Madness, Death and the Devil

Donald Trump stands in front of reporters and loses his temper. A Reuters reporter asks a question. The American president responds with an insult: "You are a sick guy! Look at this guy. He's way out of shape. You are disgusting! Put yourself in shape! You look like hell." Then he attacks the news agency, too. "Reuters is terrible!" Loud boos erupt in the background. A president who makes decisions about war and peace is standing in front of cameras talking about a reporter's weight. The question gets buried beneath personal insults. Trump stands at the microphone, and for that moment, the power of the presidency is reduced to the privilege of publicly humiliating someone.

In South Carolina, people are now giving Trump the middle finger. He's getting the same treatment in Ohio. People who can barely put their contempt into words anymore. Trump, meanwhile, talks about Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was a Democrat, he claims. He threw him the hell out of Mar-a-Lago and was totally exonerated. A protester shouts something about Trump's connection to Epstein. Trump reacts angrily. His past is supposed to be settled simply because he says it's settled. But memory has an inconvenient habit: You can't make it disappear just by raising your voice, even if you're the president.

And to all those AfD supporters who are so enthusiastic about holding up America's supposed freedom of speech as a shining example: Even through all that political blindness, you ought to be able to recognize what it means when a single heckle in a packed auditorium is enough to get someone escorted out by security. Anyone who sees that as the great American promise of freedom is fooling themselves. And Germany? We're far from convinced that such conditions won't continue to take hold there as well.

At the same time, a Russian drone strikes a crowded railway platform in Dnipro, Ukraine. At least 14 people are killed and another 14 are injured. Two passenger trains are at the station, one preparing to depart for Zaporizhzhia. According to Ukraine's Air Force, three drones are intercepted. The fourth gets through. People waiting for a train experience the final moments of their lives between the tracks and the platforms. Just hours earlier, Trump had spoken of "a lot of progress" in negotiations to end the war. A meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky would be arranged "very soon." In Washington, future meetings are being announced. In Dnipro, survivors have to recover the dead.

In Airway Heights, near Spokane, Washington, officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, arrive. They arrest Arias. His 7-year-old grandson Mateo, an autistic boy, has to watch as the officers overpower his grandfather. Arias calls out to his daughter to get help. She begs the officers to at least arrest her father out of the child's sight. A request that wouldn't require anyone to change a single law. A few steps would have been enough. Mateo watches anyway. In political speeches, operations like these are called immigration law enforcement. For a 7-year-old, the government at that moment consists of people forcing his grandfather to the ground while his mother begs them to show some consideration.

We deliberately used very hard cuts in this footage. Between the president insulting a reporter and the people dying on a railway platform in Dnipro lies a distance anyone can measure on Google Maps. That does nothing to change the fact that these realities are unfolding at the same time. Out of respect and basic decency, we covered the bodies of those killed in the Russian drone attack. Their final moments are part of documenting this war. Their bodies still belong to them and their families. We deliberately show excerpts of Arias's arrest, however. The face of a child witnessing state violence against his grandfather deserves more attention than the hundredth assurance from some politician that everything is being done according to the law.

Barack Obama has sharply criticized American foreign policy under Trump: "While we're alienating important allies like Canada, the White House is throwing itself at Vladimir Putin's feet and betraying the Ukrainians who are fighting for their freedom and democracy." Those words confront a war that refuses to follow Washington's announcements. While Trump talks about diplomatic progress, Russian drones keep flying. While he insults reporters, people fight for their lives. And while American officers arrest a grandfather, his daughter begs them for a few steps of basic humanity.

Somewhere, Donald Trump hits a golf ball. The ball flies, the world keeps turning. Only for the people on that railway platform in Dnipro will nothing ever turn again.