Trump floods the zone, leaving opposition drowning

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00:00It's time now here on Prime News Paris for a new segment where we take a closer look

00:04at all that's coming out of the White House during US President Donald Trump's

00:09first 10 days in office. France 24's Fraser Jackson, he's our correspondent and he joins

00:15us live from Washington to break down everything for us. Good to see you Fraser.

00:19So Trump has signed an unprecedented number of executive orders in his short time in office.

00:25How does it stack up to his predecessors?

00:27It is an unprecedented amount, a slew of executive orders. We have a graphic that

00:34we can bring up that shows you just how quickly they have come in succession as well. Now so far

00:39Donald Trump has signed well over 40 executive orders and he's repealed a lot of his predecessors

00:46over 60 of Joe Biden's and he's outpaced the highest executive order signers in recent history

00:53that includes Harry Truman, Joe Biden and even himself in his first term. So it is an unprecedented

00:59number of executive orders that we've been experiencing and dealing with here at the White

01:04House and this is part of Donald Trump's what we call flood the zone tactic. This was something

01:09which was utilized during his first administration but now has really come into its own and it was

01:15really the brainchild of two of his closest advisors, one of his former advisors Steve

01:20Bannon and his other close advisor who's still in the White House at the moment Stephen Miller.

01:25Ultimately the tactic is if there are so many things to react to then you can't react to all

01:31of them and the outrage cannot be maintained at such a high level. So he's using that to

01:36quieten effectively his political opponents and I must say it's kind of working at the moment

01:41because at the moment there's no real opposition at least on Capitol Hill or coming from anywhere

01:46else really that is really making waves and standing out above the noise. So it is

01:52something that the Democrats so far have not really found a way of responding to and getting

01:57back to. Of course the Democrats now without leadership after Joe Biden has gone off to his

02:01retirement and now there is a big gap at the front of the Democratic Party and we're waiting

02:08to see who is going to fill that void but so far no one really in contention. Well let's dig in

02:15to some of those more than 40 orders now. On Wednesday he signed a directive regarding the

02:20infamous prison camp Guantanamo Bay. Tell us more about that. Well we've seen a lot of the ICE raids

02:27over the last few days. The Immigration Customs and Enforcement Agency which has been rounding up

02:32what Donald Trump calls illegal alien criminals and they have been rounding a lot of undocumented

02:38migrants many of whom have been convicted of crimes and deported them from the country.

02:44Well now Donald Trump wants to give a new lease of life to an infamous prison camp Guantanamo Bay

02:50and he announced in an executive memorandum just a couple of days ago actually it was just

02:54yesterday so much has happened in the last 24 hours it already feels like a long time ago it

02:58was around 3pm on Wednesday that we got this EM that was released saying that he wanted to expand

03:05Guantanamo Bay to house 30,000 migrants on that island. Now Guantanamo Bay is actually located on

03:12the island of Cuba but it exists in a legal gray area between the United States and Cuba and to

03:17give you a bit of context there's been a lot of allegations of abuse of prisoners and misuse of

03:24prisoners as well so this detention center which has been the focal point of Democrats for the last

03:29few years especially since the Obama administration trying to close it down will now get a new lease

03:34of life. We don't know how long it's going to be until that is up and functioning. We don't know

03:38how much it's going to cost but this is not really something new. Migrants have been housed at

03:43Guantanamo Bay over the last few decades currently there are only actually four migrants who are

03:48currently being held there as per the New York Times so it is going to be a massive ramping up

03:54of this from four to thirty thousand but I should also point out that the migrants are not housed in

04:00the same part of the camp that the terrorist suspects from 9-11 were being housed in.

04:05And there have been orders that have made headlines other orders including a government

04:10funding freeze and birth right citizenship. What has been his position on those issues?

04:17Yeah there's been a freeze on government assistance and this has caused a lot of

04:21headlines and also a lot of confusion. Now Donald Trump said that the government was

04:24not going to be sending out any more funding but he says that it didn't affect people receiving

04:30social security so welfare checks from the government and didn't affect people who were

04:35on the government's health insurance program but it did cause a lot of confusion especially among

04:40charities and educators as well. There was in fact so much pushback from from all over the spectrum

04:47really that Donald Trump actually rescinded that memorandum shortly afterwards. Donald Trump's

04:53press secretary says that it was just one statement from the office that manages the

04:57budget of the government that was rescinded not the actual order and that it will go ahead

05:02so that is still kind of unclear as to what exactly has been happening. Things have taken

05:06precedence in the last 24 hours as the United States has been dealing with its worst plane

05:10crash in two decades. So there are still other things going on as well but the other question

05:15that we are looking at really closely is the question of birthright citizenship. Donald Trump's

05:19administration believes that it is unconstitutional that people who are born in the United States to

05:25undocumented migrants should get American citizenship but that's going to be a difficult

05:31case for them to argue because it is quite literally in the constitution. It is the 14th

05:35amendment of the constitution so Donald Trump is facing legal challenges over this. A judge in

05:40Seattle just a few days ago stayed this decision by from going into effect until more was known

05:46about it and ultimately Donald Trump said he's going to appeal that he's launched an appeal for

05:50that and we are long and short going to see this kicked all the way up to the Supreme Court and

05:55the Supreme Court is going to have to rule on this as to whether this article which is literally

05:59in the constitution is unconstitutional or constitutional. So some analysts believe that

06:05Donald Trump's administration has a big uphill battle to fight there but Donald Trump sees it

06:09as a key part of his migration agenda to change that so that migrants who come here and have

06:15children will not be able to have those children be American citizens. Fraser great to get that

06:21rap from you from of all the flurry of activity that has been coming out of the White House during

06:26these first few days of Trump's presidency good to have you thank you so much for that.

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