A Great Day at the White House?
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 4 August 2017
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's been a tumultuous week in Washington - but to what extent does the chaos in Trump's West Wing matter?
Anthony 'The Mooch' Scaramucci was gone in 900,000 seconds - but whoever replaces him will be President Trump's third communications director. His press secretary has resigned, he’s fired his acting attorney general, and he’s on his second chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired general who many hope will bring discipline to a leaky White House.
By the standards of almost all modern American politics this seems bizarre, if not catastrophic. But then by the standards of almost all modern American politics Donald Trump would not be president.
In this week's edition of The Briefing Room David Aaronovitch takes a step back, and tries to find out what the actual consequences of the dramas of Trump’s West Wing might be.
CONTRIBUTORS
Jonny Dymond, BBC Correspondent
Adam Gingrich, worked on Donald Trump's campaign in Pennsylvania
Stephan Halper, former foreign policy advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford and Reagan and now Emeritus Senior Fellow of the Centre of International Studies
Leslie Vinjamuri, Associate Fellow of the Americas programme at Chatham House
Anthony Zurcher, BBC senior North America reporter
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:04.0 | Welcome to the briefing room from the BBC with me David Aronovich. |
| 0:08.0 | This week I'll be trying to find out if all that furorory in the Trump White House actually matters. |
| 0:20.0 | Gone in less than 900,000 seconds. |
| 0:23.6 | The fish stinks from the head down. |
| 0:26.6 | But I can tell you two fish that don't stink, okay? |
| 0:29.6 | And that's me and the president. |
| 0:31.6 | RIP Anthony the Mooch Scaramucci, July 2017 to July 2017. Whoever replaces the mooch scaramucci, July 2017 to July 2017. Whoever replaces the mooch will be Trump's |
| 0:42.6 | third communications director. His press secretary has resigned, he's fired his acting attorney general, |
| 0:50.0 | and he's on his second chief of staff, John Kelly, a retired general, who many hope will bring discipline to a leaky White House. |
| 0:58.0 | Just today, we were treated to transcript of Trump's private phone calls |
| 1:01.7 | with the President of Mexico and the Prime Minister of Australia. |
| 1:06.3 | Donald Trump tweeted this week, |
| 1:08.0 | A great day at the White House. |
| 1:10.4 | Others say it's chaos. His second press |
| 1:13.5 | secretary brushed this off with a homely invitation. If you want to see chaos come to my house |
| 1:18.7 | with three preschoolers, this doesn't hold a candle to that. By the standards of almost all modern |
| 1:24.6 | American politics, this seems bizarre, if not, catastrophic. But then by the standards of almost all modern American politics, this seems bizarre, if not catastrophic. |
| 1:29.5 | But then, by the standards of almost all modern American politics, |
| 1:33.4 | Donald Trump would not be president. |
| 1:35.8 | So here in the briefing room, we'll be taking a step back |
| 1:38.6 | and trying to find out what the actual consequences |
... |
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