World of Politics with Harry McGee

There was a game show on TV in the 1970s with a novel concept for the time. Three people would come on and all claim to be one person, say – for illustration purposes – Peter Smith, an astronaut.

But only one of them was really Peter Smith.

The contestants had to guess which two of the three were lying and who was the Real Peter Smith. At the end of the contest, the host would say: Step Forward the Real Peter Smith.

It’s a bit like that at the moment as we try to figure out who is the Real Donald Trump. Is he the transactional deal maker, a pragmatic politician? Is the right-wing ideologue, ignoring all national and international laws, promulgating extreme policies and forging deals with some very unsavoury players?

Or is he a politician we find someplace in between, with extreme rhetoric but more reasoned action?

The 2016 version of Trump was definitely the third example, a politician who huffed and puffed but who did not blow the house down.

But Trump 2.0 seems to be different – and scarily so.

Eight years ago, Trump was surrounded by capable administrators, people who were Republican but not necessarily close to him. They were, to all intents and purposes, the adults in the room.

From our own selfish perspective, among them were a significant cohort of Irish-Americans, including Mick Mulvaney, who ensured our interests were not ignored.

This time around, the people who surround him are different. They are all out-and-out Trump loyalists. In addition, many of them have extreme and odd views.

Then there is Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman who owns Tesla and Space-X, who became Trump’s biggest donor for the 2024 election.

Only a few years ago, Musk was ridiculing Trump and dismissing him. Now he’s his biggest fan and his closest aides. He has taken over a new government department called the Department of Government Efficiency.

It’s not really a department as it’s made up of Musk and an army of young techies, none of whom are federal employees. They have gone into departments in the same way that Trump went into Twitter, now X, by firing most of the employees and cutting back all the programmes.

So far, he has gone into the Treasury and USAid and now he’s directing his focus on the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which collects taxes. It’s scorched earth stuff.

Pictured: Donald Trump…what version will we get next?