Trump vs Comey (and the city of Portland)

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1:11Visit schwab.com to learn more. Here's a question for you, Anthony. If you're going to try and sum up everything that's happened since 20th of January, everything about Donald Trump's second term in just one word, what would it be?

1:26Anthony Zurcher:One word. Let's see. Disruptive, chaotic, aggressive, destabilizing. Take your pick. OK, four one words. I think we could add revenge or retribution to that, especially after the events we've seen over the last couple of days where we've got one of his big enemies, as he describes him, James Comey, former head of the FBI, being indicted and he sent National Guard forces to the city of Portland, which he complains about a great deal as well. It feels like he's taking on and fighting back against previous adversaries. Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. When Donald Trump calls, they say, yes, sir.

2:09Right away, sir. Happy to lick your boot, sir. We are the sickest country in the world.

2:15Anthony Zurcher: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?

2:31Hello, it's Sarah here in the BBC's Washington Bureau.

2:34Anthony Zurcher:And it's Anthony right next to you, Sarah, here in Washington. Now, James Comey, we will get to later, because I think a lot of people have been saying over the weekend that this is one of the most frightening things they've seen Donald Trump do since he was returned to office. So we need to give that plenty of attention. But it's a big deal also, isn't it, that troops are being sent to Portland, National Guard troops. We know what it's like having them on the streets of Washington. So we've seen that for the last few weeks. But sending them to Portland, Oregon is really important, isn't it, Anthony?

3:02Anthony Zurcher:Right. And he announced this in a Truth Social post on Saturday. And it kind of came out of nowhere because we had been talking about Chicago. Trump had said he was going to send National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee. New Orleans, Louisiana had been batted around a bit. Portland was not one that was on the radar. But this is the way Donald Trump described it in his Truth Social post. He said, at the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to provide all necessary troops to protect war ravaged Portland and any of our ICE facilities under siege from attack by Antifa and other domestic terrorists.

3:39Anthony Zurcher:I am also authorizing full force if necessary. All right, unpack that for us. War ravaged Portland. Why? Why Portland in particular? Well, I think he's looking for an excuse, isn't he? to send National Guard troops to blue states, to Democrat-leaning states, where he can, and there's a whole slew of reasons for that, that we can get into the general purpose of doing this. But he can't, can he? Unless the governor invites them in, the legality is that he's not allowed to send his troops there, and he fell foul of the law in California when L.A. took a case after he'd sent the National Guard there, of course.

4:16Do you think, when he says it's the ICE facilities, so the immigration facilities that are under attack. This is him looking for another justification so that he can use his presidential power to send National Guard troops anywhere he wants, regardless of what the governor says.

4:31Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I think that's definitely part of it. As you mentioned, California was the first California Governor Gavin Newsom filed a suit trying to block it. A lower court judge put that on hold, put the deployment of National Guard on hold, but then the appellate court put that lower court hold on hold. So we've seen the governor of Oregon now, a Democrat, very quickly file suit, hoping for the same sort of result to get this suspended. And the White House came out with a sheet of what they said was evidence for this. They listed a couple of times that immigration officials have been assaulted in their views.

5:07Anthony Zurcher:No details on this, but assaulted or threatened or doxxed, revealed who they are. They had some local neighbors who were complaining about the noise and then just kind of a couple incidents about how disruptive this was. So it seems, in my opinion, kind of thin gruel for deploying soldiers on the streets of Portland. But I think you have to view it in the larger context that Portland, Oregon, liberal city, has been a hotbed of protests going back decades. I mean, there were really big protests there against globalism and the World Trade Organization and things like that. Of course, with the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, we saw big demonstrations there and some damaged federal property at the time.

5:52Anthony Zurcher:And Trump was interested in deploying National Guard at that time. And there was pushback within his own administration. I think he regretted not being able to do it. Not a lot of pushback in this administration, is there, against anything Donald Trump wants to do? Yeah, I think there was kind of a hair trigger on his part. Well, there's problems in Portland, Bangla, send our National Guard troops. But it does risk escalating things, doesn't it? Well, I was seeing pictures on social media all weekend, which are obviously trying to make a political point, but of people sending pictures of sort of terribly moderate cues at farmers markets to buy artisanal bread or pickles or something like that and say, you know, this is what war-ravaged Portland looks like, sending a picture of a sort of liberal's dream scene, beautiful weather, organic foods, you name it, happy dogs walking in the park.

6:40What is it like that? I've never actually been. I've always wanted to go.

6:42Anthony Zurcher:I grew up. I spent a year in Oregon. My family lived there, Corvallis, which is a little south of Portland. But I would get up. Portland's a big city. And even in the 80s and 90s, it was always kind of the alternative, quirky, weird town. It has only gotten quirkier and weirder and become more of kind of a liberal bastion. I think if you see the videos on the streets now, it does not look war torn by any definition of that. I mean, there are protests outside the ICE facility, and that is kind of the gathering point for all of these protests. And there is a very active, engaged liberal activist group in Portland that will get out there and demonstrate for these kind of things.

7:23Anthony Zurcher:And we have seen that turn into sometimes disruptive, sometimes violent protests. that hasn't I don't think been the case at this ICE facility but by Trump deploying these it well he can either one things kind of stay the same stay calm which is you know probably fine with Trump but then he gets another opportunity to set the precedent of deploying National Guard or two this becomes a flashpoint and then there are bigger protests and this becomes something where there are clashes between federal troops and and protesters and that gives Trump the the ability to say, see, I told you we need to send more National Guard in.

8:01Anthony Zurcher:And I think you're seeing that from actually some Democratic politicians, the senators, the two Democratic senators who represent Oregon saying, stay calm, don't do anything to instigate this. We're going to fight this in the political rooms. We don't want to take it to the street. And there is a fear among quite a lot of Democrats that not only is this about Donald Trump wanting to be seen to crack down on law and order and do it in this particular way where he, with his presidential power, can send troops into cities instead of leaving it to the mayor or the governor to deal with that he personally wants to take the reins of law and order.

8:36But there are people, I noticed JB Pritzker, for instance, the Illinois governor saying this over the weekend, that they think there's a wider agenda leading all the way up to the midterms and that Donald Trump actively wants in cities that are more likely to vote Democrat, a really heavy presence of National Guard troops out on the streets during the elections in the hope that that might suppress Democratic turnout. Is that fanciful? I mean, are they being a bit paranoid about that?

9:02Anthony Zurcher:Probably a little of both. I mean, there's very real concerns about what's going to happen in the midterm elections because these, as we've talked about in the past, these midterm elections are so pivotal. It could determine whether Democrats take back one or both chambers of Congress. And if they do that, then they're going to be able to, one, stop Donald Trump's legislative agenda dead in its tracks, but also begin investigating to have this kind of supervising ability to be able to hold committee hearings and issue subpoenas and do all the kind of things that will really bedevil Trump for the last two years of his term.

9:36Anthony Zurcher:I think we heard from Keith Wilson, who is the mayor of Portland, talking about his own views of why they're doing this and his own views of whether this is justified. Just another one of these Democratic politicians who has been given a platform to be able to respond. Let's hear what he had to say. President Trump has directed all necessary troops to Portland, Oregon. The number of necessary troops is zero in Portland and any other American city. And let me repeat that. This is an American city. We do not need any intervention. This is not a military target. The president will not find lawlessness or violence here.

10:19I've been so deeply disappointed to see the footage from a half decade ago, recycled and then recycled again. The footage that Mayor Wilson is referring to there, that has been going round and round on social media in the last few days, is not what's happening in Portland today, although it's often made to look like that. It's footage from back in 2020 after George Floyd was killed, and that incited lots and lots of protests, and it's been recirculating now. Donald Trump may or may not have believed that it was current when he saw it. Certainly, obviously, he didn't do any checking about it because it looked like a perfect reason to send the National Guard there because he was furious back in 2020 about it all as well, wasn't he?

11:01Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And as I mentioned, he he wanted to send National Guard troops in in 2020 and he wasn't able to. So in a way, it's not surprising that he very quickly when Portland kind of became a focus of Fox News and these protests and all the stuff that was airing on. And some of the clips, as you mentioned, they were they're not even what's going on there right now. They were happening five years ago. And so they're all kind of mixed together and showing up on Fox News. And it's creating this kind of a belief on the right that Portland is in crisis. And it's kind of interesting, actually.

11:35Anthony Zurcher:Trump himself earlier this month was talking about Portland and seeing these videos and not sure whether they're real or not, or not sure whether they're current or not. I mean, here's what he said on the 5th about Portland and what he was seeing on, I guess, Fox News and conservative outlets. I will say this. I watched today. I didn't know that was continuing to go on. But Portland is unbelievable what's going on in Portland. The the destruction of the city. Well, I'm going to look at it now because I've I didn't know that was still going on. This has been going on for years. So we'll we'll be able to stop that very easily.

12:18We'll be able to stop. But, you know, that was not on my list, Portland. But when I watched television last night, this has been going on. You wouldn't be standing if you were the mayor. Can you imagine what they're doing? They're walking in throwing smoke bombs into the store. These are paid terrorists, OK? Paid terrorists. That's interesting. It's also interesting, I think, how influenced he is by what he sees on television far more than, you know, whatever senior advisers have been giving him briefings in the Oval Office. He turns on the TV for 10 minutes and that changes policy. But anyway, that's by the by.

12:49The paid terrorist is really interesting because he rails all the time, doesn't he, about Antifa, another what he calls domestic terrorists. I think he's even actually officially declared Antifa to be a domestic terrorist organization, hasn't he? You hear it mentioned all the time, usually by right-wingers who are saying whatever terrible thing has happened can be blamed on violent Antifa members. What is it? I mean, it's not something you can't really be a card-carrying member of Antifa, can you?

13:16Anthony Zurcher:There's a line going around that Antifa is neither domestic nor an organization by any kind of a definition. I think it actually started over in Europe as anti-fascist protests. But it is it's more kind of an outlook on on how to resist what many view is the right wing dictatorial authoritarian trends in governments around the world. And so this is their anti movement, anti-fascist movement, which is what Antifa comes from. And when you see and hear right wing politicians and Donald Trump in particular talking about Antifa, they're not talking about going after directly after Antifa because there is no president of Antifa.

13:55Anthony Zurcher:There's no board of Antifa. What he wants to target are the left wing groups that he says are funneling money to support these kind of demonstrations that then turn violent. And so the names you hear kicked up are, say, George Soros and Open Society, which is his organization that supports in their definition open government and freedom of information and things like that. But the Republicans and Trump accuse George Soros and other left wing billionaires of funding these organizations, funding these protests, making signs that they can carry. And that is what I think they're going to be getting at when it comes to like what actual steps they can take.

14:35And conservative politicians often sound obsessed with Antifa, as though all of the nation's ills can be blamed on them. And they say that the January 6th riot, for instance, was provoked by Antifa, people being there, all sorts of things that have gone wrong all across the country. It's all Antifa's fault. Are we looking at something else going on here in Donald Trump's mind, where if he can take these left-wing organisations and really demonise them as domestic terror groups, And here he is setting the National Guard against them, essentially. So making it look kind of warlike. He has to do that in order to create a pretext to try to investigate or prosecute any of the left wing billionaires who fund left wing protest groups.

15:16If he can say, basically, look at the domestic terrorists that the likes of Antifa are, that gives them the justification to go after someone like George Soros for funding them, because it's not illegal to fund just, you know, some kind of left wing group that's simply putting out pamphlets, is it?

15:32Anthony Zurcher:No. And that actually on Friday at the same time that James Comey, which we'll talk about, was indicted. Donald Trump signed an order directing his government to investigate the funding, the left wing funding of domestic terrorist groups. And I think a lot of people read that as being a means to lay the groundwork for prosecution, whether racketeering or other kind of prosecutorial tools that are used to to go after organized crime, use them and direct them at left wing organizations. Because if you can cut off the funding to get out the vote, the organizing drives that left wing organizations do, the kind of things that help to win elections and and rally support, create grassroots.

16:12Anthony Zurcher:I mean, that's going to give your side a leg up because the right is certainly organizing and they have a lot of money and they're spending a lot of time trying to get their grassroots built up, particularly in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination. nation. If they can undercut the Democrats at the same time, the left at the same time, then I think they view that as a plus. Now, we've had a voice note from Yvonne in London asking us about what happens with these National Guard deployments. Let's have a listen. Hi, Mary Kast. This is Yvonne from London, indeed recording on a London bus. So excuse the background noise.

16:46My question concerns the deployment of the National Guard, the federal troops to various US cities. We hear about them turning up. Do they leave? Are they still there? What's happening after the deployment? What are sort of the longer medium term consequences? Many thanks. Bye. Thank you, Yvonne. And we're quite well placed to answer that, Anthony and I, because we are here in Washington, DC, which of course had a national troop deployment itself. Now, how long do they stay there, she was asking. And that kind of all depends on the law, doesn't it? And this rather complicated business about whether the president even has the power to send the troops in.

17:25And that's different in Washington, D.C. than it is in other states.

17:29Anthony Zurcher:Right. Washington, D.C. is a federal city. So the president, by law, can take over the National Guard and deploy it for whatever reason he wants, whatever he wants. California and Oregon and Illinois, those are trickier because the law seems to indicate that it's the state governor who is one who deploys the National Guard and has to be consulted and has to approve. What we saw in California and Los Angeles during these anti-ice protests was that Trump sent in the National Guard and actual Marines, active duty soldiers, without the governor's permission or consent. And that's why this has all been kind of tied up in lawsuits.

18:06Anthony Zurcher:And so we kind of have to see how those lawsuits play out for how long those soldiers can stay deployed, how long they could be deployed in Oregon if they start showing up there soon. By the way, I love the fact that she recorded this on a bus. This is such an important question that she couldn't wait. She had to get it recorded and sent to us. So I hope we gave you a good answer, Yvonne. Now, we don't know where she was going, but there's a phrase in English English about seeking the view of the man on the top of the Clapham omnibus, a way to get to the kind of grassroots sense of, you know, the ultimate vox pop.

18:39So let's hope that she was on her way to or from Clapham as she asked us that. So I started this episode, Anthony, talking about revenge and retribution, things that Donald Trump promised us during the campaign he would do. So we can't claim that this is a surprise that he suddenly pulled this out of nowhere. But I think it reached a new point in the last few days with the indictment of James Comey, because this is the first time somebody's actually been officially indicted, charged with criminal offences that's been on his list. He's done other things like take away Secret Service protection for people.

19:14We'll probably get into all of that kind of thing. But this is this is the biggest with James Comey. Run us through the relevant bits of James Comey's CV and why Donald Trump hates him so much.

19:26Anthony Zurcher:It's a blast from the past. I mean, we used to talk about James Comey every day in 2016 and 2017 when he was the director of the FBI and a kind of a central figure, You're not only in investigations of Donald Trump and Russia meddling in the 2016 election, but also investigations of Democrat Hillary Clinton and her use of a private email server. Can you remember that? That seems like ancient history now. But he was appointed FBI director by Democrat Barack Obama in 2013, although Comey is a Republican. FBI directors are supposed to serve terms that stretch out over presidential terms. So they're supposed to be somewhat separate and protected from partisan passions.

20:06Anthony Zurcher:What happened, though, was when Donald Trump was elected, in part because Comey reopened the investigation to Hillary Clinton about a week before Election Day. And that kind of changed the dynamics of that election. But we'll put that aside. But this is something I remember really clearly. Just over a week before the election, he came out and said, you know, he was whatever it was. He was carrying on his investigation into her emails. And it couldn't have come at a worse time for her campaign. And she and a lot of Democrats blame him personally for losing. So you would think Donald Trump would be delighted with the man that handed him the election.