Alastair Campbell: Trump Is a Wanker

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Hello and welcome to the bowlwork podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller, delighted to welcome the show for the first time.

Somebody from across the pond. He's a British writer, political strategist, and co-host of the rest is politics. It's Alster Campbell. How are you doing, sir? I'm very little. Love you. Let's just do a little first date stuff first before you get to the news. You know, tell us your back story before you came to a cardcaster, favorite L.A.s. The song. How you take your tea. Okay. Tea, milk, no sugar. Favorite L.A.s. So, probably all around the world, actually. All around the world. Love that. Yeah. And back story, born in Yorkshire in the north of England, but very Scottish family, play the backpipes, wore a kill when I was a kid because my dad made me.

Wow. And when she invested in languages, went into journalism, through journalism, political journalism, and then go into politics. And that's when I ended up working for Tony Blair, did that for about decade. And since then, I've been doing lots of different things.

There you go. For Tony Blair, you achieved the job that I never did, right? You're his communications man as a flag.

Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. On my candid last. Oh, I never got that job. Well, we did a lot. We won three in a row. No Labour leader would ever one, two full terms, let alone three. Yeah. I mean, it's nice when people sort of say things like, you know, I was the architect of this and invented new Labour Norther.

“The truth is Tony was an extraordinary candidate and an extraordinary politician. So it wasn't like, kind of, you know, working with somebody.”

He wasn't really good. Oh, you guys touch you. Maybe you were with people who weren't great. Yeah. Yeah. Very much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you can sit in a future. I'm not sure about, I'm not sure about his board of peace. Yeah. I was going to say communications director for the board of peace. Maybe might be a future role for you after a podcasting. I think that Donald Trump's people might check out a few things I've said about him on the podcast and that might make it quite difficult. Yeah. So you're not, you're not a big fan of our president.

I'm really not. I was not a big fan of him during his first term, but it feels to me like the second term is even worse. It's a lot worse.

I just think he's completely a moral. I think he's corrupt. I think he's a moral. I don't think he thinks things through. I don't think he cares about other people or other countries. You know, last week in Britain or the BBC, the main news in the morning, five days out of seven, lead with the word Donald.

I guess I'm a little bit disappointed. One of my favorite thing about the brids is the creative insults that you have in general, but also Trump said.

“You know, the Oasis guys are good at that. And you didn't offer any of those right there. I want you to call him like a numpty plunker or something.”

The thing is with that, okay. What could I call him that would maybe kind of get your America British juices flowing? He's a total complete wizard.

Oh, was it? He's a pillic. He's a wizard. You never heard wizard? I don't know that one.

He's a kind of, there's another great word, I'll give you an Irish word, Langer. You know, Langer is. I don't know. He's a Langer. Basically a Wanker, Wanker. Basically a Wanker. Definitely it's very funny, because you know, until you scare him out, she does the American version of our podcast. Yeah. He can't get over the fact that the C word in Britain is kind of used a lot. Where is the American man of very jealous about this? Yeah. We're jealous. We'd like to be able to use it as much. Well, he didn't like the American version. He was using a lot because he just felt liberated.

Yeah, it's just like all of those guys who said we wanted to get Trump back in there so that we could say pussy and the R word again. You know, it's kind of like that. It's something in the male nature. Yeah. Well, as we go through, I'll try and think of some more colorful Anglo-Saxon phrase that suits you.

We'll have a couple more. We'll get to JD Vance towards the end because he is particularly not a favor among either of us.

He's so obnoxious. He's the worst.

Literally the worst.

“I'll talk about the Iran War. Before you get into the status of negotiations and stuff, I'm just the view from Europe.”

I've been trying to get my head into the mindset of an average person in Europe and just how frustrated and gobsmacked they must be about this. I mean, it's causing real economic harm already and seems like it's going to cause more. He didn't talk to you guys. It was not really expected that he was going to do this. Kind of the opposite of what he said he was going to do.

And then he yells at you and berate you for not putting your men and women at risk. It must just be, it raging. I mean, I know that Trump was not popular before, but I have to imagine in this moment it must be particularly acute. Well, I saw some polling the other day. I think it was down to 3% of Daines had a positive image of him.

I think it was about 13 and written something like that. I also read yesterday the Arab barometer which tracks opinion in the Arab world, where he seems to be an overtaken by both Xi Jinping and Putin. And even Kim Jong Un, I think, is kind of creeping up on him a little bit. I was speaking at an event this morning with some business people.

I think in the first term, when you talked about things like, you know,

the Jesus post where he put you now pretends that he was just being a doctor. Term one, people found it moderately amusing. I think the reaction now is that it's just sick, it's really sick. So I think, yeah, people are really angry about it.

“But also I think it feeling a bit helpless because the truth is, between them, Trump and Netanyahu,”

and it's them, they have unleashed this war, which is taking every single president and prime minister in the world today and every single CEO of every single major corporation. Is it some point today addressing the consequences of that decision through the decisions they have to make? Whether it's the Irish government who are talking about putting the army out to quell these protests about fuel, I was in France yesterday and some of you are telling me

that they're heating fuel that the cost is doubled in seven weeks. Qatar took about 14% drop in GDP. Wow. And he doesn't care. But what I say doesn't, earlier, doesn't care.

You just didn't care about any of that. What he cares about is himself, that's it, nothing else. So yeah, people are pissed off. And yet the politicians are still very, very cautious about really going for it. I've seen Malone's gone from today.

Why is that? Why is that? Because, well, let's just take you crane. I mean, the thing I really worry about with Trump as you crane. And you know, the viral JD events yesterday was doing that that patheticly attended event

for turning point. I don't know if you saw the pictures. It was like, I'll not have empty seats. Oh, yeah. It was like a kind of, you know, lower league.

In fact, no, lower league football matches in England get bigger crowds than JD events got at his turning point thing. But he said he was proud. One of the things he was proud is to solve was actually having this idea. Let's play it.

Let's play it. We've got this. Okay. Okay. It was actually during a Senate event that I had done where I had somebody who came up to me.

And I'm sure a great person, like a wonderful person.

Yeah, I was campaigning for the Senate. There are a lot of Ukrainian Americans in Cleveland, Ohio. And this person got really agitated at me because I was saying we should stop funding the Ukraine Taiwan. Okay.

And I still believe that. Obviously, and it's one of the things I'm proudest that we've done in this administration

“is we've told Europe that if you want to buy weapons, you can, but the United States is not buying weapons and sending them to Ukraine anymore.”

We're just out of that business. So, very good thing. I mean, it's like mind-blowing because on so many levels that, because, you know, politicians talk a lot about what they're proud of doing. Like, you know, I was very proud to work with Tony Blair in the Northern Ireland peace process. I was very proud of what he did to sort of spend more in the schools at hospital.

I was very proud of Scottish Parliament being established, very proud of the minimum wage. To be proud of the fact that you've stopped funding a democracy, which has been invaded by a dictator on the doorstep of Europe, when NATO is meant to be the transatlantic alliance between the United States. It just makes me think, "I don't understand what goes on inside the guy's head. I don't understand it." So, that's what worries me about Iran.

And, you know, I talked to Zelensky recently and he was saying he's worried about American support with being pulled anywhere. Let's be honest, since Trump came back to the Americans, the stuff that they're doing on the intelligence side, and Ukraine does not want to lose that. But now, lots of the kind of missiles that they were using for air defenses, they're having to go to the Gulf. Yeah, that's the stupidest thing about the J.D. vanS being proud thing.

I mean, obviously it's insulting and it's gross. And these people were invaded, they did nothing, and he's like, "I'm so proud we abandoned them." Like, that's disgusting on a moral level. But just on a, even on a practical, like real politics level, it's like, okay, we're not purchasing weapons and sending it to Ukraine anymore, because we care about America first. And here we are.

We started a war of choice in Iran. We're like using up our stockpiles. We're losing way more in weapons and material, in the Middle East, in the last month, than we did the entire Ukraine war. And the thing that gets me about vanS, and I'm afraid Rubio's in the same boat now, is that whatever it is,

“that Trump says on that particular day, that's what they go out and defend.”

So at the moment, we're very down in Ukraine.

Now, to be fair, to not be fair, but vanS has always had that position.

Yeah. So what he said yesterday is entirely in keeping with what he thinks. But we also know he's been against the Iran War. But when Trump tells him to go to Islamabad and basically make a fool of himself by thinking, you can solve this.

I mean, he comes out and talks about a marathon, right? Twenty-one hours, whatever it was. We spent 22 months on the Good Friday Agreement. Bill Clinton spent nine months getting Arafat and Rabi into shake hands. Nine months of bringing them together to do that.

And this is the thing, I told you on the podcast recently about this amazing essay. There was written by Scotchish for Historian called Dennis Brogan during the middle of the Korean war. And the headline was the illusion of American omnipotence. And that's what we're seeing at the moment. They think that because they're America and because he's Trump, whatever they say is going to happen, that is what is going to happen.

And I guess what, it doesn't happen because other factors come into play. But you're pointing about why the European leaders are still so kind of mealy mouth. Is that a good British-medic word? Mealy mouth? We do that.

We use someone here, but that's okay. Oh, do you use that one? Okay. I'll tell you what, I'll tell you, I'll give you a really good one for Vance. Okay.

So Scotchish word, generally word sleek it. Flick it. S l w k i t, slinger. So Scotchish word, Vance is sleek it. Okay. Vance is sleek it, yeah.

You wouldn't, whatever he's coming out of his mouth is not what's in his brain. Okay. So that's sleek it. Okay. He's slie.

So Sanchez in Spain, he's no horse barge. Yeah.

We now consider Mark Carney in Canada, basically to be a European.

So we've come up to give his honor a European. Yeah. He's, yeah, he's no horse barge. But if you think about it, it's safe from Kia's stomach's perspective. One Kia's stomach is not somebody who likes getting down and just being rude about people.

He's quite a nice guy.

“Do you remember the famous shot of Trump dropping the papers on the floor and Kia's”

stomach picked them up? And it turned out there was actually nothing on the papers at all. It was just Trump holding your phone. It was like a president. Oh, really?

And Kia picked them up and people were saying how pathetic how humiliating and what I have here. And this part of me thinks Trump did it on purpose. But what he showed basically is Kia's stomach's quite a nice guy who knows that this guy is very old.

He's knees probably aren't very good. I'll pick up these papers for him. So he's not a rude guy. So he's trying to craft this positive relationship with Trump. You know, I have a letter.

Here it is. It's a letter from the king.

There's never happened before.

Another state visit. Blah, blah, blah, blah.

I think we're reaching the point where Europe is going to start hitting back a lot of things. Well, hard. I don't know. The domestic politics of this field unpredictable.

You mentioned those stats about the energy prices. I mean, we're going to be coming to a period of shortages, probably. And there's already this populist wave happening through. We can talk about. And so I know it seemed to me that like the right thing to do is get in front of

it and make Trump the bookie man and rage against it. Because like this pain is, you know, even if they magically figure this out in his line of art in a week, which I find hard to believe, but who knows? We can talk about that.

But like the supply chains and that like all this is coming. All the economic pain is coming, no matter what. I mean, some just in Spain, he has decided. Yeah. He's just going to go for Trump and he's not holding back.

Meloni today. And interestingly, the Italian parliament yesterday or today, the opposition leader got a standing ovation. Because she came out in favor of Meloni and attacking Trump.

“Now, the only thing is, you take it from, let's just say in the UK,”

we are still very tight intelligence defense. All that's a, we're very, very locked in. And I think what they're worried about, all of them, is that Trump, who probably isn't following the day to day of who does what, where and what have you, but the Americans are still doing a lot in relation to Ukraine.

Europe is trying to step in, but you've just got to maybe try and keep locked in a little bit. So when I interviewed Zelensky last week, there was also little dicks. There was also little dicks, you know, he said, for example, I don't think it's a good idea to send JD to campaign for all that. And you know, little dicks.

He nailed that one. A hundred percent. I think, you know, he didn't have to be a genius political strategist to work that one. But he nailed that one, but also he said, in terms, we have shown the Americans that Russia has been sharing intelligence with Iran,

including all where American troops happen to be hanging out. Okay? And the Americans don't seem interested. Now that's quite shocking. But what Zelensky doesn't say is, and that's really shocking.

Yeah, you asked him directly. I thought I was interesting. You asked him directly if sometimes he wonders if Trump's on Putin's side. And he was very diplomatic and response to that. He didn't say no, though.

He didn't say no. I don't ever wonder that. He didn't say no. He didn't say that.

I kind of remember who first said it.

But it's, you know, you see this quite a lot of people say, well, I don't know if Trump's a Russian agent or not. But if he was a Russian agent, he's doing everything that Russian agent would do. Right. It's like, you know, and I have reached a conclusion. It's a pretty big thing to think in a way,

is that, okay, on his side maybe is the wrong thing.

“But when he has to choose between, do I believe, Trump, Dolly Putin or do I believe Zelensky?”

He believes Putin every time. Which is kind of weird, because the guy has built his entire political machinery and his dictatorship on kind of lying and fear and intimidation. And I think my theory about Trump is that he's jealous of Putin.

It's not that his Putin has necessarily got anything on him, which he may have. I don't know what he got up to in the past and wife. But he may do, but I think he's just that he's jealous of him. And he wants to be like him.

He wants to be as powerful within his own country.

His Putin is within his. He has probably little jealous. He also is the cowardly bully. You know, he likes to pick it on the week. And maybe he doesn't realize how weak Putin actually is.

But there's this jealousy. I noticed this this morning. He posted this untreated social. He did another all night bleeding rant last night. Between like 11 and 2 a.m.

Like it doesn't process. We're concerned about his mental health. And he woke up and said he was God's chosen one again. And a different mean this morning. But this was on the caught mad this morning.

And a is very happy that I'm opening the straight of hormones. I'm doing it for them also in the world.

This situation will never happen again.

They've agreed not to send weapons to Iran. President, she will give me a big fat hug when I get there in a few weeks. We're working together. Doesn't that beat fighting.

“But remember we are very good at fighting.”

That's just all not true. I China is helping Iran. There's an F.T. reports this morning. Iran satellite images and that has helped Iran attack our bases in the Middle East. The straight is open to China.

We let their ships go through already over the weekend. And you know Trump threatened to tear off them for providing stuff to Iran. But there's now backing down of that. He's too scared. He doesn't want that big complication.

Right. He doesn't want to take on China and Russia.

And bond and feel tough. I think.

“Did you see the comment that Xi Jinping himself made yesterday?”

Oh, here we go. So this is Xi Jinping yesterday. Setting out propositions on safeguarding and promoting peace and stability in the Middle East. Number one, stake emitted to the principle of peaceful coexistence. Number two, stake emitted to the principle of national sovereignty.

Number three, stake emitted to the principle of international rule of view. Number four, stake emitted to a balance to approach to development and security. That is men's level trolling. It is absolute genius trolling. But what is doing?

This is the kind of really weird thing. I didn't invent this more than some British business people. Okay. And I asked this question a lot of events that I do. The question was we had those instant polling apps.

Which of the two superpowers is currently the greater threat to global stability? U.S.A. or China? It was 91 to 9. Okay. And that is from getting.

It's crazy. It's crazy. I think it's true.

“So who guys here in your pinstribes suits in your British accents and all the rest of it?”

You see, the U.S.A is a great threat to global stability. Then a country which is an out and out dictatorship that has no free press that suppresses so people that has got the wiggers in concentration camps that stills are intellectual property. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And the answer is, yeah.

Because this guy Trump is actually causing far more instability than China. He's unstable. He's chaotic. It's a weird thing to think about our domestic politics. He has a lot of supposed China hawks in the administration.

People who, you know, when you looked at the papers they put out for their security strategy and what the geopolitics were. So you know, it was, it was basically two things, right? It was like, we're going to care more about our hemisphere, the Don Road doctrine and do more to counter China decouple. But Trump is the opposite of that.

And Trump has done more to empower them and embolden them than any president since Nixon went there. Well, did you see the, the front cover the economist last week? I don't know if I did. Well, I was worried it looked like that. I see a lot of them.

They showed you. I love that you have the economist right there. So it's unbranded. It's rival effort. So there you go. Yeah.

Never interrupt your enemy when you know he's making a mistake.

I did see this. Oh, that is right. So that was Napoleon. That's Napoleon. But that is kind of what Xi Jinping is doing.

Trump is gifting. He's attacking his allies, left right in center. So like UK, France, Germany, Italy. He's working them left right in center. He's created mayhem for the Gulf.

These Gulf countries. I read a thing yesterday. Qatar's GDP, looking at a 14% drop. Okay. So these countries in the Gulf have created this sense of security,

stability, investment, tourism.

They're losing 600 million dollars a day at the moment in the Gulf.

Okay. How did they build that sense of stability? Through the, the close relationships with the United States. That was the key to it. And he has single-handedly blown up.

And then expects them just to still want to be his best friends. And if you take it to the Iranian guys, this is what's so kind of nutsville about the way the vans behaved at the weekend. Because he talks of the Iranians as though they're not really human beings. Just trying to put yourself in the mindset of a guy who's now the new eye

to be a man. So we don't have to like him to understand that he's been given quite an important job. He's clearly badly injured, which is why we haven't seen him. He's lost his dad. He's lost some of his kids.

He's lost his members of his family. Okay. And vans thinks he should just turn up and say, right, we've won. Therefore we get everything that we want us to do.

“And they think, no, that's why I was going to work.”

They don't understand the negotiation.

There's always another side.

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That's 15% off. One skin.co with code bull work. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell him we sent you. I was listening to talking to you show about the going back to those negotiations in Northern Ireland.

You had mentioned earlier and I'd just like how these processes usually work and like the value of the optics and the hand shake and how different. In addition to all the other ways in which JD Vance, the vice president going to Islamabad and having to call Donald Trump 12 times and PB a couple times. I guess where does that is?

“It also, they did nothing to kind of demonstrate any rapprochement to everybody else, right?”

We didn't see any pictures of it. We don't really know what it's happening. We don't know how the counter parties are. JD Vance has two people with business ties to the Middle East. This is two wingman, not any experts.

I mean, the contrast between how this stuff usually works is pretty stark. And that says to me that they weren't serious about it. They either don't know how to do this stuff. And I think there is a problem with, you can see every time Putin meets Wikov. I mean, it's like watching, it's like watching a baseball fan meet, you know, whoever, I don't follow baseball. Who's the most famous baseball player in the world right now?

It's like that. It's like, you know what I'm talking about? And I'm like traveling more, it's the Japanese guys and the Dodgers. I'm footballing. I'm a Japanese guy. You're going to do basketball, yeah. Okay. It's like a football fan who suddenly bumps into Cristiano Ronaldo. Right. Is that better? There you go.

Yeah, sure. Okay. I was like, that American football. And like Patrick Mahomes. But that's a good thing for you guys. That is not football. And by the way, I'm boycotting the World Cup as well. So that's another thing.

And I'm just, I've just read. He's not paying for it for you. I'm Trump turning it into kind of, you know, I nearly said Berlin, 1936. Oh, I did. So I think that the, where was it? Notice laughed.

What were you talking about? I just laughed at the Nazi comparison. Oh, you're talking about Wiccaf and Putin. You're talking about Wiccaf and Putin and this house.

“So how strange is the, as long as I've had no negotiation at this?”

And did you notice in the interview that we did with Zelensky? Zelensky saying that Wiccaf didn't want to see him. You know, he was going to see Putin and then he was going to see Putin. Then he went to see Putin. Then he saw Putin again. Then he saw Putin.

And they keep saying, "When was it? Was it after Alaska?" That Trump said there's going to be a tri-lateral meeting of the leaders? When has that happened? Yeah.

It's not happening because Putin doesn't want it to happen. This is what makes you think he's on his side. You know, because he does have a lot of leverage over Putin if he wants to use it. But he clearly doesn't want to use it. You know, Natto, that's a trigger.

Yeah, I've built Chris to on the podcast every Monday. So every once in a while I've got a needle hint about Iraq. So you're going to get it, too. The difference here is also just pretty stark. I'm going back to this view from Europe, right?

For all of whatever. Like the questions and anger that ends up doubling up both here and in Europe over the Iraq war. On the front end, everybody understood kind of why it was happening. Right? There was at least a period of time of the allies negotiating of explaining it to the public,

“of making the case for why it's important.”

And like none of that happened here. And so I'm just curious for your kind of perspective on like the comparing contrast from your time with Blair versus what we're seeing now. Let's just say, you know, the United Nations. One of the most extraordinary meetings I was ever at was at Camp David,

where George Bush was basically using Tony Blair to try to persuade Dick Cheney,

that it would be the right thing to do to try and take this thing down the United Nations route. Because Cheney didn't want to do that. Now, Cheney, who now not least because of his daughter and the lady's dead,

who called out Trump and Mavia.

But at the time, he was like a kind of, he was like a bogeyman for most Europeans. Well, it's because Cheney was a moderate, because he was for the rule of law, domestically, just not for the rule of law anywhere. Right. Okay.

That's the moderate. The point I was making though is that George Bush understood the broader political ramification. And he was, he was reluctant as well. He felt that America had the right to do it. But, yeah, if this guy Tony Blair is saying that the UN's important,

let's give it a go. And he gave it a go. Congress. Okay.

Congress now, that's all wonderful coming the other day.

Somebody said, I'm so glad that Congress isn't alive to see all this happening. Because it's like, you at least had a sense that Congress had a voice. And the president took the Congress voice seriously. To this day on social media, I get relentless grief about Iraq and so does Tony Blair. And, you know, that's fine.

But the point is that the reason why we get so much grief is because we were actually trying to share with the public, the intelligence that was making Tony Blair more concerned, not less. Okay. So we were trying to build an argument. And we put that argument to Parliament and Parliament voted in favor.

Now, I know that lots of the people who voted for it now say they wish they hadn't. And that's their right.

“But the point is that when you say in comparison contrast, I think those are the big ones to me.”

We went through the democratic institutions. We tried to engage and involve the United Nations. And we built an alliance. That was why people got so offended when Trump said the thing recently about, you know, "Oh, they'll say they sent a few troops, but they stayed back from the front line."

Because actually there were people from Australia, from Denmark, from different parts of Europe, and different parts of the world. So I think they're the big differences to me. Yeah, also, there are implications. This is why I just, I think that people are not prepared for the degree of popular unrest and upset. It's not over this, especially if it continues to go on.

Because of those cases of that work on the economics. Yeah, because A, number one, the case was at least made on the front end. Some people agreed to build a degree of Parliament voted for it, right?

“So there was at least a period of, I think the natural human reaction is okay.”

Let's give these guys a chance and then end up getting upset because it doesn't go well, right? In this case, they didn't even do that part. And the pain that they're going to feel is real. But if we're moved and closed during the Iraq War, right? I mean, there was obviously the troops that went there and there were ramifications or certainly ramifications here at home. But like the scale of the ramifications across the board among the European populace.

Because across the world, I was in France yesterday and this goes to me. So he's eating bills have got up doubled in seven weeks. In Ireland, they've got the police and the army dealing with protests over fuel shortages. Australia, the whole-aged companies are saying that they can, you know, they're going out of business because they can no longer afford the fuel. You had every single stock exchange in the Gulf the other day just going like that.

You know, I've all the many, many crazy mind-blowing things that have come out of Trump and Hexard and Vance's and Rubio's Mao's recently.

The one that really, really shocked me was when they basically seemed to say that they didn't,

every imagine that the Iranians would shot the streets of Hormuz. And then Trump the other day, Trump the other day came out and said, "You know, these guys have got no cards apart from the streets of Hormuz." Well, that's quite a big card. Yeah, maybe the East guy, maybe the East. And with the checkout with the world for the best conversion, that's right, the checkout with the world for the best conversion.

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I think there are any hawks over there who are like, "Hey, this is actually good. This was a real security threat for us. We should be helping more."

If there are, they're not shouting very loudly. I mean, it was interesting on the day that the war was launched. And Keestama came out and really upset Trump by saying, "You know, we're not involved in this." And both the leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi-Badenock and Nigel Ferrari's leader of reform UK, who's our kind of right-wing populist guy. They've died straight and insane. We've got to be alongside Trump. They have pulled back from that very, very, very, very quickly, because they realize there are so few people who think this is anything other than a mistake.

A catastrophic era.

Now, none of that is to say. And of course, what Trump does when he says it's a catastrophic era, as he's done with the Pope, is to come out and say he's pro-Iran.

Yeah, you're in it. You know, I'm not pro-Iran, I don't know being pro-Iran, but the reason why previous presidents who've been under the same pressure from the hawks to do something, cause do something about Iran, one of the reasons they've held back is because they did think they might play the strengths of all those cards, and it would have a massive effect on the global economy. But you get the feeling with the Trump that, you know, I remember talking a while back to Michael Wolff and he said, "Listen, the thing you've got to understand about Trump is he's not a conventional politician like you and I might be used to.

“He's always a reality TV star and every day has to be a new story. And I think that's the only way you can think of him, because every day is a new story.”

And when this story is not going well, he invents another plot line. So things are going badly other than I know what I'll do. I'll do a tweet basically saying, "I'm Jesus, that I'll get them talking about something else." And the way he goes, and that's the story for the next half-new cycle, and some of the else. It's no way to run a country. On the question of decoupling, I was talking to Michael Weiss about this yesterday, and you know, the Europeans obviously this was, you know, kind of almost a ridiculous suggestion in the Trump first term, the idea that maybe they'd be better off going at it without as much

cooperation or alliance relationship with America, now that conversation is bubbling up a lot more. Is it even possible? It does Europe have the economic capability to go at more alone. How are those conversations going? Well, where you're right is that the conversations are happening. Even in Germany, I mean, Chancellor Merz, he's a pretty traditional conservative sort of figure,

and Merkel always used to say the three fundamental pillars of her foreign policy. You never attack Israel because of her history.

You always stay close to the United States and we're a proud, you know, member of the European Union. And I would say that two of those are praying somewhat in the German public debate. Chancellor Merz has actually been quite a critical of Trump on several fronts in recent days.

“So I think what people are seeing is that this guy is just not reliable.”

They have to try to keep things as calm as they possibly can for the reasons that I mentioned. But I think that that debate is being had. And to me, the most interesting part of the chat we had with Zelensky last week was when he said that he wanted Ukraine, UK, Turkey and Norway, all to join the European Union the same day. And for the European Union to become a kind of military alliance, as well as an economic alliance because, you know, Turkey and Norway and us and Ukraine, maybe more military have than some of the other European countries.

Are we sure we want Turkey? Well, it's a big thing, isn't it? It's a big thing. I mean, look, Turkey is a member of NATO.

“So, Turkey is in NATO. I know. That's a concern, I think. It's on that I mean, NATO might already be a walking corpse, but an Israel Turkey conflict, which seems probably likely.”

Eventually, it might be the death now, other. Listen, Turkey is definitely one of those countries that has got a lot more half than it did. And the question is where you want to see that half being used. I think the point that Zelensky was making is that Europe does have a lot of military clout, but it doesn't organize itself well. And European defence is very, you know, it's chaotic. You guys have, you know, because it's the United States of America, you've got very kind of simple procurement systems.

We've got very, very complicated procurement systems country by country. Crazy. We've got a lot of information about our country. We've got a lot of information about our country. We've got a lot of information about our country. We've got a lot of information about our country. We've got a lot of information about our country.

We've got a lot of information about our country. We've got a lot of information about our country.

We've got a lot of information about our country. We've got a lot of information about our country. This is where my old former Republican element comes in thinking about the European red tape and regulation and stagnation. This was just start with the UK first. You guys are a mess economically even before Donald Trump caused an energy crisis. I saw a chart of the other day. It said, Poland was going to pass the UK and GDP per capita. Coming up here in about the next 10 years. That's not a great sign.

“What can be done to reverse that? And I think that as much as the military, you know, strength is an issue for Europe, you know, having that economic base that we have here.”

You know, that's something that is a problem in UK but also across the EU. Okay. Well, I can push back and let's imagine you're still a Republican. Okay. Yeah. I can argue that some of the reasons why can I be a Tory. Sure. I have to be a Republican. You're not Tory. You're not Tory.

And so basically what you people did. So we went through the global financial crisis, right? And the conservative response was austerity.

And that was a big driver of inequality. And basically the message to the people was, the guys who caused this global financial crisis, we're going to bail them out. Right. But we're not helping you much. You're going to pay a big price. Okay. And that in part led to Brexit. Brexit was driven by the right by Chaboris Johnson, Nigel Farage. These people who told the public, you've only leave the European Union. One of the reasons we're not in strong shape as we should be is because Brexit has taken a gigantic chunk out of our GDP.

Some people say five percent, some people say eight percent. Whatever they say, it's not insignificant.

Okay. Then we had COVID and we didn't come out of COVID well. We had a total of Charlottes and Trump's friend Boris Johnson as Prime Minister at the time.

So we've had these kind of these shocks. Then you claim war. And we just haven't come through them well. Now I would argue, you're still a Tory. I'm still Labour. Go back to the sorts of levels of investment that we were getting into the economy when Tony Blair then Gordon Brown were in charge.

“And I think that's just a far better approach. Hard to do now because the pressures on the public finance are so, so great.”

But I still think Europe could become much, much, much more competitive than it is. If it actually followed, some of the policies and the initiatives that it's been trying to promote for the last god knows how long. Okay. If I have my Tory hat back on, I would say, hey, look, there are a lot of these business guys. And the pinstripes suits you're talking about. They don't wear as fancy look in suits in America. A lot of times they're stopped wearing suits altogether. And they're like hoodies and stuff.

But these guys, to be fair, a lot of us, yeah, a lot of these guys. Yeah, at least some of them have thrown in with Trump, of course. There's another category that's quiet right now. And they're looking at American instability. And they're saying the same thing that the British business men are. And they're like, you know, maybe I should diversify. Maybe we should be putting, you know, another office or another plant or another whatever in a European country.

And they're helped back from doing that because of the red tape and the hassle and the fucking rules. Yeah, but listen, you know, and maybe this could be a moment for Europe to say, hey, we're going to bring in a lot of investments into Europe because the Americans are so fucked. And so maybe we should relax some of our, some of the European nonsense. Well, I think the nonsense is overstated. I think the Magarite have created a massive industry on saying that, for example, London is a complete hellhole.

And it's a basket case and Europe, you can't cross the road without getting permission from an official lawless or nonsense. Europe is, I would argue, particularly now, but I would argue, even without Trump. Europe is a better place than United States for America. I'm sorry to break that to you, but it's more beautiful. It's more, it's more cultured. You don't even have dryers. How do you dry your clothes? You're still using a hang-in line for drying your clothes.

Don't put. We don't put ice in the drinks. Sorry. I would argue anything you want about Europe. Europe is Europe greater than you say. Okay. Where you're doing really, really well is enough like tech.

“And, you know, yeah, great. If you want to have Elon Musk running your economy and you want him to be completely free of any sort of regulatory oversight, then fine.”

But I think what you're fine, I saw Kirsta Armouristly and he did agree with the point you just made that we are over-regulated.

The fact is, let me give you another thing, our food is better than yours.

Because we do have higher standards of what you can put into it. Yes, in Britain. Listen, don't give you that Republican-looking face either. Come on. I was in Manchester last year and it was hard to find a good meal. It was hard to find a good meal.

I could have given you some good restaurants in Manchester. I really good. Listen, London has got better restaurants than Paris now. No doubt about it. No doubt about it. But my point is, my point is that what you call these Brussels rules and regulations, they're not all bad, they're not all bad. What sometimes happens is there are too many of them and they put people off. But you see, why has the Magarite got this massive campaign going on to project a picture of Europe as a basketball case?

Because they want Europe to fail. Because they see Europe as a potential big competitor.

“And that's how Europe has to start thinking of yourself as a big potential competitor.”

I agree with that. And I do like to tease. And we do have a lot better fresh fruits and veggies here than that. We'll take cabbages together eating. So, with all your GMO stuff, the pump them up and the straw is the size of hell. We've got the papaya rugelow over here.

But the Magarite, they're full of shit on the crime stuff, on the migration crisis. I'm with you on that. On the economic part, though, it is just true. Like we have a real affordability crisis here that has come to a head. And it's nowhere in America as it is bad as London. And I have friends from study abroad who are from London who are middle class, upper middle class.

They're like really struggling to afford housing there, young families. It's a real, that's not fake. The affordability problem in the UK and other European capitals is major. But I'm not denying that there is a problem. The cost of living crisis is real for a lot of people.

But I would still argue that if you walk around London or Manchester or any of our big cities, you're going to see fewer people living on the streets than you do in the United States. You're going to get better health care, you're going to get better health care if you fall ill.

“So this, you know, you can pick and choose where I think there is no doubt at all.”

Is that on the innovation front, you guys are just a lot better. There's no doubt about that and universities are plugged into that. Our universities are struggling, some of them, financially. So I'm not denying that Manchester was rejuvenated, I should say. We should shout out Manchester, I was picking on them for the food.

It was kind of nice, but part of it was because London is so expensive. I think a lot of people are moving there. It seems like I'm asking a lot of girls, but it is nice. Manchester's got a lot of energy, a lot of energy and a lot of good restaurants. I'm just surprised you didn't.

You look at an intelligent guy, he probably just didn't look around enough for restaurants. He's done the OAS this guy. I was mostly focused on the pubs. Oh, is that what you were talking about? That's right.

What's your favourite OAS you saw? Ooh, probably little by little. Maybe important to being idle and like they didn't play that one. Rock and stone. Live forever.

Live forever. Live forever. Live forever is pretty good, yeah. And on the cultural front, when you're a bigger country than we are, I think we beat you, culture as well.

I will say it was the Hungarian first thing in Queen when in the streets after they beat Orban.

And so that's not nothing. Here's my question though, I guess the serious part of this. I'm part of the reason why I'm concerned about this is, you know, because if America is unraveling, we need Europe to be strong. And I looked at this poll, you know, it was a collection of polls of kind of the G7 leaders and their popularity.

And we've been feeling pretty good here at the bulwark in the Trump slide in the polls. You know, his numbers are going down, going down, getting worse every day. I felt a little less good when I looked at the comparison to Europe. Trump is minus 19 right now in favour of unfaith. Starmer minus 51, Macron minus 52, mirrors minus 54.

“Yeah, what has happened? Why are they also in Partial?”

It's really hard to, I honestly don't know, because I think there's something really weird about it. I mean, Kierstheimer's, look, he's not Barack Obama. He's not Bill Clinton, he's not McGandey, but he's not a terrible human being. And he's actually on this kind of Iran thing. He's done a pretty good job in very difficult circumstances.

I think partly what's going on is that people's lives are not getting better at the pace that they expect them to.

And you know, if you, if you win an election on a Monday of change and the first big change you make is taking,

And then you get into some of the kind of, you know, the sense that all you're doing is kind of this foreign policy stuff and people are thinking, well, what about a home and, well, have you? But Macron's a really interesting example, because I, I help Macron and his despite him being, you know, a bit to the right,

but I wanted him to win his first term and I helped him in his first election campaign.

“And I think the guy's unbelievably clever and an extraordinary politician in many ways, okay?”

But the French haven, the French absolutely hate him. Marx is an interesting one because he's literally just being elected to what it says to me is that a lot of people now, it's not just the leaders that they don't like, they don't like politics at all. They don't like any politician. So if you're the prime minister or the chancellor or the president, you're the one who's going to copy because you're the one who's on TV the whole time.

And my message to them all when I see them and speak to them is you've just got to keep going, you've just got to keep going. And you've got to trust in the end that because this isn't just about you, it's about people hating politics. Change politics. Change the way you do politics. What they're going to make you are in, in Hungary's shown is, I mean, he fought a very old-fashioned campaign, you know.

He had no access to the media, you know, did his first ever state TV interview last night because he wasn't allowed on the state TV.

He just went round village to village town to town campaign campaign campaign, persuading people. And I think we've got totally wrapped up in the idea that everything has to be on truth-social, social media, on the television. People are turning away from that big time.

“You can do a lot more now, I think, with much more old-fashioned sort of campaigning.”

That to me is the lesson from magia. Any other lessons? I mean, obviously, you guys are dealing with this and UK, I think there's some good signs that we've seen a little bit of the popular way of abating some places, but maybe it's rising again in Britain with reform. But these forces are still happening everywhere. 100% of this will help me, but I think this could be my over optimistic nature, which isn't something I normally feel, but I think we've gone through peak reform. Other lessons, I think, from magia, one is, and this is definitely a lesson for the Democrats, by the way.

He didn't fall into any of the traps that Orban laid. Orban wanted him to come out and say, "Let's make it all about LGBT." Yeah. And he didn't.

And it's not that he's anti.

Yeah. It's just that he wasn't going to fall into a trap. He was going to keep focusing on the things that he knew really were motivating people. And I'll say, "I've just done a many series on the podcast with a labor MP, guy called Liam Bern, he's written a book, called Why the Populists of winning and how we can defeat them."

“A one of the lessons that he has in the book, which magia definitely showed, is you have to listen to the people who say they hate you.”

You have to understand what has happened. Yeah. That Kear Starmer has gone from a landslide win to the sort of ratings that you just outlined. And to people that you meet the whole time saying, "I hate that guy." You've got to try and find out what it's about.

And it's not in the end. Personal is because they don't like the link between the lack of a link between politics and their lives. So fix it. Yeah. They don't think the people are listening to their concerns.

No, exactly. I'm totally with you on that. The one other good thing about the magia victory, which we can both just celebrate, is that some of our enemies and our relative domestic politics are no longer going to be receiving money from the Hungarian taxpayers. Well, I was dying, but on day one, he went out and was like, "By the way, match lap." That sex past for America was getting cash from the American taxpayers.

But after that, I assume that some of your guys were getting it too. That's going to be happening. And again, I think people, this is what's happening with Malkani. People respond to a sense of courage. So magia are coming out.

Magia had a meeting with the president of Hungary. This is so good. He had the meeting, because he's the president. He's the head of state. And he has to sort of anoint him as Prime Minister.

Because that's his kind of constitutional function. And magia was straightened there. And says, "You're a lot fit to do this job." You know, as soon as I leave here, people who spat you to resign. You'll see what happens.

But so, I'd like to say, with Karni, Karni has shown real courage. When Karni went to Davos, knowing that Trump was there, and said, "Made that speech." Saying that Trump was there, and said, "Made that speech." Saying, "This is not a transition. It's a rupture." That was a big bold thing to do.

So people respond to boldness. The thing you've got to learn from Trump is that people do want the big bold right colours. But they just want them to be related to their values. The reason I think that Trump, I mean, you tell me you're in the States. Look at the polling, you see it, it feels like Trump is on the slide, and vants and people on the slide.

you know, what have you got?

“So I think we're seeing kind of, we're in a kind of emperor no clothes setting now.”

I think that's right. But I was hoping again for something at the end besides emperor for no clothes. I think that's about J.D. Dancer's a mingo, or a mingo. A mingo, a mingo, a mingo, a mingo. A mingo, a mingo, a mingo just means ugly.

Yeah, well J.D. has a recessed side profile, and he's obese. I came up with a good one. I got a lot of flat, but I did say, I called advanced, so I said he's an ozemprick. Do you like that? Yeah, he's a prick.

Great, and it's quite clear how he's become so thin. So I thought ozemprick was quite clear. Yeah, yeah. It's quite clear. I feel bad I've let you down though, not having sort of witty.

No, this is pretty good. I learned a couple new ones. I already feel good. I'll sleep it. Sleep it. Sleep it.

It's a very harsh doubly in the middle.

Sleep it. Sleep it. Sleep it. That's good. He shows the rest as politics.

“It's you and like another, it's kind of like a me type figure, right?”

Like a former Tory. He's an ex-tory minister. And part of the dynamic of the podcast is I'm trying to bring him over much more to the left. But are you winning?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so. But it's very hard. It's hard to be a Tory. Reality is kind of setting in.

It's kind of the problem for those of us, formerly on the right, you know, a reality is working out in your favor. Give it your all.

You'll feel a little happy.

I think you should come right over. Right over. You know, come right over. Yeah, be like, you know, really left wing. Labor.

You have a lot of parties though. Couldn't I stop at the Lib Dems? Couldn't I take a quick pit stop at the Lib Dems? You could do, but we wouldn't take too seriously. Could do that.

Okay. And don't worry. I think you should be a labor. I think you look to me like a labor kind of guy. All the way to labor.

I mean, I like, I guess I am labor kind of, because I like here's some are better than most breads. I think. What do you want? What do you like about him?

Steady. He's steady. Yeah, I look. I mean, he's steady. I wish.

I've very expressed my complaints. Like I wish that there would be a little bit more economic dynamism. I understand, I don't live in London. So I understand people are upset. You know, that, you know, if you're losing benefits right now,

but part of the reason is because there's no economic. There's not enough economic growth to create wealth. You know, and you can only, you know, pass around so much money. But besides that, I want to be so mad about. And the other options are horrible.

Yeah. I'm I'm very much motivated by, you know, negative partisanship. Yeah. If it's like, if my options are there, the Greens or Farage. Then it's like, okay, well, cheers.

Starbucks seems fine to me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let me go, whatever. That's good.

Yeah.

“I think we should get you should bring your message to UK.”

Go and tour. All right. Send me a hat. Uh, we'll see you next time. The next time.

This is on tour. I'll come over and we'll do a show as well. Excellent. That'd be great. That'd be great.

It's been a lovely show. I'm sorry. I haven't come out. I'm going to go away now. Which he phrases are going to come into my head and the flying off.

You did wonderful. It's the rest of the project. You can check out Roy and Alistair there. And we'll be back tomorrow with one of our old friends. Looking forward to it.

We'll see you all then. Peace. The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Loots and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.