00:00Hello and a very warm welcome. If you're just joining us, you're watching Daybreak here on France 24.
00:08And one main story this hour this morning, it's the 100 days of Donald Trump,
00:13during which he's alienated allies, sent stock markets into freefall,
00:18ignored court orders and threatened judges with impeachment.
00:21He's also dismantled, possibly illegally, a number of US federal programs, including USAID.
00:27Donald Trump marking 100 days in office with plummeting popularity, according to the latest polls.
00:46He's alienated his allies, sent stock markets tumbling, publicly admired dictators.
00:52Donald Trump threatened to take over Canada and Greenland, ignored the US Supreme Court and fired tens of thousands of federal workers.
01:01At a rally in Michigan, his largest political event since returning to office,
01:04he dismissed concerns that he too was acting like an authoritarian leader, saying that he's only getting started.
01:10We're here tonight in the heartland of our nation to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country.
01:22And that's according to many, many people.
01:24This is the best, they say, 100-day start of any president in history, and everyone is saying it.
01:32We're just, we've just gotten started.
01:35You haven't even seen anything yet.
01:37It's all just kicking in.
01:39And week by week, we're ending illegal immigration.
01:47We're taking back our jobs of protecting our great American autoworkers and all of our workers, frankly.
01:53We're protecting all of our workers.
01:55Well, the Trump administration faces dozens of lawsuits from state and local governments,
02:03from employees and a number of organizations fighting the destruction of a variety of programs.
02:09US judges blocked Trump's deportation of migrants without due process,
02:14his dismantling of the Department of Education and other federal agencies, among other cases.
02:18Siobhan Silk and James Fasina take a closer look at the legal side of Trump's 100 days.
02:25It's a fundamental principle of U.S. governance.
02:30The checks and balances structure is designed to prevent any one person from wielding too much power.
02:36But in the first 100 days of his second term as president,
02:40Donald Trump has largely succeeded in outplaying this system.
02:44He got into action on his very first day,
02:47signing, as he'd promised throughout his campaign, a large number of executive orders.
02:51He's written directives instruct government to take specific actions,
02:56and in 100 days he's signed well over 100 orders.
03:01Among his first was the blanket pardoning of 1,500 insurrectionists convicted for the attack on the Capitol.
03:08Some of his orders have been taken to the Supreme Court.
03:11Birthright citizenship is about slavery.
03:15Such as his directive to end birthright citizenship,
03:19which is the part of the Constitution that declares anybody born on U.S. soil to be a citizen.
03:25Trump is seeking to ban automatic citizenship for children whose parents are in the country illegally,
03:31but his order was blocked by federal district courts in three states.
03:35And Trump has ignored certain rulings, including one from the country's highest court
03:40that ordered the government to help Kilmer Abrego Garcia return to the United States
03:45after he was erroneously expelled and sent to his home country of El Salvador.
03:50Another decision by a federal court forbid his administration
03:54from banning the Associated Press News Agency from the White House,
03:58but the president has yet to act on this too.
04:00Donald Trump and congressional Republicans have also threatened to impeach judges
04:06going against his agenda, such as James Bozberg,
04:10who Trump labelled a radical left lunatic,
04:13after the judge ordered a temporary halt to the deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members.
04:19Meanwhile, two judges have been arrested by federal authorities,
04:23accused of interfering with the administration's immigration agenda.
04:26And several investigations into Trump, started during the previous administration,
04:33have been halted.
04:34Career Justice Department lawyers have been fired without explanation.
04:38Dozens are fighting their dismissals,
04:40some of whom had worked on investigations into the attack on the Capitol.
04:46But he hasn't just gone after civil servants.
04:50Private law firms are also in his sights,
04:52with Trump's executive orders placing restrictions on four major law firms
04:56that have represented clients who've challenged his policies in court
04:59or represented people who've previously investigated him.
05:03Some companies have stepped into line by agreeing to provide
05:06hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free legal services
05:09to initiatives that Trump supports,
05:12this to avoid sanctions.
05:15The American Bar Association,
05:17which the White House labelled a quote,
05:18Snuti organization,
05:20said that the Trump administration is attempting to tip the scales of justice.
05:27We can speak now to a Hungarian-American human rights lawyer and prosecutor,
05:32former assistant U.S. attorney for the state of New York,
05:34Reid Brody.
05:35Thanks so much for your time.
05:37I'm going to start by asking you,
05:38Donald Trump is attempting to tip the scales of justice.
05:41We heard there in that report.
05:43Will he be able to do as much?
05:44Well, he's certainly trying.
05:49I mean, you know,
05:49nothing is more sacred in the United States
05:53than the right of the people
05:56to criticize the government,
05:59to disagree with the government,
06:01and to challenge the government in court
06:05when the government is doing something illegal.
06:08And when you're trying to be a dictator,
06:11which is what Donald Trump is doing,
06:14you attack all of those levers.
06:18You attack all of the possible focus of opposition.
06:25Demonstrators, college campuses,
06:29universities, the press,
06:31but especially judges and lawyers.
06:36And what Trump is seeking to do here
06:39is to neutralize all opposition.
06:42And that's what autocrats do in many other countries.
06:46They look for where the opposition might come,
06:49the press, the universities,
06:51the nonprofit sector,
06:52the judges and the lawyers.
06:54And these attacks on,
06:56in particular on lawyers and judges,
06:59are probably the most pernicious.
07:02I mean, you talked about the law firms.
07:05I mean, if you're engaged in an effort,
07:08as Trump is,
07:09to violate legal restrictions,
07:11lawyers are a problem.
07:13Because when you do something illegal,
07:15lawyers sue you
07:16and challenge your violations.
07:20And what Trump has done,
07:23let's start with the lawyers,
07:26and then we'll talk about the judges,
07:29is he's looking at law firms.
07:30And he's saying,
07:32okay, this law firm represented immigrants
07:34and challenging border policies,
07:36or this law firm represented transgender people,
07:39or this law firm hired lawyers
07:42who were involved,
07:43like former prosecutor Robert Mueller,
07:46in attacking my previous administration.
07:49And on the basis of those actions,
07:53he has imposed really crippling restrictions.
07:57These executive orders that say,
08:01you can't do any confidential classified work
08:04involving the government.
08:06You're not allowed to go into federal buildings.
08:08You can't go into federal court.
08:10Now, these are clearly unconstitutional attacks
