King and dictator
Sidebar
The Washington Post
4.1 • 4.6K Ratings
🗓️ 20 February 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode, The Washington Post’s Libby Casey and JM Rieger are joined by metro reporter Emily Davies and White House correspondent Michael Birnbaum to discuss the escalating rhetoric used by President Donald Trump and his administration, calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “a dictator without elections,” while also meeting with Russia delegates for peace talks, notably without Ukrainian involvement.
Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, and The Trump administration also continued to cut federal workforce jobs across the country, targeting probationary employees, and sometimes citing ‘performance’ issues without evidence.
Meanwhile, Trump threatened to ‘take over’ governance of Washington D.C., reversing its current home rule status, claiming local leaders are not doing enough on crime, cleaning up graffiti, and removing homeless encampments.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Look what happened. Is this crazy? |
| 0:03.7 | We stand on the verge of the four greatest years in the history. |
| 0:08.5 | Make America great victory. |
| 0:11.6 | How can you be against them? |
| 0:17.9 | President Trump falsely called the leader of Ukraine a dictator, while Trump's own team was tweeting that Trump is a king. |
| 0:25.4 | Think about that for a minute. |
| 0:26.9 | We are one month into the second Trump presidency, and Trump has managed to throw the future of Ukraine into uncertainty, slash and burn the federal workforce, and generally send some shock waves around the world. |
| 0:38.0 | Welcome to Sidebar from the Washington Post. |
| 0:39.7 | I'm your host, Libby Casey, and I'm joined in the studio by J.M. Rieger, senior video journalist, |
| 0:44.8 | Emily Davies, reporter covering the federal government. |
| 0:47.5 | Hi, Emily. |
| 0:48.1 | Hello. |
| 0:48.5 | And Michael Burnbaum White House correspondent with a knack for foreign policy. |
| 0:52.3 | Hi, Michael. |
| 0:53.5 | Michael, you've reported for the post |
| 0:55.1 | from more than 60 countries. Do I have that right? A lot, yes, yes. We'll talk more about that |
| 1:00.5 | later. To start out, the two of you have huge breaking news. Like, even as we were preparing for this |
| 1:06.2 | broadcast, you were talking about what's happening on your beats. Emily, what's the latest in the |
| 1:10.4 | intersection of the federal workforce in Washington, D.C. that you cover? Well, Trump, uh, you were talking about what's happening on your beats. Emily, what's the latest in the intersection |
| 1:10.9 | of the federal workforce in Washington, D.C. that you cover? Well, Trump last night on Air Force One, |
| 1:16.2 | told reporters that he wants to see the federal government take over D.C. take over the governance |
| 1:22.2 | of D.C. That's a really big deal because D.C. is technically right now governed by itself, but that is |
... |
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