of covering the white house from my glamorous veal pen in the media workspace, i wasn't getting out until, i don't know, two or three hours later. for a president who's only, you know, a month and a week into his administration, he's had quite a lot of world leaders come through. he's got an ambitious agenda. and part of that agenda is to meet with all these world leaders. now, i'd be remiss if i didn't say some of these world leaders, they're the ones who need the visit. macron came here because he wanted to reshape the president's opinion of ukraine. the prime minister did the same thing and they both used classic tactics for managing donald trump. macron poured on the charm. starmer, i thought, was really smart and handed trump an invitation from the king. and then he played it up as an unprecedented second state visit. and you could see trump, you know, smile and nod and just be very pleased that he was going to make some history.

what did you think of that moment? i mean, we kind of anticipated there'd be some element of the royal family or a visit or an invitation, but it was really a kind of masterstroke, the way sir keir starmer pulled the envelope from his inside pocket, almost the first thing he did when he got into the oval office. and i think that that was a smart move in that it kind of set up the tone of the rest of the day in which, you know, sir keir kind of went out of his way for there not to be at least any public disagreement between the two men. you know, there was a lot of lavish praise being thrown back and forth. on in the press conference, you know, in theory, you know, efforts to make canada the 51st state, supposedly, you know, he went out of his way is no division, essentially. at the outset, you know, kind of probably put trump

you know, and this is very much a president that operates so i think that was a very kind of astute move to kind of set what struck me as well, and i saw a similar thing happen with president macron their substantive bilateral was quite jokey and touchy to the press conference, and almost the first "a really tough negotiator." in our discussions. you're a very tough negotiator. very, very special person. there was a slight change, still very warm and everything substantive arrangements.

the oval office when we're all thrown out, as much as we would love to. but it seems to be that they they've been really pushing president trump in private, but striking a slightly different tone in public. that president trump seemed much more subdued, perhaps even tired in the afternoon than in the morning, which perhaps speaks to the intensity of the things they were discussing, you know, behind closed doors. but i also think, you know, in his mind, saying that someone's foreign policy repeatedly all the time as deals being made, i think in his mind, there's probably no higher also what he says about himself very often. olivier, what how did you think president macron worked out with his visit? i know you keep a keen eye on french affairs. the thing about macron is he agrees with the idea that europe needs to militarise more,

for its own security. if macron pitched that to donald trump behind you know, he's called donald trump a game changer so there's a lot of stuff that macron has already said that if he repeated it to donald trump, it would have a fairly big effect. and we heard those similar comments from starmer as well. said the same thing. you know, europe needs to step up more. that the uk defence spending was going to go up to 2.5%, go up to 4% or 5%." the goalposts, i guess. but it's interesting in terms

of this approach that how they come to those meetings and what they say, and just really careful measuring of the language. themselves before one of them comes to talk to donald trump you know, you've got these calls. there were a bunch of calls before the prime i think that's very interesting. it's, you know, like a team effort almost to see, "well, how should we approach this problem?" you know, we need him, we need an american role in the security guarantees supporting this notional peace deal between ukraine and russia. you know? "ok, well, i'll make this point to him..."

the job and agreed on a tone and a message to use at 1600 pennsylvania. i think that's very interesting. i mean, we were told as well there are many calls and for sure starmer and macron spoke. i think starmer said he'd spoken to 13 leaders starmer will most definitely be speaking to zelensky and then they all regroup back in london on sunday into whatever happens next, because, i mean, we have between russia and ukraine at this point. you know, all of the talk about a security backstop agreeing a deal. "american troops or peacekeepers or anything

so it's a kind of chicken and egg—type situation, i think, when all those meetings are over, annoyed at what's going on and how they feel they've i mean, their chief diplomat, kaja kallas, was in town this week, supposed to meet secretary marco rubio, a few hours beforehand. the relationship between the eu and the us is really it's really challenging to have these conversations, you know, what do you do? and she said the talking points from the us is the russian narrative. on behalf of president trump. but for us, if russia

is going to get things they've asked for without shifting its position at all, so kind of very strong words coming from the eu towards the us. and there's no, you know, formal negotiations even well, and trump's response was to say that the eu had been created, had been designed to screw — that's his word — meeting kaja kallas, he was actually in this big cabinet meeting, which was the other major event of the week — this first cabinet meeting they're not all confirmed yet, but most of them are. it was 60 minutes or so before. 65 minutes!

all the journalists taking all the questions. and the other remarkable thing, of course, about that was elon musk, you know, not elected, not senate confirmed. we don't know what kind of security clearance he has. that cabinet meeting as well. there in the cabinet meeting when the journalists reported between some of the cabinet members and elon musk over doge and some of the cuts that have been made. and president trump kind of turned to the room and said, you know, criticise musk in any regard. and it was...it was crickets. there was total silence. and i thought that was, you know, just a kind of a unique way that you don't see very often in america,

that he is very much the boss in the room. and one wonders, you know, behind closed doors, whether some of those discussions didn't become a little more heated too. and, you know, some have instructed employees not to reply to the emails for now, for example. especially when musk is there as not a member of the cabinet, you know. noticeably not a member of the cabinet, even dressed in a t—shirt that said actually, someone mentioned that to me from the republican party. a very formal affair. everyone was there in their suits. little teacup or an espresso

cup, as he went through it.

a bit, too, that this was, you know, a pathway to citizenship and very much an immigration policy. but the way it was framed in the meeting, at least, was completely economic. that if they sell x amount of these gold cards, they'll get, i think they said at one point $1 trillion, you know, to pay down the national debt. so it was interesting to hear him speak about immigration policy, but in economic terms, because on the other hand, when he speaks about the wider immigration policies of the us, for example, his mass deportation drive, that's not framed in an economic sense. i mean, that has an economic impact but he always frames it as kind of a national security and sometimes public health issue. you know, it's interesting to see the different framing of those two opposite sides of the immigration coin. i'm glad you mentioned not

seeing a final proposal. that's always important with the trump white house, any trump white house, because they portray them one way and then the final proposal doesn't necessarily comport with the language that you've been hearing for a while. i thought, what's interesting is these seem to be geared to very, very rich people in india and in china. because there are green card limits and this essentially is an end run around the limits on immigration from these countries. i don't want to be excessively cynical, but it would seem to open the door to folks from russia coming to the united states if they pay $5 million. we just don't have the kinds of details. green cards come with, what i'll call, i guess, a criminal limit. if you are known to have committed certain

crimes, you can't really get a green card. didn't hear that in the gold card discussion. but again, we haven't heard much. we haven't seen... there's no legislation in front of us where we can say, "ah, this is what this "confers on this deep pocketed individual." and we're really going to have to look at that carefully. it was interesting. about letting in... he was actually asked specifically when he when he first mentioned the gold cards in the oval office earlier in the week, he was specifically mentioned about, you know, would this apply to russian oligarchs? and he certainly didn't say no. he said, "well, maybe." i mean, some russian oligarchs, you know, they don't have as much money as they used to. but he certainly didn't say no, which i thought was very telling.

you know, given that the war is still happening and that some of these sanctions are still in place, i thought that was kind of an interesting glimpse into his worldview. and there was also, and i know you were keeping

so, i mean, there's a lot of questions left. i think this is, again, another example of the announcement coming before the details of how would one compel an undocumented migrant to essentially potentially set themselves up for deportation? if you give your address and fingerprints and you're in the system, it just makes the whole process much more straightforward from the government's end. i think it's very difficult for that to happen, but it shows that, you know, he had seen immigration as a huge win, and now it's kind of losing steam a bit for the administration. they're trying to inject some new life into that. and it's interesting you mentioned that that's something that kind of slipped by a little bit this week given everything else that was going on, because, you know, i mean, not to focus on ourselves and the media here, but it is quite challenging to keep up with everything that's going on in the trump administration. like, the pace hasjust been quite extraordinary in this, you know, month and a week or so that he's been in office. but there was a huge development this week in terms of media relations

between the white house and the journalists who cover the white house, the white house correspondents association. olivier, you're obviously a past president of that. do you want to talk through a little bit aboutjust what was announced this week by the press secretary, caroline leavitt? sure. so the white house correspondents association exists essentially to represent the interests of the white house press corps, try and regularly fail to forge a consensus for collective action by the press in relation to the white house, you know, advance first amendment principles and the like. but the day—to—dayjob is that negotiation for, you know, how many reporters can we get into this event to observe the president first—hand, do hisjob? moving forward, the white house pressl pool will be determined by the white house press team. what they said this week was that they would take control over who was in this pool.

and they seized that control from the whca, from this journalist organisation, which had controlled it for decades, for basically as long as it it's a really significant blow to press freedoms

so this is not an ideological issue at all. i thought it was really notable this week in that some of those conservative news outlets that you just mentioned, both about the ap and then about the whca, they were quite vocal in their reservations about what happened, because i think the concern

among some of those conservative news outlets is that now a precedent has been set. so in a future democratic white house, now that this has been done, i mean, in theory, there's really nothing to stop a democrat—run white house from doing the same. and, you know, kind of booting off outlets that it doesn't feel are ideologically aligned with what the white house is saying and inviting ones that are. so i think it's kind of set a precedent that, you know, many reporters on both sides of the political spectrum, it is quite dangerous for the future. i mean, once this has been done... that's not hypothetical. the obama white house tried to designate fox news, not a real news outlet, and exclude them from some coverage, which is one of the reasons that one of the most vocal outlets when it comes to this is fox news. and kudos to them, by the way,

for returning the favour, because it was the press corps and the whca that blocked the obama administration effort to kick them out of white house coverage altogether. so, bernard, we've spoken before in the podcast, when you've been pulling for president trump and all the wild and wonderful and interesting things you've been doing. but since this was announced by the press secretary, has it had an impact on the workings in the press briefing room and how information is is coming out? at least when i got there in the morning, there was a lot of discussion about how does this work? am i still on pool duty? who's going to send the reports? i mean, is the listserv still working? and then plus, you know, logistical questions about in the future, for example, how do some of these new media outlets that the trump administration has, you know...? there's a cost associated with going on air force one, and there's logistical challenges associated with coming to bringing a pool for kind of a supplemental duty, like a vice presidential event or, you know, that sort of thing.

it's a huge logistical task that, you know... people today at least weren't sure that the white house had really thought through some of those day—to—day questions. so, i mean, really, there was a huge sense of uncertainty when i walked in the room.