June 7, 2025 • 10 mins
This week on the Sunday Panel, journalist and producer Irene Gardiner and senior PR consultant at One Plus One Communications, Damien Venuto, joined in on a discussion about the following issues of the week - and more!
The Trump/Musk relationship imploded this week, with the pair taking to social media to snipe at each other. Who wins here? Was anyone surprised by this?
More retailers have given their staff body cameras amid an increase in anti-social behaviour. What do we make of this? Is this a sad indictment that they need to implement this?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And it is time for our Sunday Session panel, and
I'm joined by journalists if you, producer and commentator Irene Gardener,
Good morning, Irene, good morning to you, and senior pr
consultant at one plus one Communications, Damien Venuto.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hey Damien, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good to have you both with us. You know, I
have always thought that one of the dangers for me
of social media was that I would speak before thinking.
And I don't know how much thinking went on during
Thursday and Friday as Trump and Elon Elon's relationship kind
of imploded. But I'm not sort of I'm not sure
anyone's gonna win this battle. Maybe Trump in the short term,
(00:51):
Musk in the long term.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Irene, Oh my goodness, Yes, your way to wife again.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's been good entertainment for a quite week.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Clash the giant egos. I I'm just spectating slightly. I
saw the fantastic meme recently that said the professional way
to say I told you so was It was identified
early on that this would be a likely outcome, and
I had to say, was anyone surprised that the romanceros.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
The most predictable thing of Trump's presidency so far. Right, Oh,
we knew it was coming. We're just were entirely sure
how it was going to unfold.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
But ah, and look, it's tempting to just laugh and
grab the popcorn and watch. But obviously there is a
serious side to it, because these two people have a
lot of power, and they are slightly out of control,
angry narcissist. In terms of where it goes from here, personally,
I hope it goes in the direction that most gets
(01:54):
Trump out of the president, or at least in the
short term, gets Democrats at least one of the houses
in the midterms. And I'm not sure they men might
have you. I'm not sure on whether that it's more.
Would it help more if Trump, sorry it is Musk
through his weight and money behind the Democrats, Or would
(02:15):
it help more if he shot up some weird kind
of another party that split everything into pieces? Not quite sure.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I think the interesting thing about that is that we're
already seeing the Trump strategy and response to the possibility
of that third party playing out. So one thing that
you must always look at when things start to go
wrong for Trump is what Steve Bannon is doing. And
Steve Bannon at the moment is kind of pushing out
these narratives that we need to question Musks the US citizenship. Now,
(02:47):
if you look at that, that straight out of the
playbook of like was Obama really a US citizen? It's
that classic example of you kind of burn the credibility
of somebody by questioning whether they are truly American. So
what they're trying to do there is consolidate their base
by discrediting Musk, and so you see that playing out
already behind the scene. So I think I think Musk
(03:09):
has learned a very very valuable lesson here that beating
Trump at his own game is incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But I also think, I mean, there's been a bit
of a temporary de escalation on this, hasn't there They've
gone quiet if everyone's kind of said to them, you know,
now just call it, because the blows are pretty low,
so let's all just call it. But I think they've
also both realized they have a certain amount of power.
You know, Trump is aware of the fact that Elon
Musk is a very wealthy man with his own you know,
(03:38):
social media platform, which he can keep poking the bear
if he wants, and he probably knows a lot of
things that Trump would like him to keep quiet in
the future, you know, so so he can he can
sort of he can strove the threats out which are
very general and very quite broad at Musk. But at
the same time, you do wonder whether both of them
(03:59):
have de escalator because they know that this could just
go on and on and on till they both destroy
each other.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It is interesting that the first thing that must came
up with was the Epstein files, that something that Trump
was involved with Epstein, and then Trump responded as like,
this is old news. Everyone knows that I'm in the
in the documents and there was an investigation and nothing
that there was nothing, And I think I think that's
an example of maybe Musk doesn't know as much as
what we think he does. Maybe he was in that
(04:26):
in a circle, but not quite as close as what
we really believe he was. The one thing about Musk
that is dangerous is that he is notoriously known for
using private investigators to get dirt on people. And it
wouldn't surprise me at all if he's quietly behind the
scenes doing that, Right now because he's done this in
the past with the girlfriends, people he perceives as enemies.
(04:48):
He can be quite vindictive in that way.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Is that Musk you're talking about? Yeah, can you imagine
both of it will have the pi's out there. Thought
there was a thought, Irene that when all those articles
suddenly earlier in the week after they look like they've
been an amicable split. Suddenly the New York Times had
always the calls about Elon Musk and his family and
has drug you some things like that, and the sort
of the rumor was that they were leaked from the
(05:12):
White House, so that the White House had already started
and a little bit of a campaign against him.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Both frides will be doing all kinds of things. I mean,
the interesting thing, you know, just picking up would say,
I mean, yeah, sure, find more dirt on Donald Trump,
but don't know enough dirt on Donald Trump already. I mean,
nothing seems to say, I mean, it doesn't make.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Any difference, no difference.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
The interesting thing at the moment is that Trump seems
to be the one that's sort of going, you know,
aiming a little higher and a little more dignified. And
I'd have to say, yes, go pretty low.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
It's so true.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Inge.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Hey, look, here's something I'd like to ask you though,
Irene and that and that is that you know, Musk
went to Washington because he you know, he could see
the benefit for him and his companies, and you know
he was there was a self interest as to why
he went. Do you think he's been burnt by politics
that actually he's probably thinking to himself, you know what,
I don't want anything more to do with this. I'm
going to go and do what I do, which is
(06:06):
create companies and make a lot of money, and I'm
just going to walk away from politics. Or do you
think actually he seriously will be contemplating how he has
an impact for a self serving reason going forward in politics.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Hard to read because you're talking about a massive ego,
so it's kind of hard to predict. I just wish,
you know what, this this mass of falling out had
happened before before you know, whatever Trump did help get us, sorry,
whatever Musk did. Somehow I keep mixing up their name.
They're obviously just one person in my head. Yeah, yeah,
before Musk got us Trump, you know, I wish they'd
(06:42):
fallen out, but earlier.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Hindsight, what do you think, Damien, do you think he
will stick at it or do you think there will
be enough pressure from investors and other people in his
lives who are going, can you just come back and
focus on you know, these businesses please?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well. The interesting thing is, in the short term after
Trump was elected, the biggest winner in the international scene
when it came to business was Trump, because the market
cap of all the business is run by Musk during
that period shot up enormously. Right now, that's all kind
of back down a little bit because of the policy
decisions that Trump has rolled out. I think the fact
(07:18):
that Musk has realized that government is a lot harder
than what it looks from the outside will make him
pretty hesitant to get actively involved in the future. I
do think that Mosk has political ambitions. He wants to
have a say in the course of history, so I
don't think this is the last will hear from him.
But he needs to make sure those businesses run because
(07:39):
his credibility is built on businesses being successful. If they
fall over, then his credibility has gone and any influence
that he has it dissipates really quickly, and he'll be
patiently aware of it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
All right, let's move on and talk about the fact
that farmers in the warehouse are giving body cameras to
staff after concerns of abusive customer behavior. And it's important
tonight here that these body cameras are only activated if
there's an incident taking place. But at the same time,
I kind of feel a little bit sad about this
is where we're at in society, that everything we kind
(08:12):
of do is filmed these days, either with you know,
people have dash cams, people have cameras on their homes.
People are now going to be you know, you go
into a shop to buy you know, now polished, and
you know there's a potential that you're going to be filmed.
I just I just feel it's sad that this is
where we've.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Got to irene I kind of hate it too, you know,
I'm quite frankly, I feel like I and everybody else
is getting filmed enough times already without you know, shops
and people with body cams. But having said that, the
other thing that's kind of troubling about anxiety at the
moment is how awful it is for retail workers et cetera,
(08:52):
et cetera, and how weird and angry everybody's got and
so in the end, if this needs to happen for
their protection, then I think the rights of the workers
is my more paramount thought. But I am glad that
this has had a little bit of media attention just
so that now you just kind of keep an eye
on where these things are going in a civil liberty deeds.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And it's also about making sure that they're just being
used to capture something if it's an incident Damien as
opposed to being used with facial recognition technology, and maybe
you know, like you could, you could what they could
potentially be used for could get bigger and bigger and
wider and wider.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It could. But I think that I think that the
immediate need for this is driven by the fact that
people have just become far too rude. And we talk
a lot about trust in the media, but I think
what this points to is a lack of trust in
society across the board. Because if retail workers can't trust
customers to treat them civilly, that points to a bigger problem.
(09:52):
If we're driving on the road and we can't trust
other drivers to be reasonably polite, civil and decent, that
points to a bigger problem. So I think when you
have that breakdown and trust between people in a society,
you need something that holds people accountable. And that's what
I think the camera comes down to here. It's just
about holding people accountable, saying, look, if you're gonna do
something dodgy, if you're gonna be rude, if you're gonna
(10:15):
be disgusting, if you're gonna be racist, it's gonna get
caught on camera. If you're gonna engage in road rage,
it's gonna get caught on camera, and you will be
held accountable because I think at the moment people realize,
oh wait, I can be held accountable for my actions,
it lessens the poor probability that they will engage in
that activity.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Don't mean Venuto, thank you so much for your time today,
Iron Gardner, good to catch up with you.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudgin
from News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And it is time for our Sunday Session panel, and
I'm joined by journalists if you, producer and commentator Irene Gardener,
Good morning, Irene, good morning to you, and senior pr
consultant at one plus one Communications, Damien Venuto.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Hey Damien, good morning.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Good to have you both with us. You know, I
have always thought that one of the dangers for me
of social media was that I would speak before thinking.
And I don't know how much thinking went on during
Thursday and Friday as Trump and Elon Elon's relationship kind
of imploded. But I'm not sort of I'm not sure
anyone's gonna win this battle. Maybe Trump in the short term,
(00:51):
Musk in the long term.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
Irene, Oh my goodness, Yes, your way to wife again.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
It's been good entertainment for a quite week.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
Clash the giant egos. I I'm just spectating slightly. I
saw the fantastic meme recently that said the professional way
to say I told you so was It was identified
early on that this would be a likely outcome, and
I had to say, was anyone surprised that the romanceros.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
The most predictable thing of Trump's presidency so far. Right, Oh,
we knew it was coming. We're just were entirely sure
how it was going to unfold.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
But ah, and look, it's tempting to just laugh and
grab the popcorn and watch. But obviously there is a
serious side to it, because these two people have a
lot of power, and they are slightly out of control,
angry narcissist. In terms of where it goes from here, personally,
I hope it goes in the direction that most gets
(01:54):
Trump out of the president, or at least in the
short term, gets Democrats at least one of the houses
in the midterms. And I'm not sure they men might
have you. I'm not sure on whether that it's more.
Would it help more if Trump, sorry it is Musk
through his weight and money behind the Democrats, Or would
(02:15):
it help more if he shot up some weird kind
of another party that split everything into pieces? Not quite sure.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
I think the interesting thing about that is that we're
already seeing the Trump strategy and response to the possibility
of that third party playing out. So one thing that
you must always look at when things start to go
wrong for Trump is what Steve Bannon is doing. And
Steve Bannon at the moment is kind of pushing out
these narratives that we need to question Musks the US citizenship. Now,
(02:47):
if you look at that, that straight out of the
playbook of like was Obama really a US citizen? It's
that classic example of you kind of burn the credibility
of somebody by questioning whether they are truly American. So
what they're trying to do there is consolidate their base
by discrediting Musk, and so you see that playing out
already behind the scene. So I think I think Musk
(03:09):
has learned a very very valuable lesson here that beating
Trump at his own game is incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
But I also think, I mean, there's been a bit
of a temporary de escalation on this, hasn't there They've
gone quiet if everyone's kind of said to them, you know,
now just call it, because the blows are pretty low,
so let's all just call it. But I think they've
also both realized they have a certain amount of power.
You know, Trump is aware of the fact that Elon
Musk is a very wealthy man with his own you know,
(03:38):
social media platform, which he can keep poking the bear
if he wants, and he probably knows a lot of
things that Trump would like him to keep quiet in
the future, you know, so so he can he can
sort of he can strove the threats out which are
very general and very quite broad at Musk. But at
the same time, you do wonder whether both of them
(03:59):
have de escalator because they know that this could just
go on and on and on till they both destroy
each other.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
It is interesting that the first thing that must came
up with was the Epstein files, that something that Trump
was involved with Epstein, and then Trump responded as like,
this is old news. Everyone knows that I'm in the
in the documents and there was an investigation and nothing
that there was nothing, And I think I think that's
an example of maybe Musk doesn't know as much as
what we think he does. Maybe he was in that
(04:26):
in a circle, but not quite as close as what
we really believe he was. The one thing about Musk
that is dangerous is that he is notoriously known for
using private investigators to get dirt on people. And it
wouldn't surprise me at all if he's quietly behind the
scenes doing that, Right now because he's done this in
the past with the girlfriends, people he perceives as enemies.
(04:48):
He can be quite vindictive in that way.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
Is that Musk you're talking about? Yeah, can you imagine
both of it will have the pi's out there. Thought
there was a thought, Irene that when all those articles
suddenly earlier in the week after they look like they've
been an amicable split. Suddenly the New York Times had
always the calls about Elon Musk and his family and
has drug you some things like that, and the sort
of the rumor was that they were leaked from the
(05:12):
White House, so that the White House had already started
and a little bit of a campaign against him.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Both frides will be doing all kinds of things. I mean,
the interesting thing, you know, just picking up would say,
I mean, yeah, sure, find more dirt on Donald Trump,
but don't know enough dirt on Donald Trump already. I mean,
nothing seems to say, I mean, it doesn't make.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Any difference, no difference.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
The interesting thing at the moment is that Trump seems
to be the one that's sort of going, you know,
aiming a little higher and a little more dignified. And
I'd have to say, yes, go pretty low.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
It's so true.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Inge.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Hey, look, here's something I'd like to ask you though,
Irene and that and that is that you know, Musk
went to Washington because he you know, he could see
the benefit for him and his companies, and you know
he was there was a self interest as to why
he went. Do you think he's been burnt by politics
that actually he's probably thinking to himself, you know what,
I don't want anything more to do with this. I'm
going to go and do what I do, which is
(06:06):
create companies and make a lot of money, and I'm
just going to walk away from politics. Or do you
think actually he seriously will be contemplating how he has
an impact for a self serving reason going forward in politics.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Hard to read because you're talking about a massive ego,
so it's kind of hard to predict. I just wish,
you know what, this this mass of falling out had
happened before before you know, whatever Trump did help get us, sorry,
whatever Musk did. Somehow I keep mixing up their name.
They're obviously just one person in my head. Yeah, yeah,
before Musk got us Trump, you know, I wish they'd
(06:42):
fallen out, but earlier.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Hindsight, what do you think, Damien, do you think he
will stick at it or do you think there will
be enough pressure from investors and other people in his
lives who are going, can you just come back and
focus on you know, these businesses please?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Well. The interesting thing is, in the short term after
Trump was elected, the biggest winner in the international scene
when it came to business was Trump, because the market
cap of all the business is run by Musk during
that period shot up enormously. Right now, that's all kind
of back down a little bit because of the policy
decisions that Trump has rolled out. I think the fact
(07:18):
that Musk has realized that government is a lot harder
than what it looks from the outside will make him
pretty hesitant to get actively involved in the future. I
do think that Mosk has political ambitions. He wants to
have a say in the course of history, so I
don't think this is the last will hear from him.
But he needs to make sure those businesses run because
(07:39):
his credibility is built on businesses being successful. If they
fall over, then his credibility has gone and any influence
that he has it dissipates really quickly, and he'll be
patiently aware of it.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
All right, let's move on and talk about the fact
that farmers in the warehouse are giving body cameras to
staff after concerns of abusive customer behavior. And it's important
tonight here that these body cameras are only activated if
there's an incident taking place. But at the same time,
I kind of feel a little bit sad about this
is where we're at in society, that everything we kind
(08:12):
of do is filmed these days, either with you know,
people have dash cams, people have cameras on their homes.
People are now going to be you know, you go
into a shop to buy you know, now polished, and
you know there's a potential that you're going to be filmed.
I just I just feel it's sad that this is
where we've.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Got to irene I kind of hate it too, you know,
I'm quite frankly, I feel like I and everybody else
is getting filmed enough times already without you know, shops
and people with body cams. But having said that, the
other thing that's kind of troubling about anxiety at the
moment is how awful it is for retail workers et cetera,
(08:52):
et cetera, and how weird and angry everybody's got and
so in the end, if this needs to happen for
their protection, then I think the rights of the workers
is my more paramount thought. But I am glad that
this has had a little bit of media attention just
so that now you just kind of keep an eye
on where these things are going in a civil liberty deeds.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
And it's also about making sure that they're just being
used to capture something if it's an incident Damien as
opposed to being used with facial recognition technology, and maybe
you know, like you could, you could what they could
potentially be used for could get bigger and bigger and
wider and wider.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
It could. But I think that I think that the
immediate need for this is driven by the fact that
people have just become far too rude. And we talk
a lot about trust in the media, but I think
what this points to is a lack of trust in
society across the board. Because if retail workers can't trust
customers to treat them civilly, that points to a bigger problem.
(09:52):
If we're driving on the road and we can't trust
other drivers to be reasonably polite, civil and decent, that
points to a bigger problem. So I think when you
have that breakdown and trust between people in a society,
you need something that holds people accountable. And that's what
I think the camera comes down to here. It's just
about holding people accountable, saying, look, if you're gonna do
something dodgy, if you're gonna be rude, if you're gonna
(10:15):
be disgusting, if you're gonna be racist, it's gonna get
caught on camera. If you're gonna engage in road rage,
it's gonna get caught on camera, and you will be
held accountable because I think at the moment people realize,
oh wait, I can be held accountable for my actions,
it lessens the poor probability that they will engage in
that activity.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Don't mean Venuto, thank you so much for your time today,
Iron Gardner, good to catch up with you.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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