, unless it comes to the Hormuz Straits, of course. But I'm also fascinated by him saying, if you don't help me out with Iran, I might not help you anymore with Ukraine. Well, when the US started sending weaponry to Ukraine and getting involved in this and strengthening NATO, in fact, as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, under Joe Biden, they saw it as essential to America's interests that Russia not be able to defeat Ukraine, whereas Donald Trump obviously sees that has nothing to do with America whatsoever and is solely a European issue. And that tells you quite a lot about his worldview in itself.

16:05We've got a caller on the line. Gavin is in Eastbourne. Hello, Gavin. Hi. What is your question for the Amarocasters? My question is about the UK-US relationship. It seems to me that very few people are prepared to challenge Trump in his actions and his choice of words. Surely we should be honest, polite but honest, in what we say, calling him out when it's right to do so. Trump is but one president. The relationship between our countries is surely strong enough to be able to speak truth to power. The tightrope that KS Dummer's walking just said. Yeah, and we've talked about this a lot, haven't we?

16:38And you look at the way that Macron deals with Trump, it's much more abrupt and doesn't seem necessarily to damage their relationship. Georgia Maloney in Italy saying recently she thought the war was illegal, saying it out loud and georgia maloney in previously at least quite close to trump or very close to trump actually um so you can that you don't have to take the line that keir starmer has taken on the other hand he obviously feels that it has got us various places not just in terms of trade deals and all the rest of it but actually more just in our ability potentially to influence the united states and that's always been the argument hasn't it that i if you don't hold them close you won't have any influence at all there's i think it's questionable what influence at the moment we are having.

17:19But, you know, there's this endless fuss about the special relationship, which I've long believed does not exist. Thank you for your attention to this matter. How, I mean, we obviously are UK biased from the UK perspective, Sarah. To what extent, if any, does Keir Starmer impinge on the sort of Washington DC brain? A bit. In the beginning, people were really quite fascinated by the sort of bromance that seemed to have sprung up between him and Donald Trump in the very early days. And they were really intrigued by this, what almost looked like a kind of resurgence of the special relationship because they were such unlikely friends, weren't they?

17:59And it does feel as though that is unravelling a bit, not just over Iran, but over some other things as well. Donald Trump's constant criticism of the Chagos Islands deal, for instance. And underpinning it, I think, is that he was keen on Keir Starmer at the beginning because he had recently won a landslide general election and Donald Trump thought he looked like a winner with an absolutely enormous parliamentary majority. Obviously, that's not where opinion polls put Keir Starmer these days. And Donald Trump has come to see him as a bit of a loser and is no longer interested necessarily in chumming up to somebody like this and is prepared to be much more rude, but also, I think, prepared probably to lash out at Britain in policy terms a bit.

18:39So, So, I mean, it is absolutely right, of course, to say this is only one US president and the historic relationship between Britain and America will survive that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that a government or prime minister would survive a few months or years of being badly on the wrong side of Donald Trump because he is so much more vindictive and mercurial and changeable than normal US presidents. Just on the point about the MAGA movement's perspective on this, somebody texted in saying, really interesting to know what Mariana's imaginary US voters think of this. Are the usual Trump core vote embarrassed?

19:14And we've had a voice note from Sue in New Jersey about MAGA. As a Brit in the States, I listen to America regularly, so grateful for your insights. President Trump has firmly owned the concept of make America great again. In fact, the concept so deeply resonated with a good proportion of Americans that they seem to have co-owned the notion. Given this apparent co-ownership of the MAGA philosophy and Trump's consistent recent focus away from home, do you think that there's a risk that the ownership of the MAGA concept could detach from Trump? What would this mean for him and what would he do about it?

19:49Thank you. No, thank you. Sue in New Jersey. Marianna, what are your imaginary friends saying? So my imaginary friends are my undercover voters. They've got profiles across all the main sites and they are being recommended different content depending on their political beliefs, etc. That question is really interesting because, yeah, I've obviously been paying quite close attention to the kind of MAGA undercover voter, Brittany. What I think is interesting is that if you look at it kind of rationally, it's like, yeah, actually, some of these things we're talking about feel like they are overseas and getting involved in other stuff and not make America great again.

20:20But the display of kind of patriotism and victory and we're sticking up for American interests elsewhere that they're projecting on social media has broadly flown with the kind of MAGA cohort online, the kind of the ones who at least remain loyal to Donald Trump. I would say there is, as I've spoken about before, this kind of splinter group who are the kind of Marjorie Taylor Greene-esque type MAGA people online who are actually much more sceptical about this and feel as though they'd be better placed investing their efforts and resources and time elsewhere. But I actually think that, again, it explains a lot of that kind of rage bait trolly type approach of the admins of saying, look, we're strong, we stick up for America, that's what we're doing.

21:01And I think that that kind of thing has sort of worked. Just to drill down on what Sue's question is from New Jersey, she's absolutely right. It is splintering and it's not just splintering but there are bits of it now that Donald Trump has lost control of. And the classic example of that is a woman called Megyn Kelly who we've had on the show. I mean she's not exactly one of the kind of extreme, completely out there sort of loon conspiracy theorist people. She's a mainstream, was a mainstream broadcaster. She's got her own show now, very successful, right wing, take on life. But she is now having this incredible argument with another guy who's also actually not really out there, a guy, Mark Levin, who used to write for the, used to work for the Reagan administration.

21:48I mean, he's not sort of, and he's now having this bitter, weird, vitriolic argument. He's called her lewd and disgusting. She said that he's got a micropenis. I'm not quite sure where that goes. But, I mean, this kind of absolute kind of loony argument, which Sarah will be more aware of than we are here because she's sort of seeing it and it's going on around her all the time. But this kind of sense that the right is now at each other's throats in a way that Donald Trump has lost control of. And on that particular argument, Trump's backed one side, is back this guy, Mark Levin, because Levin, who's basically a fan of the war.

22:29But, you know, all these people like Megyn Kelly, etc., are out there and are untethered now. It's when the movement becomes bigger than the person who coined it.

22:48OK, we've come off the air with Five Live live with Matt Chorley. Mariana has had to do other things, so she has left us. But Sarah and I are still here, and we want to keep talking about this MAGA rift because it is really interesting what's going on over Iran. And it is Sarah, isn't it? Fundamentally, it's not just about fighting wars abroad and whether America should be isolationist or all of that sort of stuff. It's also actually very much, isn't it, about Israel? Yeah, there was a suspicion that America was being either persuaded or strong armed into this action by Israel. And not all MAGA supporters are quite as 100 percent behind Israel as traditional old fashioned Republicans used to be.

23:30And so the idea that the US was not only doing something Donald Trump had promised he wouldn't do, which is starting new foreign wars, but doing so basically at the best of another country was very, very suspicious. And then every day we heard a new reason from the administration about why they had started this war now. And then Marco Rubio goes up to Capitol Hill and basically overtly said America had to get involved at this point because they knew that there was going to be Israeli action against Iran, that that would spur Iranian attacks on American bases in the region and American forces. So they had to preemptively go after Iran before they launched those attacks.

24:09Otherwise, they would suffer higher casualties. That's what Marco Rubio said. Now, after that, there was quite a lot of criticism. Donald Trump was asked, did Israel force you into this war? And he snapped back, no. And Marco Rubio sort of tried to roll back those words. But basically, for a lot of people thought he had finally let the cat out of the bag and admitted what this was really about. Let's listen to three of these very big voices in the MAGA movement. So we'll hear Tucker Carlson, then Megyn Kelly, and then Marjorie Taylor Greene. As someone who wants the United States to remain powerful in the world, a force for decency and order in the world, but above all wants America to remain prosperous and peaceful at home in the country that we actually live in, it's hard to say this.