Did Trump just try to bribe American voters? | The News Agents

I don't understand much about democracy, but broadly speaking, I don't think you're allowed to bribe people. Vote for the Republicans, get them re-elected and I'll give you five grand each. It's a bit like an old man with a sweetie covered in lint going up to a small child and saying, would you like a sweetie? That will cost one trillion dollars. The News Agents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. This is a global production. And here is my promise. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic, tremendous economic success, like in history, we've never had anything like what's happening. But because of our tremendous strength and success economically, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for five thousand dollars. Well, there's nothing odd, unethical or wrong about that, is there? Vote for me, get the Republicans returned and I'll give you five thousand dollars. It's definitely not constitutional. It's definitely not legal. But could it work anyway to help them get across the midterms? Welcome to the News Agents. The News Agents. It's John. It's Maitlis. And well, what do you start? I mean, I think I'm right in saying I don't understand much about democracy, but broadly speaking, I don't think you're allowed to bribe people. I'm not sure how many people heard Donald Trump say that live because his speech went on for nearly two hours. And so you would have to have some endurance and kind of indefatigability to be able to last a whole Trump speech at a rally or a convention, whatever it was in Dallas last night. But in the course of which he did say more or less in terms, vote for the Republicans, get them reelected and I'll give you five grand each. Yeah. Let us put this in context. So there is never normally a midterm convention. That isn't a thing. It doesn't exist. This time, Trump has decided that he needs to be on the ballot, even though he isn't. So he's turning up in Dallas where there is a very fierce senatorial race going on. And he's tried to get all his Republican friends and those who are contesting the midterm elections to come along. And none of them really want to be there. So in their absence, he's basically had to go on stage and make all the speeches himself. And I think one sign of desperation came a couple of days ago when he was offering people free seats, free tickets to his convention. You know, his little text, if you get a text on your phone, you can turn up free to my convention. And the second bombshell came last night when in the middle of this one hour 40 speech, he suddenly offered to give every adult $5,000 if he wins the midterms. So let's just pull that apart for a moment. What does it mean to win the midterms? Obviously, he's not on the ballot, so it's not about, you know, reelecting him as president or anything else. He's saying if the Republicans can maintain the House and the Senate, the two houses of Congress, then that is a win. And he will give everyone $5,000. Who's $5,000? Like, is he giving? Emily, you're just being pedantic now. Who's $5,000? Geez. Is that taxpayer money? Yeah. Is that more debt? Yeah. On the $40 trillion? Is it? Do we know where this comes from? Look. No. It's not going to happen. So we can all kind of calm down about the fact that the money is definitely not going to change hands. We know that because he's already done this before. Do you remember when he was running for president? bureaucracy from government and he said, oh, I'll give everyone $5,000 as a benefit then. So it's a bit like an old man with a sweetie covered in lint going up to a small child and saying, you know, here you are, would you like a sweetie covered in lint? It's not actually going to lead, I don't think, to the right place at all. But if people hear it and if people associate Trump with becoming richer, does it work on a subliminal level anyway? Well, that's the interesting bit. Let's deal with the actual mechanics of what he said and the practicalities surrounding it and take that seriously for a minute. That he is saying, I will give every American adult $5,000 and you just need to ring up the cash machine sound effect there and say that will cost $1 trillion. That is at a time when the reason that American government borrowing is so expensive for the US government is because investors look at the American administration and think you're too saddled with debt. So what's the answer? You saddle America with another billion dollars of debt, $1.35 trillion on a free giveaway. So that's not that's what that's the first thing to say. The second thing to say is Donald Trump, the president, the head of the executive branch, does not control the budget. Congress controls the budget. It would have to be voted on by congressional leaders, by the whole Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate to pass this. And there is not a cat's chance in hell. They are going to pass it. Then you would have the legal challenges that would come from it, because if it walks like a bribe and quacks like a bribe, it's a bribe and there is no way that constitutionally this could ever pass muster. So you're absolutely right, Emily, to go kind of say, for ****'s sake, this is just not real, is it? I mean, it's not going to happen. No one's going to be $5,000 richer if the Republicans keep control of the Senate and the House. But the politics question is an interesting one. I mean, look, it shows Donald Trump's profound weakness right now that he is having to offer this because if he thought the Republican Party had a good offering and things were looking bright for the midterm elections, he'd be saying, you know, look at what we've done. And the fact of the matter is it's just dissonance. I think the problem is I think you're right. It might have a subliminal effect. The dissonance is that Americans are not feeling that the economy has never been greater. The cost of living has gone up as a result of the Iran war, as a result of the tariffs. And Donald Trump is paying a heavy political price because of that. The cost of filling up your car with petrol has gone up massively in America. $4.15 a gallon, I think it is now, against under $3 a year ago. And so Donald Trump is really suffering as a result of this. And so I just don't think the Americans are going to listen to that and say, oh, wow. I don't know. I think when people are desperate, they hear what they want to hear. And there will be a muscle memory that takes you back to the pandemic when there were stimulus payments. Do you remember they were sort of sending out checks of, I think, $1,000, $1,200 during the pandemic? They had income caps. But I know I remember American friends of mine saying, what on earth have I just got this check for? This is ridiculous. This should not be coming to me. But it was sent out. So there will be people who remember that. There will be people who remember that he gave out payments to the military of, of course, 1776 dollars. There will be people who see that he tried to set up this slush fund, essentially, for the kind of ex-convicts to fight their sort of legal battles. This is his default button. His default button is basically bribery, but it's dressed up as a bit like a sort of Saudi king. You know, they, you know, when they sort of hand out these decrees, I'll give you a bit of cash back in your pocket because this is what you need now. Well, Maundy money in the UK when the sovereign would give out Maundy money. Exactly. It's what, it's what monarchs do. It's what emperors do. It's what kings do. It's what people who think that the, that the population is beholden on them to bestow the wealth of the country. Well, it's when a monarch thinks the population is turning against them that you decide to make. And Donald Trump is clearly aware that the nation is turning against him. And his opinion polls are incredibly low. Yeah. If you look at his approval ratings, or maybe that should be his disapproval ratings, you know, the vast majority of Americans disapprove of what Donald Trump, sure, he's got a base that thinks he's fabulous. And there were people cheering in the hall there. But Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary is not thinking, wow, that's a great idea. He's thinking, oh, my God, that's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard. Look, it suddenly dawned on Trump. And if you want to hear more about this particular convention, I suggest that you listen to our US episode this week, The News Agents USA, where we have Miles Taylor on the ground in Dallas talking us through exactly what is going on there. But if you want to understand more about this, this is Trump's way, as I said at the beginning of trying to put himself on the ballot. He fears, and he might be correct, that when the Trump name is not on the ballot, nobody goes out to vote for the Republican ticket. And if nobody goes out to vote for the Republican ticket, then essentially they will start losing the House of Congress. They will start losing the House of Representatives and they will start losing the Senate. And so it is important to understand that Trump thinks his name is the thing that is going to seal the deal for voters. Just have a listen. So I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. Just one more time. And essentially what he's doing is he's, I think, depending on the kind of voter that, frankly, doesn't listen to all the politics involved, certainly doesn't tune into the want to think about opinion polls or any of the ideology behind what is going on. If you see somebody standing up and saying, I'll give you five grand if you vote for me, even if people think it's never going to happen, maybe they just like the idea. Maybe it becomes a kind of election pledge or a bit of a promise or an attractive offering. And that's how this works. Time and again, he's kind of, he's broken us. He's broken the systems of government, of democracy, of media by doing something that no one thought would work. And yet it ******* does. Well, we shall see. I still think that this is a council of despair. I think it shows political weakness that you have to do this. I also think that, you know, the fact of the matter is that a lot of Republican candidates who are fighting closely fought congressional districts or Senate seats are staying away from this rally in Dallas because they think that Donald Trump is a liability and that they want to take his name off the ballot. And, you know, Americans, when they vote in a presidential election, get this huge long ballot paper. And at the top of the ballot is your vote for president. And then it's the vote for the senator. And then it's the vote for the governor. And then it's the vote for the House of Representatives. So Donald Trump's name literally is not on the ballot this time round. And he's saying, well, pretend I am going to be there. But you see what Donald Trump will do is if the Americans don't vote for him, which opinion polls suggest that they're not going to in November, then he'll say, oh, it's because my name wasn't on the ballot. You see, you can't win unless I'm there in person. And I think there's a part of Donald Trump that wants the Republicans to do badly in the midterm elections. And I know this is kind of, you know, psycho babble from John Sopel here. But I think that he is hoping that they do badly because then he can go round to his party and say, you see, you can't win. No, I think there's ego and then there's reality. He'd love the idea that they do badly without him, but he wouldn't like to lose Congress because if that happens, then his next two years become mired, miserable. And the Democrats tie him in knots and probably, I don't know, impeach him or, you know, basically make life very difficult for him because they control the levers of power. They stop anything he wants to do getting through. They stop his budget getting through. They presumably stop any more funding for, you know, the Iran war getting through. And they can basically, yeah, they can make his life hell. So I don't really believe that he's sitting there wanting to lose both houses. Otherwise, frankly, he wouldn't be at a convention in Dallas. But it is quite interesting that he is so dominant in this convention where many other Republicans are saying, I would do better off if I'm away from Donald Trump. The one person who has turned up, we should say, is the Pennsylvania senator, Democratic Senator John Fetterman, who has been, let's say, raising eyebrows with his own party for quite a while because they think he's gone on to the MAGA side, the dark side. And although he wasn't there in person, he was there in spirit. And he sent in this video message. Republicans in Dallas. Yes, I'm Senator John Fetterman, Pennsylvania. Yes, I'm a Democrat. Why am I here talking to you today? Because, well, I'm a common sense Democrat. I'm always going to stand with America. I'm always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life. Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done. And he's going to fight for Pennsylvania. I'm proud to count him as my friend. Right back over my shoulder. That's the iconic U.S. steel mill. And that's exactly the kind of thing that will work together and will work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life right here in the Steel Valley. Why it's important is that when he first won his election as senator, a lot of the Democrats thought he's the future of the party. He's what Democrats have to look like. He's kind of got a tattoo and he's a bit more kind of, you know, rough and ready and he doesn't look buttoned up and sort of part of the sort of, you know, governing liberal elite. And now they're finding out that this guy that they voted in as a Democrat is kind of more MAGA than half of MAGA is. Just imagine that in the British contest, that a Labour MP during the Tory party conference just ahead of a general election sends in a video and says, why I'm supporting the Tory candidate in this particular electoral district. I think the local, I think the chief whip of either party would have them kicked out within a second. But of course, there isn't that whipping system in America. And so Fetterman is free to do what he pleases and it will have pissed off an awful lot of his Democratic Party colleagues in the process. Emily, I want to come back to something you said a moment ago about what happened with Donald Trump handing out cash during Covid. Donald Trump lost the election because of Covid. Until Covid struck in America, Donald Trump was riding high, the economy was doing well and he seemed an absolute shoo-in to win re-election in 2020. And I think that as a result of the chaos that was wrought, not just by handouts and face masks and vaccines and everything, it's just that people hadn't had enough of the noise and the chaos that comes with a Trump administration. And I think there is an element of that right now in the United States. So, yeah, the $5,000 bribe sounds attractive. Is it going to shift many votes? Is it going to shift the calculus in a lot of swing districts? I'm not convinced. I think it speaks to the fact that Donald Trump is kind of, there is chaos that comes when he is in charge. Good things, yes, but a lot of chaos as well. And I think that is what a lot of Americans are turning their back on. We'll be back in a moment talking about the curious translation from French to English of what Jordan Bardella and Nigel Farage promised at the Reform Party conference. The United Kingdom will intercept boats which have launched from French shores and entered British territorial waters and will return the persons on board to France. It was so eye catching. It was the bit of the reform conference where you thought, well, that's quite impressive to have this memorandum of understanding signed between Jordan Bardella, who would be prime minister, could be prime minister of France next year after the French presidential elections. And Nigel Farage, who theoretically could be the next British prime minister, that they have got an agreement where France will take back all the illegal immigrants who tried to cross the Channel in small boats and the French will deal with them on their side of the border. And I thought, well, that's a pretty impressive thing to have got done. Yeah. I mean, it was almost like the anti-Windsor framework, wasn't it? Instead of sort of Macron and Rishi Sunak trying to get things done after Brexit, it was Bardella and Farage saying, right, we're both united in hating immigrants equally. The trouble was the document, this memorandum of understanding, as you call it, were presented side by side in English and in French. And what they appeared to suggest was that if Farage and Bardella both became respective prime ministers of their respective countries, the UK would intercept boats launched from the French coast. France would return people on board to their countries of origin. In other words, it was a handshake. This is what will happen. But, but, but, but. Il y a un problème. Oui. For those who were looking carefully, the English text carried an extra little phrase saying France will ordinarily accept these persons who would then be returned to their home country, which appeared to show that Bardella was promising to accept returned people in France, which, of course, contradicts this long held position of the Rassemblement National, the National Rally Party, Marine Le Pen's party, which is all about being anti-immigrant. They don't want to start being on the receiving end of our immigrants. They don't want to sort of feel that. I mean, this is how the French press are commenting now. They're saying France doesn't want to be a doormat. What is a doormat in French? Bien accueilli, a mat of welcome for the sort of English immigrants. And so this has actually created two schisms, one between Farage and Bardella now, because he doesn't know what he's sort of got himself into because there was all this kind of shenanigans with the English phrasing. And the other is between Marine Le Pen, who is basically the mentor to Bardella. Bardella is only 30 years old, and they're attempting to go in on this joint ticket, President and Prime Minister of France in the elections next year in 2027. But Marine Le Pen is furious that he's just signed this off. She doesn't know what the hell he's doing. Yeah, there's a doorstep of Marine Le Pen when she's coming out of some building and about to get into a car. And we'll play it to you. I mean, it's in French, but we can do the translation on the other side. So the reporter says, what's your view then of the Nigel Farage-Jordan-Bardella agreement? And she says, I'll tell you when I'm ready. I'll tell you when I'm ready. Well, what about telling us now? She says, I'm not ready now. And now, if she wanted to welcome it and say it was marvellous, and what a great deal this has been between the Reform Party and the Rassemblement Nationale, I think she'd have said it. I think that you've got the Rassemblement Nationale thinking, what the hell have the done with the translation of this that puts in something that we didn't agree to? And what a mess now. I mean, you know, Farage, I think, on Friday was really pissed off that this deal wasn't getting the attention it might have done. Oh, yeah, because of the... The Channel 4 investigation. The scoop, exactly. Yeah, maybe he's now relieved as it's becoming unstuck. I mean, this is not a good day, basically. As Thursday rolls around, he's now facing a police investigation into the whole question of money that may have been offered and the question of the polling, as Verbatim and Channel 4 revealed on Thursday night. So the week has been dominated by that on one side, and on the other side, by this idea that his bestie, Bardella, is now in the ----. And actually, what has happened is that many of the other presidential candidates in France are now using this to say, oh, do you see this guy? See the, you know, the Front National, these guys that you thought were going to be really tough on immigrants. They're not. They're just going to do Farage's work for him. So you've got Gabriel Attal, who's the former centrist prime minister. You've got Raphael Gluckman, who is another would-be presidential candidate. They're all going, oh, right. Is this what you voted for? Is that what you want to happen in immigration in France now? Because, sorry, we didn't realise that you were happy to do all the Brits dirty work for them. Sorry, is that what you want? Let's boil this down simply. Nigel Farage is now and his party is now under police investigation. That has been confirmed by the Metropolitan Police. There is also an electoral commission inquiry going on into the Reform Party over the Channel 4 film. At the same time, you have got the flagship policy that comes out of the Reform Conference last week coming apart in his hands and the Rassemblement Nationale now wanting to put as much distance as they can between this blooming memorandum of understanding, even though Farage thought it was the best thing since sliced bread last week. Yeah, I mean, technically, he could have lost not just the UK election on this, but the French election for the far right too. It's quite a week's work, that. Well done. You've had a very, very good week. We'll be back in just a moment. I'm not asking politely for the mayor not to come to 9-11, to that ceremony. I am asking, I am demanding that he not show his face at that sacred ground. He does not belong there. That is a New York City councilwoman, Vicky Palladino, a Republican, saying that tomorrow, when it is the 25th anniversary of 9-11, the mayor, Zohra Mamdani, should not be allowed to attend. Why? Well, because he's a Muslim. Yeah, she's not the only one. You'll remember the former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, the man who was mayor when the attacks happened, has said it offends him. It offends him that Zohra Mamdani will be attending the commemoration ceremony. And I think it is worth looking into what is going on here, because the attack that was perpetrated by Islamists, by terrorists, by suicide bombers into those towers, into America, was seen at the time as the darkest thing that had ever happened on home soil to America. And what we knew came afterwards was a sense that Islamism was vilified, was loathed, but Islam, but Muslims were not. And yet, 25 years on, you have got somebody who was this key figure, this absolute key figure in New York's history, saying we don't want Mamdani there because he's... And isn't it a sign of the progress that has been made? And look, there was a huge amount of suspicion about, not just Islamism, but about Islam as well in the wake of 9-11. And it was striking that George W. Bush, immediately after the attacks, went to a mosque as if to say, our argument is not with the religion, our argument is with the terrorists who perpetrated this particular attack. And so to have Zohra Mamdani as the mayor of New York, duly elected by New Yorkers, some Muslim, mostly not, is a sign that this is a country that has made peace with what happened 25 years ago. And this was Zohra Mamdani's reaction to these calls. I'm proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country. And what I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11th, and a focus also on the first responders who gave everything they could to this city and to the people who came together to try and help their fellow New Yorkers. And so in the days to come, my focus will be on attending events that memorialises that incredible courage. And I will be there on Friday at the memorial, just as I was last year. Did you see Giuliani's comments and did you have any thoughts on them? I don't have much more to add. And it's clear, listening to that, that Zohra Mamdani rightly doesn't want to turn this into a political row where he attacks Giuliani and Giuliani attacks him. And you get the pantomime politics taking place on what will be an undoubtedly solemn day for America 25 years on from 9-11. And just the desire for certain politicians to go to the barricades immediately and want to fight. You know, 25 years ago, after 9-11, it was a nation that came together. And Zohra Mamdani, the duly elected mayor of New York, is obviously wanting to be at the centre of those commemorations, as he just said there in that clip we played. And tomorrow we are going to take you through the events of 9-11 as we remember them on the day 25 years ago. We're going to be talking to Miles Taylor as well, who was part of the Bush administration and part of the Trump administration in the first time round. And we're going to be looking at what has happened to the world since those attacks on the World Trade Centre and whether 9-11 is still in the muscle memory of the way we see the world today. We'll see you tomorrow. Bye-bye. Bye for now.