Mallen Baker: Faultlines

00:14:51

Trump Created A Global Crisis And Doesn’t Care

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/05/18

While citizens of the United States fret about having to pay more at the pump for gasoline, President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran is having massive consequences in many other parts of the world. The decision of this one man to abandon ongoing talks that were said to be making progress to use the military for an all-out attack instead - that is leading to tens of millions of people to be thrown into starvation who otherwise would not have been. While we care about how US people are feeling,

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00:28:00

Trump Fantasy Slams Into China Summit Reality | News...

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/05/15

In this news round-up of the week for Friday May 15th 2026: President Trump is forced to explain to MAGA why what they heard with their own ears from Xi Jinping wasn't what they heard at all - even as the evidence is mounting that his summit was not a success. Britain's Keir Starmer is fighting for his political future, as the UK's political system disintegrates. And the US makes a sudden announcement that it is cancelling the sending of troops to Poland, almost as they were about to get on the

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00:17:40

Xi Jinping’s Taiwan Warning Made Trump Go Quiet

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/05/14

President Donald Trump is very used to deploying fiery rhetoric against his enemies to seek to cow them into submission, even though he's found his brand of bluster to be losing its effectiveness in recent months. But it seems that China's President Xi Jinping has found the more effective formula, as his warnings in relation to Taiwan, delivered during today's state visit to Beijing, had the effect of making Trump refuse to answer journalist questions on the topic at all. It highlighted just how

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00:15:00

China Prepares To Eat Trump For Lunch

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/05/10

Later this coming week, China's Xi Jinping will be hosting President Donald Trump in Beijing for their delayed summit meeting. It's hard to ignore the fact that, since the last time they met, the US seems to have been bent on destroying its own leverage at every opportunity. It is caught in Trump's illegal war in Iran. His big punitive tariff policies came crashing down. And he has been single-handedly driving all of America's former allies, to some degree, into the embrace of China as the more

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00:22:48

The Truth About Trump's Big Iran War U-Turn | News...

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/05/08

In this news round-up of the week for Friday May 8th, 2026. It turns out that President Donald Trump's about-turn on Project Freedom had even less to do with his fake stories than we knew. Trump's replacement tariffs for the ones that were judged to be illegal have turned out to also be illegal. The UK prime minister Keir Starmer is fighting for his political survival after the UK local elections were exactly what the polls had said they would be - in other words, terrible for Labour. And President

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00:11:14

Trump's Humiliating U-Turn After 'Project Freedom' Fails

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/05/06

President Donald Trump has 'paused' so-called Project Freedom. Supposedly, it's because the Pakistanis asked him to. Nothing at all to do with the reality that almost no ships had actually gotten out of the Strait of Hormuz as a result of it i.e. it was a complete failure. The line is that a deal is SO close that it's worth pausing the project (not the blockade, mind, because that's mostly being successful) to see if final agreement is reached. And yet, even as the media and the stock market takes

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00:11:03

Trump's Strait Of Hormuz Gamble Likely To Blow Up In...

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/05/04

There's no doubt that the thousand ships that are stranded in the Strait of Hormuz need rescuing - and if it could be achieved, it would be a tremendous success. But by announcing that the US would be doing just that raised the stakes for President Trump because he set himself an extremely difficult, some would say impossible, task and, in so doing, likely set himself up for humiliation. In any case, it's been a day of claim and counterclaim, shots being exchanged, and the potential for the

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00:20:08

Iran Won't Let Trump Off The Hook | News Round-Up

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/05/01

In this news round-up of the week for Friday May the first, 2026. Iran presents its new peace proposal, and it does not make President Donald Trump happy - even while Congress ponders whether to engage with the looming war powers deadline. Meanwhile Trump adds Italy and Spain to the list of countries he wants to pull US troops out of as he looks to punish those who didn't fall in line on demand. A Supreme court judgement could lead to a flurry of gerrymandering that will render the 2028 elections a

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00:11:48

Furious Trump Threatens To Pull Troops From Germany

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/30

German Chancellor Merz made an entirely reasonable observation - Iran had humiliated the United States, and was being much more skilful in its negotiations strategy. This is a widespread perception across the world, but it made President Donald Trump utterly furious. He spat his rage into not one, but two posts on social media, and he let it be known he is reviewing whether to pull US troops from Germany. Arguably, such a move would be the beginning of the end for NATO, as currently constituted. Is

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00:14:20

King Charles' Urgent Wake-Up Call To Trump's America

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/29

King Charles spoke to Congress, and then again at President Donald Trump's own banquet. He impressed many with his skilful diplomacy, and also that while keeping the right side of his host he nevertheless was able to touch on a number of the central faultlines that have opened up in US politics and society. Let's go through the key points of what he covered, why it was effective, why it's different to what the political leaders of Europe should be doing, and whether it will actually make a

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00:14:58

“Iran Has Humiliated the US” Germany's Chancellor Merz

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/28

The world is changing - especially in the fact that a growing number of world leaders are prepared to speak the truth in public, caring little any more how it will land with that one individual in the White House. The latest evidence is the comments by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said that Iran had humiliated the United States, and was showing great skill in its negotiations that were not reflected on the other side. This as Trump had his lies about the Iranians wanting talks exposed for

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00:16:17

Trump's America Is Continuing Its Slide Into The Abyss

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/26

At the White House Correspondents' Dinner we saw the latest in a growing line of incidents of political violence directed at President Donald Trump and other members of his cabinet. Like previous attempts, this one failed. But each time nonetheless pushes the United States further and further into the sort of polarised mindset you would associate with civil war. Can the country halt the downward slide, or will the various players simply follow the immediate incentives in front of them and keep

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00:24:54

Leaked Email Reveals Trump's Plan To Punish NATO |...

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/24

In this news round-up of the week for Friday April 24th 2026. A leaked email shows that President Trump is looking for new ways to bully the world, and specifically punish NATO, now that his favourite tariff weapons have been blunted. The US extends the Iran war ceasefire, although Iran hasn’t agreed to do likewise, so what happens next could go completely off script. The Trump administration seems to be backing down from its big fight with the AI company Anthropic, now it just released a tool that

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00:13:34

Trump Flooded The Zone - Now He’s Drowning In The...

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/23

The theory, as expounded by Trump's former strategic adviser Steve Bannon, was that the Trump administration could utterly change America by 'flooding the zone' with so many radical actions that the opposition, and the media, would not be able to keep up. But what Bannon and others forgot was that actions have consequences. And a flood of action could mean a veritable tsunami further down the line. That seems to be exactly where we are, and could be the reason why Trump is coming across as

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00:13:49

Why Nobody Wants To Do A Deal With Trump

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/22

One of the biggest barriers preventing serious work on an Iran negotiated settlement is the fact that the Iranians have so little trust when it comes to President Donald Trump, and the Americans generally under his rule. He has, after all, while proclaiming 'the art of the deal' shown that he will refuse to honour former deals - even ones that he signed. He will change them after the event whenever someone annoys him. And he will lie about the progress of deal making while it's in negotiation, with

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00:10:57

Ukraine Has Given Up On Trump's America

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/21

After a painful year and a quarter of flattering and pleading with Trump to stay the right side of the Ukraine war, the president's obvious predisposition for Putin's Russia, and his constant insulting and erratic behaviour, has finally led to the inevitable. Ukraine has had enough. In the last few days, President Zelensky has been speaking plainly and critically about the Trump administration in ways he would not have dared to do before. In this, he joins Canada's Mark Carney and growing numbers of

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00:13:46

Why Iran Is Running Rings Around Furious Trump

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/20

President Trump thought he was being forceful in declining to drop the blockade on Iran's vessels in the Strait of Hormuz after Iran had declared it open. But now Iran has reminded him that it still is very happy to walk away from a deal if it doesn't suit Iran's interests - and it does so knowing that, for all his bluff and threats, he really can't. So now he is starting to talk about Pakistan asking him to lift the blockade - the same excuse he used the last time he delivered on Iran's demands

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00:23:14

China and Taiwan In A Race To Learn From Trump's Iran...

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/19

The sight of Donald Trump's America throwing everything it has (nearly) at a smaller, but smarter and more determined adversary - this has been a goldmine of data for Xi Jinping's China, as it considers its options with regard to Taiwan. And, of course, it has likewise been crucially important for Taiwan itself - especially since both Trump's Iran war, and the Ukraine war, have been examples of the smaller defensive force finding effective ways to hit back against the much larger aggressor. China

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00:19:43

Trump Blunders Again On Iran Deal | News Round-Up

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/17

In this news round-up of the week for April 17, 2026: Iran is demonstrating its leverage as the US pushes Israel into a ceasefire with Lebanon, and the Strait of Hormuz is magically open for business. But it's complicated - and not least by Trump's refusal to reciprocate. President Trump continues his other war with the Pope and seems to be losing bigly. As American corporations have been emboldened by Trump's disregard for ethical guardrails, a massive finding in a French court that sends a

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00:14:37

Trump Isolated As World Turns Against Him

Mallen Baker: Faultlines ·

2026/04/14

Ever since he became president again, Donald Trump has been enthusiastically burning through any goodwill he might have had, or indeed that the United States might have had. But the pace of the destruction has been massive in the last couple of weeks, since the impacts of the Iran war started to be felt, and since Trump announced his blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The number of former supporters and allies who have turned their backs is truly impressive. Let's discuss.

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