Trump replaces US Attorney General Pam Bondi
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 April 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
President Trump has sacked Pam Bondi as the US Attorney General. She was a close ally of Mr Trump but had been criticised for her handling of the release of files relating to the late sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. Writing on social media, Mr Trump described her as a loyal friend saying she had done a tremendous job overseeing a crackdown on crime but was moving to a new role in the private sector. Mr Trump's former personal lawyer, the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, will take over on a temporary basis.
Also in the programme: nations meet to find a solution to the Strait of Hormuz; and Artemis 2 heads out of orbit.
(Photo: Former US Attorney General Pam Bondi attends a swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 24 March 2026. CREDIT: GRAEME SLOAN/POOL/EPA/Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.3 | Hello and welcome to News Hour for the BBC World Service. |
| 0:13.0 | We're coming to you live from London. I'm James Menendez. In a moment, President Trump fires a once close ally,S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. That's our top story. |
| 0:23.4 | Also today, as Artemis II prepares for its next big maneuver, leaving the Earth's orbit, |
| 0:29.0 | we'll talk to one of the NASA scientists working on the mission about the precise sequence of commands |
| 0:35.2 | that will send the crew hurtling towards the moon. I always like to think of |
| 0:39.6 | this case is actually rocket science. You know, we've calculated out what the trajectory is going to be. |
| 0:44.7 | We send the commands. We send up and set the burn to go. You know, you burn for a certain amount of time, |
| 0:51.1 | put the spacecraft on the right trajectory. It's going to go out. It sees the |
| 0:54.8 | gravity of the moon. And then you come on back. So they're all controlled burns. They're all |
| 0:59.5 | executed precisely. And you'll hear from the astronauts on the way out. You know, oh, that was very |
| 1:04.9 | clean. That was a really good burn. Right on track, right on target. And then once that goes, |
| 1:10.1 | it's time to go off to the moon. |
| 1:12.5 | More on the Artemis II mission. The next step, that's coming up in half an hour. |
| 1:19.1 | But we are going to begin today in Washington, D.C., and that news that broke a couple of hours |
| 1:23.2 | ago that President Trump had fired his attorney general, Pam Bondi. She had been at one time one of Mr Trump's closest allies in government, |
| 1:31.1 | but cracks in the relationship began to appear over her handling of investigations |
| 1:35.1 | into his political opponents and over the release of the Epstein files. |
| 1:40.5 | During her confirmation hearings at the beginning of 2025, |
| 1:44.3 | Bondi promised to, as she put it, restore the Justice Department's credibility. |
| 1:49.7 | If confirmed, I will fight every day to restore confidence and integrity |
| 1:55.7 | to the Department of Justice and each of its components. |
... |
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