The Inside Story: The Trump Transition | 182 TRANSCRIPT

February 06, 2025 3:23 PM

The Inside Story: The Trump Transition | 182 THUMBNAIL horizontal

Transcript:

The Inside Story: Trump Transition

Episode 182 – February 6, 2025

Show Open:

Unidentified Narrator:

This week on the Inside Story...President Trump unveils his new plan for Palestinians and Gaza....how new tariffs could impact the U.S. and China...plus...Secretary Marco Rubio on his first foreign tour....NOW....on the Inside Story...The Trump Transition.

The Inside Story:

CARLA BABB, VOA Pentagon Correspondent:

Hello and welcome to The Inside Story, I’m Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington this week, the first foreign head of state to meet with President Trump at the White House in his second term.

During a joint press conference, President Trump announced the idea that the US would take over control of the Gaza strip and relocate the over 2 million people that call it home.

VOA’s Patsy Widakuswara has more.

PATSY WIDAKUSWARA, VOA White House Bureau Chief:

As hundreds of thousands of Gazans return to their demolished homes following the January 19 ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, on Tuesday U.S. President Donald Trump made a stunning announcement.

President Donald Trump:

The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.

PATSY WIDAKUSWARA:

Trump went beyond the suggestion he made last month to relocate Gazans to other countries, including Jordan and Egypt. He wants to develop the area into what he calls “the Riviera of the Middle East.”

President Donald Trump:

Everybody I've spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent, in a really magnificent area that nobody would know. Nobody could look because all they see is death and destruction and rubble.

PATSY WIDAKUSWARA:

Trump made the announcement as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:

I've said this before, I'll say it again. You are the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House.

PATSY WIDAKUSWARA:

Trump did not share details on how he plans to exert control over Gaza, an area ravaged by 15 months of war. He did not rule out sending U.S. troops. And it’s unclear how occupying Gaza would fit into Trump’s own stated goal of expanding the Abraham Accords to include Riyadh. He brokered the deal that normalized ties between Israel and Arab countries in 2020.

Saudi Arabia has said it would only agree to recognize Israel if the Gaza war ends and Palestinians have a path to statehood.

Mirette Mabrouk, Middle East Institute:

Shuffling them out of Palestine into neighboring countries is not a particularly auspicious start, so I think it's going to have quite a pronounced effect. Having said that, we don't know, as with so many things about President Trump, we just have to wait and see.

PATSY WIDAKUSWARA:

Trump’s announcement on Gaza is his latest signaling of expansionist ambitions, following his statements to acquire Greenland from Denmark, take over the Panama Canal and absorb Canada.

Ahead of his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump also directed the restoration of his "maximum pressure" campaign on Iran to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon.

He also ended support for the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees and withdrew the U.S. from the U.N. Human Rights Council, which he says is antisemitic.

Patsy Widakuswara, VOA News, Washington.

CARLA BABB:

International reaction to President Trumps idea to take over the Gaza strip and remove the Palestinians has prompted swift and almost universal anger and condemnation around the world.

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General:

It is vital to stay true to the bedrock of international law. It is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing.

Keir Starmer, British Prime Minister:

“They must be allowed home. They must be allowed to rebuild, and we should be with them in that rebuild on the way to a two-state solution.

Linda Gradstein has more.

LINDA GRADSTEIN, VOA Correspondent:

President Donald Trump dropped his bombshell about the future of Gaza at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House Tuesday.

Trump said the two million Palestinians will be resettled elsewhere.

For some, it is a dream come true.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israeli Finance Minister:

The plan presented yesterday by [U.S.] President [Donald] Trump is the true response to October 7th. Those who carried out the worst massacre on our land will find themselves losing their land forever.

LINDA GRADSTEIN:

Israeli analysts said Trump’s idea resonates with hardliners in Israel.

Amotz Asa-El, Shalom Hartman Institute:

It’s only natural for them to be this idea’s cheerleaders because they think in messianic terms, in terms of colossal solutions and transitions and transformations, all of which is not the way the Middle East is structured.

LINDA GRADSTEIN:

He says Israelis and Palestinians need to be patient.

Amotz Asa-El, Shalom Hartman Institute:

You want change; you have to work very patiently over many years with many participants or all you’ll have is yet more violence and destruction and despair.

LINDA GRADSTEIN:

Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri called Trump's remarks "ridiculous and absurd," adding that any ideas of this kind are, quote, "a recipe for creating chaos and tension in the region."

In Gaza, Palestinians say that despite the large-scale destruction, they have no intention of leaving.

Ahmed Halasa, Gaza City Resident:

I am Gazan, my father and grandfather were from here. We are true Gazans. So, they can do whatever they want to do, and we shall remain steadfast in our homeland. We will not leave here. We've got one option only: live or die here.

LINDA GRADSTEIN

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, offered his own solution.

Riyad Mansour, Palestinian UN Envoy:

Our country and our home is the Gaza Strip. It's part of Palestine. We have no home. For those who want to send them to a happy, nice place, let them go back to their original homes inside Israel. There are nice places there, and they will be happy to return to these places.

LINDA GRADSTEIN:

It is not clear how President Trump’s idea will influence talks on a permanent ceasefire in Gaza set to begin this week in Qatar.

Linda Gradstein, VOA News, Jerusalem.

CARLA BABB:

Congressional Democratic leadership warned President Donald Trump this week they would use upcoming government funding talks as leverage to fight the administration's changes stemming from the Department of Government Efficiency led by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

I’m joined by our Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson for details. So, Katherine, we just heard a moment ago Democrat Chris Van Hollen accusing Elon Musk of threatening national security?

KATHERINE GYPSON, VOA Congressional Correspondent:

From protecting Amazon rainforests … to caring for Myanmar refugees … and housing Ukrainians fleeing the war against Russia … the absence of U.S. assistance is being felt around the world. In Washington this week, Democratic lawmakers protested outside the now-closed headquarters of the lead U.S. aid agency and outside the U.S. Capitol.

Sen. Cory Booker, Democrat:

We will fight their violations of separation of powers. We will fight their violations of our Constitution of the United States of America. We will not shut up. We will stand up. We will speak up. We will rise up.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Earlier this week, the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, was moved under the control of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and almost all its employees put on leave, following an executive order from President Donald Trump freezing U.S. foreign assistance pending review.

Rep. Jonathan Jackson, Democrat:

We're seeing the most powerful man in the world, Donald J. Trump, and we're seeing the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, now take money and food from the poorest woman and the poorest man on Earth.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Congressional Republicans say Trump is exercising broad presidential authority to reevaluate government agencies. Trump is accomplishing this through Elon Musk, a multibillionaire whom he put in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, whose aim is to reduce federal spending.

Sen. John Thune, Majority Leader:

I don't think they're closing an agency, but I do think they have the right to review funding and how those decisions are made and what priorities are being funded. I think that's probably true of any administration. When they come in, there are lots of programs authorized and funded through that agency, some which I think are operating the way in which they were intended. Some which aren't.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

One analyst told VOA the situation is unprecedented in the United States.

Claire Finkelstein, University of Pennsylvania:

Arguably, it's a real violation of separation of powers for the executive branch to try to shut down agencies completely that Congress has brought into existence and that Congress endows and appropriates funds for, even if the executive branch has quite a lot of discretion with regard to how to operationalize those funds and how the agency is going to function.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday he’s supportive of efforts to eliminate fraud and abuse but criticized the speed and secrecy of the process.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, Minority Leader:

Whatever DOGE is doing, it's not democracy. We know what democracy is like. It's out in the open. It's not secret.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Democrats have pledged to stall votes on Trump’s Cabinet nominees and leverage their votes on a new government spending bill, to protest the changes at USAID.

I think we're going to see a lot more discussion of this issue on Capitol Hill. Remember, government funding expires in about six weeks.

CARLA BABB:

Well, Katherine, excellent reporting. There is so much to unpack here. What do Democrats say that they want to do to try to protect federal employees at this point?

KATHERINE GYPSON:

Well, we heard from leader Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Schumer earlier this week saying that they're going to be introducing legislation called stop the steal which is a throwback to some of the things we heard from the Trump camp. They said that that legislation, if passed, would protect the information that's been exposed in that breach, and that's millions of federal employees, Medicare and Medicaid recipients. That's millions of Americans who have had their Social Security and other personal information open and unsecured. So they say that legislation will help kind of seal that gap there.

CARLA BABB:

And so what are people on Capitol saying about passing a government budget which should have been passed, you know, back in September, and is still ongoing, and still we're operating in a continuing resolution as we speak?

KATHERINE GYPSON:

That's right, you summed up the situation that we go through constantly on Capitol Hill, which is that we have these continuing resolutions. Are basically like little, little three or four month chunks of funding that keep the government open, but then we have to go through the negotiating process all over again.

Now, if you talk to Democrats up on Capitol Hill right now. They see that as an opportunity. They do not have the numbers to block Trump's nominees. They don't have the numbers to block legislation, but they can block that government funding. They can leverage it and say, We won't pass government funding until you reinstate some of this USAID programming, until you provide protections for these federal employees, until you do some of the things we want to, you know, take back from what Doge is doing right now.

CARLA BABB:

Well, Katherine, before you leave us any interesting developments in the Cabinet picks for President Trump?

KATHERINE GYPSON:

I mean, it's really striking how quickly the Senate Republicans are moving through this process. I heard somewhere that it was about twice as quick as the first Trump administration. They're really moving through the nominees, getting those business meetings on the calendar so that they can get full senate floor votes, and then immediately getting those nominees sworn in, because the Trump administration knows you need those cabinet appointees at the agencies to carry out the agenda.

CARLA BABB:

Katherine Gypsum thank you so much.

KATHERINE GYPSON:

It's good to be here.

CARLA BABB:

President Trump’s weekend announcement of tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico shook global markets on Monday with the U.S. on path for a trade war with its top three trading partners.

But just a few days later, Mr. Trump walked back tariffs on Canada and Mexico for at least the next month. Meanwhile, Beijing struck back with its own tariffs on Washington. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House.

ANITA POWELL, VOA White House Correspondent:

President Donald Trump’s weekend tariff announcement is being felt in Ottawa, in Mexico City, in Beijing — and here, in New York … Hong Kong … Seoul … and Taipei. Around the world, markets fell Monday after Trump dropped 25 percent tariffs on Mexico and Canada, and 10 percent on China.

In Washington, Trump spoke of his agreement Monday with Mexico to pause the tariffs for a month in exchange for concessions from Mexico City meant to stop migration flows and the movement of illegal drugs across the southern border. Markets quickly made up some losses after his announcement. He also announced a similar pause with Canada later on Monday.

President Donald Trump:

We have to stop people from pouring in, and we have to stop fentanyl, and that includes China. Fentanyl has killed this year at least 200,000 people. It's pouring in from China through Mexico and Canada. And they've got to stop it. And if they don't stop it, the tariffs are going to get worse. A lot worse.

ANITA POWELL:

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sounded a hopeful note on Monday.

Claudia Sheinbaum, President of Mexico:

I'm sure that in this month, we'll be able to have results, good results for your people, good results for the people of Mexico, and this was the result of the agreement. It was a good conversation, with respect.

ANITA POWELL:

Economic scholars say consumers will start to feel the pinch soon and pointed to historical parallels.

Steve Kamin, American Enterprise Institute:

This brings us back to the 1930s, you know, when, as you may recall, a trade war was one of the factors that deepened the Great Depression, as economies all over the world erected barriers in order to keep imports out.

ANITA POWELL:

China’s ambassador to the United Nations, Fu Cong, on Monday said Beijing would turn to the World Trade organization for recourse.

Fu Cong, China's Ambassador to the United Nations:

We do believe that this is in violation of the WTO rules. So, that's why China is filing a complaint at the WTO. And we're also aware we may be forced to take countermeasures. And let me also emphasize that there is no winner in a trade war.

ANITA POWELL

Trump acknowledged that the move could raise prices but said the higher tariffs would be “worth the price” to bolster U.S. interests. The tariffs take effect on Tuesday.

Anita Powell, VOA News, the White House.

CARLA BABB:

Addressing illegal migration remains a key priority for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Trump administration. Rubio continued his first official trip to the Western Hemisphere as the nation’s top diplomat, as a U.S.-funded flight from Panama returned dozens of undocumented Colombians back to their homeland.

The military flew the first group of detained migrants to a U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, this week.

The group included fewer than 20 migrants, which the administration has labeled as “high threat.” The detention facility on base is known mostly for housing military prisoners and terror suspects, including those involved in the 9/11 attacks and members of the Taliban. That detention facility is where these fist migrants are being held.

President Trump recently issued a memorandum to prepare the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay to house tens of thousands of illegal migrants.

Some 300 Marines deployed on those orders to expand a separate area of the base that has housed migrants in the past. The detentions are overseen by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Cuba’s president called it an “act of brutality.”

The Guantanamo expansion process is expected to last for weeks. And Mr. Trump says it will house “the worst criminal illegal immigrants.”

CARLA BABB:

The decision by US President Donald Trump to close USAID and put a 90-day freeze on most foreign aid is also affecting the war in Ukraine. And now, Ukrainian humanitarian aid organizations are scrambling. VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze has the story, with reporting from Anna Chernikova.

MYROSLAVA GONGADZE, VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief:

The Veteran Hub provides psychological and social support to Ukrainian war veterans and their families. The group says the Trump administration’s order to freeze foreign aid forced it to close its office in the town of Vinnytsia.

Their main office in Kyiv is still operating, thanks to private donors

Ivona Kostyna chairs the Veteran Hub. She says the halt was unexpected and hit the project hard.

Ivona Kostyna, Veteran Hub Chairperson:

The stop of funding sounds like the stop of operation to us. It means to stop payroll and prevent people from returning to work.

MYROSLAVA GONGADZE:

Soon after President Trump took office, his administration ordered a 90-day freeze to reevaluate all foreign aid.

The White House did not respond to a VOA request for comment on Ukraine aid.

A State Department statement on implementing the freeze says, quote, “the United States is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people.

The abrupt cutoff sent shockwaves through humanitarian organizations in Ukraine.

After three years of war, the government, civil society and media rely heavily on foreign assistance.

Bohdan Logvynenko founded the independent Ukrainian multimedia project Ukraїner. He told VOA most of their funding was from U.S. aid programs.

Bohdan Logvynenko, Ukraїner Founder:

We are cutting personnel. We had to reduce the scale of our work because we used to have several programs supporting us at the same time.

MYROSLAVA GONGADZE:

Logvynenko says the impact of the freeze goes far beyond independent media.

Bohdan Logvynenko, Ukraїner Founder:

The impact is huge. Media aid is a drop in the ocean. Economic support has a huge impact, and the fact that it is being stopped now strengthens Russia's position.

MYROSLAVA GONGADZE:

The U.S. aid agency says since Russia’s invasion, it has sent Ukraine more than 7.6 billion dollars in humanitarian and development assistance

There’s no doubt the public sector will take a hit without U.S. aid, says Denys Bihus head of the investigative media project Bihus.info.

However, what worries Bihus more is the fate of state programs that relied the most on the funding.

Denys Bihus, Bihus.info:

“Our main grant recipient in a broad sense is the state of Ukraine, represented either by local communities or directly by the state apparatus."

MYROSLAVA GONGADZE:

U.S. policy analyst Doug Klain explains that much of the foreign aid from the United States was meantto keep Ukraine’s government and society running strong.

But it has also supported programs that held the government accountable.

Klain believes that lifting the freeze on these programs would strengthen the Trump administration’s policies and make for a more resilient Ukraine.

Doug Klain, Razom for Ukraine:

Trump wants to force Vladimir Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine, and he wants to achieve what he and his team call ‘peace through strength.’ And a strong Ukraine with leverage is key to that.

MYROSLAVA GONGADZE:

In the meantime, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed his government to prioritize

the most critical programs that relied on U.S. funding and to cover their needs through the national budget or alternative foreign aid sources.

Myroslava Gongadze, Anna Chernikova, VOA News, Warsaw, Kyiv.

CARLA BABB:

Here in the U.S. farmers say they’re worried about potential impacts to their livelihoods due to the H5N1 avian influenza virus. More commonly known as “bird flu,” a recent outbreak with a potential to mutate raised concerns within the scientific community. They say it could result in human-to-human transmission and possibly, a new pandemic. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports.

VERONICA BALDERAS IGLESIAS, VOA Correspondent:

George Terwilliger runs Pleasant Vale Farm in Delaplane, Virginia, west of Washington. He has modified his small-scale operation due to the H5N1 avian influenza virus. The so-called “bird flu” has resulted in not only a high U.S. bird mortality since 2022 but also a sharp increase in the price of eggs nationwide.

George Terwilliger, Pleasant Vale Farm Owner:

We here on this farm have not expanded our chickens over the last year or two out of fear that we might inadvertently bring birds in that are infected.