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Speaker 1: Current events, deptoping stories, tough questions, your voice, making a

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Speaker 1: differences breakfast with from Danny being glad. It was this

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Speaker 1: moment that started all the trouble.

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Speaker 2: I think what Donald Trump is launching is an assault

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Speaker 2: on incumbency those who are in power by mobilizing a

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Speaker 2: supremacism against the incumbency at home. I think I've illustrated

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Speaker 2: abroad as well.

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Speaker 1: On March twenty third, twenty twenty five, Brian Russall landed

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Speaker 1: back in Cape Town. He'd been expelled from the United States,

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Speaker 1: given to seventy two hours to leave the country, declared

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Speaker 1: persona non grata by the Donald Trump White House. The

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Speaker 1: trigger well, you heard a clip from it, a webinar

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Speaker 1: in which he laid out in stark terms how he

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Speaker 1: believed that administration would govern, and it caused a diplomatic storm.

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Speaker 1: He joins us now to explain his journey since then,

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Speaker 1: and one of the things he says was that he

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Speaker 1: could see what we have experienced and what we have

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Speaker 1: watched unfolding from the Trump White House in the last year.

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Speaker 1: Ambassador rasoul A, very good morning to you, Thank you

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Speaker 1: so much for your time today.

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Speaker 2: Good morning to you. Bonganian to all your listeners, and

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Speaker 2: thanks very much for the opportunity.

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Speaker 1: In some part, I feel aggrieved this interview is a

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Speaker 1: year too late.

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Speaker 3: Hey, No, I think that speaking too early you never

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Speaker 3: know what emotion pitchures up.

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Speaker 1: I think a year has given me enough objectivity. All Right,

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Speaker 1: We'll take it however we can get it. Hey, So

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Speaker 1: let's go back to that moment. I mean, did you

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Speaker 1: have a sense at the time when you said what

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Speaker 1: you said in that webinar that the ramifications would be

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Speaker 1: what they turned out to be.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think that I don't think that I had

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Speaker 2: been undiplomatic. I think in the last year we have

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Speaker 2: seen undiplomatic statements being made by a variety of people,

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Speaker 2: and mine don't compare with that. Secondly, I absolutely am

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Speaker 2: disappointed that much of what I had said a year

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Speaker 2: ago and predicted for the Trump administration has unfortunately occurred.

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Speaker 2: We are in the midst of a global conflagration. We

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Speaker 2: have seen devastation from the eight cuts of the Trump administration.

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Speaker 2: We have seen a trade war that even his own

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Speaker 2: courts have had to turn around some tariffs. We have

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Speaker 2: seen government by dictat with Congress and Senate bypassed in

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Speaker 2: the Trump quest for over two hundred executive orders, and

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Speaker 2: so unfortunately, I think that office has plunged, plunged the

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Speaker 2: world into chaos.

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Speaker 1: Given the list you've just outlaid there, executive orders, the tariffs,

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Speaker 1: foreign aid been cut, military action, et cetera. Is there

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Speaker 1: anything that has surprised you.

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Speaker 2: I think I was surprised not by the agenda, because

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Speaker 2: that had been clear, and to a South African who

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Speaker 2: can smell supremacism before we see it because we've just

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Speaker 2: lived it so long in our country. The surprising element

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Speaker 2: was the sheer brazenness, the sheer impunity with which Trump

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Speaker 2: has prosecuted his identity, the sheer dishonesty of it, the

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Speaker 2: daily lies, the attack on people, and so forth. I

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Speaker 2: think that has surprised me because from a superpower, you

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Speaker 2: expect a degree of sophistication. You expect a degree of

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Speaker 2: at least performative ethics, if not ethics in performance. So

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Speaker 2: I think that's what surprised me, that it has all

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Speaker 2: come together in less than a year.

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Speaker 1: We've seen our own institutions tested in the recent while,

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Speaker 1: and given the fact that the US bursts that it

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Speaker 1: is the world's oldest democracy, you would have thought its

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Speaker 1: institutions would have stood a little firmer, but it feels

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Speaker 1: that almost every sphere of public life in the US

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Speaker 1: has just capitulated.

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Speaker 2: I think what surprises us is the fragility of US institutions,

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Speaker 2: or at least the custodians of those institutions, who have

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Speaker 2: very little backbone. I think in South Africa, in the

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Speaker 2: height of our state capture years, the assault on our institutions,

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Speaker 2: you could have a constitution in South Africa in which

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Speaker 2: civil society remained active, the media was investigative, the courts

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Speaker 2: were activists, and they pushed back against the state capture,

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Speaker 2: and even the ruling party when it lost its majority,

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Speaker 2: its absolute majority in twenty twenty four, opted for a

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Speaker 2: government of national unity and didn't storm the Union buildings

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Speaker 2: or Parliament as we had seen happening in the USA

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Speaker 2: at the behast of Donald Trump. And so maybe our

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Speaker 2: constitutional foundation of our institutions are much stronger in South Africa,

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Speaker 2: whereas in the US the custodians of those institutions have

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Speaker 2: proven pliable, have proven to be absolutely afraid of Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: and so they've allowed the erosion of the institutional base

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Speaker 2: of the US. I think that there's elements of a fightback.

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Speaker 2: I've been speaking in the last few months to leading

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Speaker 2: Democrats and saying that to save the world, you've got

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Speaker 2: to see what you can do at least to salvage

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Speaker 2: the institutions come the midterm elections.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about your own party. You recently on a

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Speaker 1: podcast said that after you returned from the US you

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Speaker 1: were isolated and you hardly heard from your comrades. Are

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Speaker 1: you disappointed in how you were treated by your party

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Speaker 1: and what has transpired since.

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Speaker 2: Look, I've been absolutely gratified by the show of support,

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Speaker 2: amongst which the local agency that I have been grown

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Speaker 2: up in the Western Cape pitched up at the airport.

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Speaker 2: But I can understand the ambivalence of the national leadership.

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Speaker 2: I think that they were very much in a strategy

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Speaker 2: of trying to appease Donald Trump, not trying to poke

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Speaker 2: the bay too much, and so maybe they thought that

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Speaker 2: distance was prudent. But I think that they've a year

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Speaker 2: later learned that you can't appease Donald Trump, that you've

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Speaker 2: got to take out insurance policies, you've got to have

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Speaker 2: a strategy against him. And I thought that in my

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Speaker 2: report that I wrote to the President after that that

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Speaker 2: I had given my insights into what that strategy could be.

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Speaker 2: For example, said that you've got to have a strategy

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Speaker 2: of contingency, take out insurance policies, on trade, on aid,

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Speaker 2: on diplomatic growth of the global self, of utilizing global institutions,

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Speaker 2: making new allies in the world. And I was hoping

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Speaker 2: and somewhat disappointed that they would want more insight on that.

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Speaker 2: But I do understand why they wanted to appease. I'm

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump.

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Speaker 1: The red phone never rang. Let's go back to that

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Speaker 1: moment when the President and delegation met the US President

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Speaker 1: in the White House. How did that moment play.

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Speaker 2: Out for you? Look, my advice to the resident was

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Speaker 2: don't go to the White House too early unless you

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Speaker 2: have something in hand the beginnings of a deal. Trump

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Speaker 2: does not respect empty handedness, and it does not respect

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Speaker 2: what he sees as weakness. And so the our president

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Speaker 2: thought that you go with two white golfers and a

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Speaker 2: white billionaire and they make the case for you that

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Speaker 2: that would work. If anything, we came close, but not

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Speaker 2: entirely close enough to a Zelenski moment in which he

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Speaker 2: tried to humiliate us in that White House. It was unfortunate,

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Speaker 2: but I think that the President has learned a massive

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Speaker 2: lesson out of that. The way he's managed the G

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Speaker 2: twenty process after that, the way he's rallied Bricks and

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Speaker 2: other global self formations, I think says that he is

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Speaker 2: learning to shift from the appeasement strategy to what I

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Speaker 2: call a contingency strategy, in which you take out insurance

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Speaker 2: policies were the rest of the world.

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Speaker 1: How do you deal with a mendacious man like Donald Trump.

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Speaker 2: There are ways of dealing with him. You can appease

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Speaker 2: him and that doesn't work. You can set him out

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Speaker 2: and wait until there's a new president in place, but

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Speaker 2: that is not a guaranteed solution. You can take the

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Speaker 2: China away and basically say, listen, when you are ready

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Speaker 2: to talk about what critical minerals and what other goods

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Speaker 2: and capital you need from us, come and speak to

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Speaker 2: us again. Or you can take the bloody mindedness of

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Speaker 2: an Iranian government to say, meet us on the battlefield.

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Speaker 2: We are willing to die for this. I don't think

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Speaker 2: South Africa is in the Iranian category. We don't have

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Speaker 2: enough weaponry for that. I don't think we have what

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Speaker 2: China has in order to retaliate. But I do think

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Speaker 2: that South Africa has enough moral authority in order to dry,

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Speaker 2: for example, the ic J, which is really a major

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Speaker 2: pop not at Israel only, but at its backer, the

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Speaker 2: United States. I think the way we played the G

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Speaker 2: twenty and getting other countries to contribute to our Just

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Speaker 2: Energy Fund to replenish the Global Health Fund, et cetera,

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Speaker 2: I think that is where South Africa as a middle

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Speaker 2: country can play its role while sitting out the Trump

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Speaker 2: years and while building our independence and taking a lot

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Speaker 2: of our eggs out of the US basket.

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Speaker 1: All right, Brian Russeaul, the former South African Ambassador to

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Speaker 1: the United States. Our moral authority, I wonder if the

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Speaker 1: US even cares