Americanswers! What did we learn from the latest Epstein files?

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0:30No bouncing between tabs. And best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O dot com. With the new Schwab Teen Investor Account, teens can gain hands-on investing experience and build positive money habits. It's an account co-owned by you and your teen, so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at schwab.com. How many buildings can Donald J. Trump name after himself before the American people get a little bit sick of it?

1:07Indeed, does he have the right to do it? And how quickly could all the naming be overturned under a new presidency? That is one of the questions that Anthony and I have got together to answer. Plenty more from you as well. Lots particularly about Venezuela. How legal is the action already being taken there? what new congressional hoops might Donald Trump have to jump through in order to go further. Plus, of course, the endless questions about the way in which the United States is being shaped by him, specifically now regarding a new set of games that he wants to introduce next year. Welcome to AmeriCast.

1:51AmeriCast. 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?

2:17Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And it's Anthony. I am at home in Arlington, Virginia, very close to Washington, D.C. OK, we're not doing a live question and answer session with Matt Chorley because he is on holiday, as so many people are. But two people are not. Anthony is not. And I'm not. And we're going to have the entire responsibility for answering your questions, which you have submitted still in many thousands or at least one or two recently. And they're really good questions, too. So let's get to them, Anthony. The first one coming from someone in Paris, Karim in Paris, says, I study U.S.

2:52politics and my students here in Paris. One of them asked me if Trump can impose a blockade on Venezuela without the consent of Congress, which I put to you. If you answer the question on air, please let me know so I can tell them to listen. Well, listen, because we're doing it. Here's Anthony. Well, let's start with exactly what Donald Trump is doing here, which is imposing a blockade on Venezuelan tankers, sanctioned what he says oil tankers. He has already ordered the U.S. Coast Guard to stop two of them. The first one was a little over a week ago. The second one was just this last weekend where they took control of another tanker and now are in active pursuit, according to U.S.

3:35authorities, for a third tanker. So we can listen to Donald Trump announcing that blockade last week on the tarmac with Air Force One in the background.

4:08OK, so to get to the heart of Karim's question, can he do all of these things? You hear his justifications there, but can he do that without putting those justifications to Congress and getting congressional approval? And as I read it, Anthony, we've talked about this off and on, haven't we, for some time, that the situation is America hasn't declared war on anyone since the Second World War, has it? It has got congressional authorizations for kind of major actions. And I was thinking, and I think when we talked about this before, I came up with the first Gulf War. And you pointed out that that wasn't a declaration of war, but it was a kind of congressional approval.

4:48And there have been subsequent ones, haven't there, for the actions in Iraq, et cetera. And in a sense, when Trump goes after Islamic State targets in Syria, I think I'm right in saying he's still using, isn't he, a congressional authorization. that he thinks he has from action against al-Qaeda and all its offshoots and anyone who'd follow on, etc. In this case, Anthony, that then raises the question, we're not talking about a declaration of war, that's certainly not going to happen, but is there a serious case for saying you do need a congressional authorization of some sort before you go any further?

5:27A blockade is generally perceived to be considered to be an act of war, full stop. And that is what Donald Trump is doing. I mean, he's imposed a blockade on Venezuela and their members of Congress who say, no, you have to at least have some sort of authorization. You mentioned the authorization of military force that came after the September 11th attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. That was kind of a blanket authorization for the war on terror. So it covered Afghanistan and all these other things. There is a separate authorization for the war against Iraq. But there has been nothing. Congress has done nothing here for this Venezuelan action.

6:03And so it comes down to one of these questions we talk about time and time again with Donald Trump is, does he have the legal authority to do this? It's not clear. Maybe not. But is there anyone who is going to try to stop him? And is there anyone who can stop him? And that also is unclear. Presidents generally have broad powers over directing the military. They're the commander in chief. And if they decide to use it, it's not clear how Congress, without an explicit vote saying you can't do this, are able to cut them off. So a gray area, a gray area, once again, that Donald Trump is taking advantage of.

6:38Yeah. And it's a weird one because because they thought, didn't they, that that the gray area had been ungrayed after the Vietnam War, which is in a sense where the modern discussion of all of this comes to. So you had the Vietnam War and that kind of massive escalation after escalation after escalation, never properly approved by Congress. I mean, there was approval, wasn't there for limited action. But then people said people look back on that after the event, didn't they, Anthony, and said, we've got to do this differently. And it just seems to me that they haven't necessarily managed it. Yeah, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which was passed after a kind of a staged incident at the beginning of the Vietnam War.

7:18That's right. It wasn't even a real incident, was it? Yeah, it wasn't even a real incident, it seems. It covered the entirety of the Vietnam War. And then the post-Watergate Democratic Control Congress passed the War Powers Act, which did spell out if the president uses military in a certain amount of time, they have to turn to Congress and inform them and get permission to continue it. And presidents of both parties have generally thumbed their nose at that. Barack Obama was bombing, sending drones into various countries. Bill Clinton was involved in wars in the Balkans against Serbia without getting explicit permission, if I recall correctly.

7:59But Obama, again, was in Libya supporting the war in Libya to oust Gaddafi. All of this, presidents don't tend to like Congress meddling in their war powers, in their exercise of military authority. But, of course, none of them have done quite so brazenly now, it seems, as Donald Trump is doing it with Venezuela. I suppose he could say Reagan invaded Grenada, didn't he? There was an invasion of Panama, wasn't there? Bush, yeah. Yeah, Bush invaded Panama. Neither of those things with explicit permission. As I remember, the only thing stopping Reagan in Grenada potentially was Mrs. Thatcher, of whom he was quite frightened.

8:43There are lots of memoirs, lots of books have come out about the Thatcher government. It's fascinating that she really fell out with him over Grenada. I mean, they were, of course, ideologically very close on so many other things. But I mean, if you can have, and I suppose bringing it back to Karim's question about Venezuela, if he can manage a short, successful military action, it probably doesn't matter, does it? In the sense that by the time the historians look this over, it's long gone. But if they get stuck in some sort of a quagmire there or lose significant numbers of American soldiers or airmen, God forbid, then it's a different situation.

9:25Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. If Americans start dying, the dynamic of this changes entirely. But until then, the American public only pays a half attention. And there doesn't seem to be a will in Congress, a Republican-controlled Congress, to do anything to really check him. All right. Let's go on to our next question. This one is from Simon. He says, how long will it take for all the Trump accolades to be reversed when the next administration starts? I'm thinking particularly of the public holidays for Trump's birthday, the renaming of various buildings, institutions, etc. What one president can do, another can do.

10:02Right, Justin? Yeah, exactly. And I mean, there are a few of them, aren't there? The Trump Birthday and Flag Day Holiday Establishment Act, which I've completely forgotten about, has been introduced to Congress. I didn't realize this has actually been introduced to Congress back in February. It hasn't yet been passed into law, I think we can safely say. And it's, I suppose, unlikely to. The Kennedy Center thing is interesting, isn't it, though, Anthony? Because this is close to you in D.C. Anyone who's been to D.C. knows the Kennedy Center. It's a huge center for the American arts. It's been renamed the first time it's been renamed after a sitting U.S.

10:45president. The new lettering is there, isn't it? They haven't got rid of the John F. Kennedy bit of it, have they? No, now they just put up the Donald Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. Trump, of course, is not dead. Kennedy was assassinated and it was set up, the Kennedy Center was set up by law as a living memorial, in the phrase, to the life of John F. Kennedy, who was a patron of the arts. So the Kennedy Center, the Kennedy family is up in arms about this. They say they can't add Donald Trump's name to it, even though there was a vote by the Kennedy Center board to put that name on.

11:25it's statutorily detailed in Congress on the founding of the Kennedy Center that would be named the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center. So I think there's questions about the legality of that, but also all a new president would have to do is come in, appoint a new board the way Donald Trump has, and they could vote to take the name off. And that could be done very quickly. The United States Institute of Peace, which the State Department has now named the Donald Trump Institute of Peace, which is a building that was right across from the Kennedy Center, a center that was set up, the institute that was set up by Congress in a law.

12:02In theory, the State Department could just change that the very next day. All of these things, the Flag Day, Donald Trump birthday thing, was a National Park decision to have free admissions on Flag Day slash Trump birthday. Well, if a new president could put in a new interior secretary, a new head of the National parks who could go and say, OK, these are going to be the new days where we give free admission. That also would be relatively easy to do. It's just a question of, I guess, political will. And if the public would perceive someone coming in, a Democrat coming in and changing all of this very rapidly as focusing too much on the past, if there might be political consequences for that.

12:41But I think there are going to be a lot of Democrats who are clamoring, who are looking forward to that moment when a Democrat gets back in office and just pulls everything down. Now, the east, the ballroom that's being built in the east, where the east wing of the White House is, that might be a little harder to undo. But these names, I think, will be fairly easy. Yeah. Oh, it's interesting. You draw attention to the fact that the Kennedy Center thing might be, although it doesn't, in a sense, is not the most serious thing, just the renaming of an Arts Center. But actually, it might be quite tricky for him.

13:12It could be challenged legally. And that's certainly the view, isn't it, of the Democrats. We've been hearing from, for instance, the House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, specifically on the changes at the Kennedy Center. But they want to rename, allegedly, the Kennedy Center after Donald J. Trump. These are sick people. Something is really wrong with these folks. And here's the final thing. They don't have the power to do it. only congress can rename the kennedy center the wannabe king and his sycophantic minions can't do it but they're going to create a spectacle across the country and everybody's going to chase this story but how does that actually help the american people who've already been convinced that donald trump is not focused on making their life better the whole thing is extraordinary.

14:10And it's another indication of the fact that things have fallen apart quickly for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. So tell us how you really feel, Hakeem. I think he's pretty clear on that. Although it's interesting, he did say, you know, the politicians and Trump should be focused on what's best for the American people and things they really care about. And that could be the same line that Republicans use if Democrats come into office and just start focusing on changing everything, undoing everything that Trump did. It's interesting, isn't it? You've got to, if something is named after you, and one day something might be named after you, Anthony, it's got to be, yeah, I'm flying into Zerka International, people will say.

14:51And you've got to survive, haven't you? The initial burst of unpopularity, because some people don't like the person, and then subsequent bursts of popularity and unpopularity. and then become just a kind of thing, which I suppose, I'm just thinking about it, JFK Airport, I assume is always going to be that airport. New York is always going to be JFK. LaGuardia could one day be Mamdani, I guess, airport. LaGuardia, the other airport, named after LaGuardia, the former mayor. But it's kind of, in a way, LaGuardia is neither popular nor unpopular. He was, for a time, a very popular mayor, wasn't he?

15:30But he's not. I mean, most people, I think, probably don't know much about it. The classic one for me, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong in this, I used to know that very good airport that I really recommend to people going to Los Angeles who don't want to go through LAX. There's another little airport in Burbank and it used to be known as Bob Hope Airport. But I think I'm right in saying they changed the name back to Burbank because nobody knows where Bob Hope is. Bob Hope I should say as well for younger listeners Bob Hope was a very famous comedian but of course in the modern era number one a lot of people haven't heard of Bob Hope but number two where is Bob Hope it doesn't tell you where the place is and so I think I'm right in saying they moved it back away from the name so you can lose it but you think of Dulles actually at Washington a lot of people think Dulles is a place but of course it's named after a former sexual estate but he died in the 50s didn't he?

16:28And he survived now, it seems to me. Dulles will not ever be renamed. Well, ah, ah, am I wrong? There has been a push to rename Dulles Airport after Donald Trump. In fact, legislation has been introduced by a Republican Congress to do exactly that. You are right about the former Bob Hope Airport. It's now Hollywood Burbank. And I guess it was. They wanted to try to cash in on the Hollywood identity. It's like, oh, I want to go to Hollywood. Let's fly into Hollywood Burbank, not some entertainer who was definitely beloved back in the day. But few people know. Another big one was Reagan National Airport.

17:05It used to just be Washington National Airport. And it was a big controversy. There's a naming it after Ronald Reagan. The Democrats objected to it. But that has stuck. But that was done by statute. Congress did pass that. There were a lot of things that had been named after Ronald Reagan. Again, there was a whole push after he died to memorialize him in names of places all over this country and schools and post offices and roads. So that was that was definitely a big push. But what Trump is doing is different because he's doing it unilaterally and he's doing it while he is still president, which is kind of the truly remarkable thing.

17:40There was an effort during the Black Lives Matter movement to change, I think it was Cannon House office building, named after a kind of a segregationist former leader of the Senate, and to change that John McCain office building. And there seemed to be some support. Democrats were pushing for it. Republicans were like, no, we're not going to go along with anything that the Democrats want. And that stalled out. So it's hard to change the names of things if you have to rely on committees and legislation. It's much easier if it's just Donald Trump putting a bunch of people on a board who are truly loyal to him.

18:18And then they say, this is the best way we can show our loyalty and start naming things after him just by by executive or presidential action. Yeah, I'm shocked about Dallas. That's fascinating. OK, let's see what happens. I don't think he'll manage it. OK, let's go to the next question. It comes from Adam on Discord. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, what's the likelihood of all the Epstein files actually seeing the light of day? For instance, what's preventing the DOJ from simply destroying documents, which potentially implicate Trump or other such persons, in an attempt to prevent any future administration from releasing further information?

18:56Resultingly, to what extent, Adam asks, Do the American public trust the Department of Justice to be honest, Anthony? Well, it didn't take us long to get to the Epstein files, which actually was the big story this last week. At the end of the week, Friday night was the deadline for the Justice Department to release all the Epstein files with limited redactions. It was mandated by Congress and that law that was passed that we covered a couple of months ago that a handful of Republicans broke and cited all the Democrats in order to pass. And it was very specific about what had to be released, all documents related to investigations, interviews, financial, all of this, and that the redactions would have to be very limited only to protect the names of victims, to protect from disrupting ongoing investigations.

19:49and any redactions would have to be justified by the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, within two weeks. Well, here we go. On Friday night, the Epstein files, some of them came out. Hundreds of thousands of pages came out, but many of them were heavily redacted. There was an entire Justice Department document that was part of the investigation that was 50 pages that were all blacked out. I think it was a grand jury document. There were photographs that were blacked out, hundreds of them. And so it didn't shed a whole lot of light on Donald Trump's connections to Epstein. Trump's name only came up maybe one or two times in the entirety of these documents and not a whole lot on the network that Epstein had around him and anyone that he had financial ties with or possibly client ties with in his pedophilia ring.

20:50What we did see were some pictures of celebrities. We saw several pictures, more than several, a handful, a dozen so, pictures of former President Bill Clinton traveling with Jeffrey Epstein, some of him lounging in a hot tub with a woman's face that had been redacted. There was a picture of Bill Clinton and Michael Jackson. There were photos of other relatively well-known prominent people with Jeffrey Epstein, but not necessarily in any kind of incriminating way. And the Justice Department has since said that there are hundreds of thousands of more pages that they're diligently working through, but they just haven't had time to go through and redact all the potentially revealing details about victims.

21:34So will we see? Will we see it all come out? I think the people who have been calling for this are starting to get a little sceptical after Friday night's revelations. Yeah. I mean, it was interesting. So we talked that night, didn't we, Anthony, for my day job on the Today program here in Britain. And the thing that I forgot to ask you, actually, and I probably should have done at the time, and it just seems to me this is really important, is that there wasn't any dating, was there, of quite a lot of this material. in as much as those photographs, for instance, of Bill Clinton, well, you could say, and I think this is the point that Clinton's office were making after they were all released, if they come from before 2006, you could legitimately say, I mean, he was a pretty weird guy, I suppose, but I didn't know he was involved in anything criminal because he hadn't been charged with anything before then.

22:27And that's where all these supporting documents might provide further evidence. their emails, if there's any kind of documents that show that people of prominence and power knew what Jeffrey Epstein was doing, or, you know, God forbid, were involved in it or partook of what Epstein was doing with children. That would have been particularly damning, but we haven't seen that yet. And I said that Ro Khanna and Thomas Massey, the two sponsors of this legislation in the House of Representatives, are upset that not more documents have come out. And they're not the only ones who have expressed dismay, to say the least, for what we saw on Friday night.

23:08This is a clip from one of the Epstein survivors talking about how this all played out. It's Charlene Rochard talking with BBC's partner, CBS News. Well, this is a step, but it's not sufficient. transparency means timely complete disclosure not partial release or delay like we've had we were given a clear expectation under the law and when information is withheld or delayed it undermines trust and it honestly re-traumatizes survivors and transparency isn't just about releasing some information it's about following through fully and clearly as promised. Yeah, that last point is really important, isn't it?

23:54Because the survivors didn't just want it put out there for prurient reasons. The survivors want action taken. They want accountability. And then in the longer term, who were the people who were assisting him? If there were people assisting him in abusing these girls, who were the other people who abused the girls? And some of the victims, let's remember, have written about their abuse at the hands of people who were not Epstein and Maxwell. So why are their names not in the public domain? And it just seems to me, Anthony, that this, as we always said, I mean, in a sense, even if they've released absolutely everything, there'd still be conspiracy theories out there and kind of reasonable ones, because it does look as if there have been various conspiracies to keep various things quiet.

24:41And I think it's fair to say that most people looking on all of this will still say, no, there's a load of stuff still to be answered. Yeah. And, you know, the one response is, well, Epstein, this was a long time ago and he's dead and let's just let it go. But I think this one of the reasons why the public is so interested in this and one of the reasons why the story is still so important is it gets to the view that those in power, those with wealth play by a different set of rules. And Donald Trump came in promising to take the elite down a peg, to change the way the system works. And here now it seems like Donald Trump's Justice Department is operating in a way that is defending the wealthy and powerful, or at least keeping them from being held to account.

25:27So the more this kind of drags on and the more it feels like they're not being fully forthcoming or complying with the law, and there has been some talk now of bringing impeachment charges against Pam Bondi for not complying with the law, the more I think it damages the Trump administration. And the more it looks like the president himself might have something to hide, although there has been zero evidence so far, at least in any of these documents, that Donald Trump has any kind of inappropriate or illegal ties to Jeffrey Epstein. You see, that goes back to the heart of Adam's question, doesn't it?

26:02Which is, can the Department of Justice simply cover this up? And the honest answer to that, I think, Anthony, is probably you would be running a considerable risk, wouldn't you? because there would probably be witnesses, there'd be a paper trail of some sort, and the risk would be not necessarily that you'd be prosecuted under the Trump presidency, but that at some stage in the future it would come back to haunt you. I suppose that would be the thing that would keep an official from doing anything to break the law. Right, and that's something that the members of Congress have said, is that this law does not have a statute of limitations.

26:44A new attorney general can come in and could, in theory, prosecute Attorney General Pam Bondi or anyone in the Justice Department who does not fully comply with this law. And that's also why this law specifically said you have to explain these redactions, because I guess one of the big blind spots here is that someone in the Justice Department who is looking out for Donald Trump, in theory, could redact more than they should. They could redact every reference of Donald Trump, for instance, and they have to find a way of keeping that from happening. OK, let's go on to the next question. It comes from John in Beckenham.