The BBC World Service Debate: Is Donald Trump Making the World Safer or More Dangerous?

Newshour

BBC

News, Daily News

4.4 • 984 Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The BBC World Service Debate considers the rapidly changing international landscape since Donald Trump returned to the White House.

The US President says his legacy will be as a peacemaker and unifier. So far he’s brought Putin to the negotiating table and made Europe take its security seriously in a way it hasn’t for decades. But his methods have horrified critics, who say his shock and awe approach to diplomacy is reckless and chaotic. The President’s unpredictability has rocked global alliances. Is Donald Trump making the world safer or more dangerous?

In front of a live audience in the BBC’s Radio Theatre in London, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet, is joined by:

KT McFarland, former US Deputy National Security Advisor to President Trump in his first term Brian Wong, Assistant Professor and Fellow at Centre on Contemporary China, University of Hong Kong Miguel Berger, German Ambassador to the UK Azadeh Moaveni, journalist, writer and Associate Professor at New York University

(Photo: U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on June 12, 2025. Credit: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the BBC World Service debate. I'm Lee Doucette, and we're here in the radio
0:26.2	theatre of Broadcasting House with a live audience, and events are moving quickly. We are recording
0:33.2	this discussion at 18 hours GMT on Friday the 13th of June. And it is a moment where tensions
0:41.7	are escalating dangerously in the Middle East and beyond. Israel is attacking Iran and Iran
0:50.1	is retaliating. And yet President Trump promised when he began his second term that he would be
0:58.0	a peacemaker, a unifier. Can he stop this growing confrontation? Will he? He's also put
1:06.4	peace talks on the table in many parts of the world, including Gaza and Ukraine. And he's also
1:12.8	pushed his allies to do much more in many regions to take responsibility for their own security.
1:21.2	But his critics say that his kind of diplomacy and peacemaking is chaotic and reckless. And they say that the world's dealmaker in
1:31.2	chief still hasn't delivered a deal. So our question in this World Service debate is, has
1:39.1	President Trump made the world a safer or a more dangerous place.
1:46.1	We have a very distinguished panel with us here in Broadcasting House to discuss this question.
1:51.8	K.T. McFarland, thank you for joining us from across the ocean, the former Deputy National Security
1:56.5	Advisor to President Trump during his first term.
2:00.5	Brian Wong, who's also come a very long way,
2:02.6	professor and fellow at the Center for Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong.
2:09.1	Sir Mark Lyle Grant, a former national security advisor for the United Kingdom, but also a very
2:15.0	long distinguished diplomatic career. And Azaday Mouavanee, who is a writer
2:20.1	and a journalist and associate professor at New York University. Please join me in welcoming our panel.
2:43.0	Kate. Katie, to you first of all, an urgent and critical question.
2:53.5	This week started with President Trump saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu's military threats against Iran were getting in the way of his diplomacy.
2:55.1	What happened?
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 25 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.