Merlin Thomas
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
He had a laundry list of his successes and that's how he really started off, talking about how America is back, that this is the revival of the American dream. But he touched on two main focuses of his speech, which were really immigration and also those culture war issues that we heard about.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
And on those cultural issues, he spent quite a lot of time talking about how he was cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion issues, cracking down on some of those trigger point issues as well. So when he talked about renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, making English the official language of the U.S.,
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
As well as then moving on to someone who he has been very keen to emphasize the presence of, Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and unelected advisor, who is leading the mission to reform and reshape the federal government. And he leads DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. And President Trump listed off a number of those things that he claims were savings that DOGE had identified.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
And it's worth saying that there were a number of misleading statements in his speech. There aren't very transparent figures on Doge's website about the savings that are made. And BBC Verify have actually contacted the White House about those numbers, but haven't received a response.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
And the thing that we've all really been listening out for, the issue of Ukraine, we heard him strike a more conciliatory tone. Wir haben gehört, dass Präsident Zelenskyj, der ukrainische Präsident, ihm ein Brief gesendet hat, dass er bereit war, für Frieden zu signen und bereit war, das Mineraldeal jederzeit zu signen.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
Aber wir haben auch gehört, dass er auch zu Russland gesprochen hat, weil er sagte, wir hatten seriöse Diskussionen mit Russland. und haben starke Signale erhalten, dass sie bereit sind für Frieden. Das ist wirklich signifikant. Obwohl die Ukraine wirklich in der letzten Hälfte seines Gesprächs war. Es war eine sehr lange Adresse, die längste in der Geschichte.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
Aber trotzdem war es signifikant, dass er es betrug.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
If he is feeling any pushback, he was trying not to show any of it because he really took a very proud and emphatic tone in how he wanted to say, you know, in his first six weeks in term that Er ist stolz auf das, was er getan hat. Und in Bezug auf diese Figuren auf Doge, ist es wert zu sagen, dass einige der demokratischen Gesetzgeber als Gäste federalen Arbeiter verabschiedet haben.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
Das wird also etwas sein, was wirklich ein Punkt der Friktion zwischen den beiden Parteien war. Du hattest auf der einen Seite eine stehende Ovation für Elon Musk, der Mann hinter all diesen Kutzen in der federalen Regierung. Und dann auf der anderen Seite hast du Leute, die verabschiedet wurden, weil dieser Kutze.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
Yeah, and I think it's interesting that he continued to talk about tariffs as a central part of his economic vision. You know, we've heard time and time again that they may be being used as a negotiating tactic, as a way to bring countries to the table and use tariffs as a way of leveraging that in areas entirely outside of the economy.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
But the fact that he continues to bring it up is also an indication that he sees it as central to his economic vision in ways of growing the US economy and raising tax revenue as well. So It's not just a temporary tactic. It could be something that he believes, and I quote, he said, it protects the soul of our country.
Global News Podcast
Bonus: President Trump addresses Congress
Yes, we saw an outburst of opposition from people like Al Green, who is a Democratic representative, who stood up and was engaged in a long harangue between him and the president when he Merlin Thomas in Washington.
Global News Podcast
US launches wave of air strikes on Yemen's Houthis
There have been dozens of injuries reported as well as several fatalities related to these thunderstorms and tornadoes, which tore their way through central United States and then left there in their wake a destruction, a trail of destruction in the U.S. Midwest and Southeast. Now, according to the National Weather Service, they've got reports of at least 26 tornadoes
Global News Podcast
US launches wave of air strikes on Yemen's Houthis
In these regions that have torn through and made touchdown, they've been reported but not yet confirmed. And this is really a mix of tornadoes, thunderstorms, as well as large hail. Now, the state of Missouri has been in particular badly hit where they have seen downed power lines and commercial buildings and homes destroyed.
Global News Podcast
US launches wave of air strikes on Yemen's Houthis
destroyed and damaged as well and local authorities say that they're working tirelessly to help those in need to recover their belongings and work through the debris of what has been left after the trail of these thunderstorms and tornadoes and they've also said that they're still assessing the damage to
Global News Podcast
US launches wave of air strikes on Yemen's Houthis
some of those residential areas and some of those areas with those commercial buildings as well. Now it's important to say that it's not just tornadoes as well that have been triggered by this. There have also been wildfires which have been fueled by these thunderstorms and tornadoes, particularly in states like Oklahoma and Texas.
Global News Podcast
US launches wave of air strikes on Yemen's Houthis
Now according to the Oklahoma Forestry Service, some wildfires have burned through more than 27,000 acres of forestry And that fire has been zero percent contained. That's according to the Oklahoma National Forestry Service. Now, they've also said that they've issued a risk warning to areas in the panhandle as well. So this is really a lot more to come and the worst is yet to come.
Global News Podcast
Trump’s demands over nuclear deal rejected by Iran
He was offered the alternatives of death by electric chair or death by lethal injection, but his lawyers say he chose the more violent option because he had concerns about the effectiveness of the other option. For example, he said that the electric chair would, and I quote, cook him alive. And he feared that the lethal injection would essentially drown him by sending a rush of fluid to his lungs.
Global News Podcast
Trump’s demands over nuclear deal rejected by Iran
And there have been questions around the effectiveness of, say, the lethal injection, because... In South Carolina itself, the three most recent cases of men who were sentenced to death by the lethal injection were declared dead after 20 minutes but appeared to stop breathing after just a few minutes.
Global News Podcast
Trump’s demands over nuclear deal rejected by Iran
And there's also been questions around the lack of transparency in terms of the lethal injection because there was a new law that was brought in in 2023 which shielded the names of the suppliers and the exact contents of those lethal injections. And so lawyers and other critics have said that Because they don't have that information, they can't properly analyse what's in the lethal injection.
Global News Podcast
Trump’s demands over nuclear deal rejected by Iran
And it should be said that this is a really rare instance. Brad Sigmund will only be the fourth person since the country reintroduced the death penalty in 1976 to be executed by firing squad.
Global News Podcast
Trump’s demands over nuclear deal rejected by Iran
It's very possible. In Idaho, there was recently a bill that was passed that could make death by firing squad the primary method. And also, it's still the secondary method in several other states as well, if, for example, a lethal injection drug can't be obtained.
Global News Podcast
Trump’s demands over nuclear deal rejected by Iran
And it is worth saying that according to a Gallup poll just last year, 53% of Americans are in favor of the death penalty of a person convicted of murder. And so it's still a majority of Americans who are still in favor of this. Merlin Thomas.
Global News Podcast
Arrests made after many fatalities in North Macedonia nightclub fire
There are several states which have issued a tornado watch from the National Weather Service, including Georgia, Florida and even Pennsylvania. That's for Sunday. And it's really a deadly mix of violent tornadoes, high winds, large hail and blinding dust storms, which have created this concoction between of this large weather system moving across large parts of the United States.
Global News Podcast
Arrests made after many fatalities in North Macedonia nightclub fire
And as you said, the death toll is still climbing and responders and local authorities are still assessing the damage from the number of the tornadoes that have hit. And it appears that Missouri has borne the brunt of the storm that has suffered most of the fatalities. But other states like Kansas have also seen dust storms because of those high winds and dry, parched ground.
Global News Podcast
Arrests made after many fatalities in North Macedonia nightclub fire
And also we've seen car pileups of at least 50 vehicles, as you said, in states like Kansas, which have also caused some fatalities too.
Global News Podcast
Arrests made after many fatalities in North Macedonia nightclub fire
Absolutely. Those kind of scenes of apocalyptic scenes, really very reminiscent of what we saw in Los Angeles of those wildfires. We've seen videos circulating online of houses being consumed by flames and the remains of houses you can see in kind of drone footage are just charred land and homes which have barely been spared and now little more than rubble.
Global News Podcast
Arrests made after many fatalities in North Macedonia nightclub fire
And more than 130 fires have been reported across Oklahoma. That appears to be where most of the wildfires have been. And it's because it seems the fires were fueled by high winds mixed with a combination of that dry parched land. And there's still an elevated fire threat for some other states, including Texas and Nebraska and South Dakota.
Global News Podcast
Arrests made after many fatalities in North Macedonia nightclub fire
And the worst may still yet to be to come because they've still issued some of those for Monday and Tuesday, too.