2:00

from the Barbadan coast, just off the coast of

2:02

the North American continent. Exactly. I was on

2:04

the other side of the Atlantic, is the

2:06

important thing. And you pointing out it was

2:08

Barbados is neither here nor there if I

2:10

may say so. I mean, the same palm

2:12

trees that you might have got in the

2:14

Florida Keys. Exactly. Or anywhere

2:16

else on the mainland continent.

2:18

Exactly. Exactly. There are a couple of

2:21

reasons that Donald Trump is talking about

2:23

faith right now. One is a really obvious

2:25

one, which is that we're five weeks away

2:28

from the Iowa caucuses. And Iowa

2:30

is the place that begins the

2:32

whole election calendar for a presidential

2:34

year, as you probably know. But

2:36

it's also a place that has

2:38

a large number of independent voters

2:41

and a large number of

2:43

evangelical voters. Famously, they do

2:45

the evangelical breakfast with their

2:47

politicians. And every politician has

2:49

to assume a mantle of sort of

2:51

evangelical faith to get in with the

2:54

base there. I think there's also a

2:56

secondary position, which is that Donald Trump

2:59

is now looking at a base that is

3:01

much more disparate than I think it was in 2016

3:03

or 2020. I don't mean

3:07

within the Republican Party, I mean the

3:09

wider electorate. But the one

3:11

base that seems to still be sticking

3:13

with him is the most

3:15

unlikely base of all, the evangelicals, because

3:18

they are the people who can

3:20

point to the fact that he

3:22

actually did deliver what he promised

3:24

the Supreme Court, the three judges

3:26

and the overturning of Roe v.

3:28

Wade. Ironically, the overturning of

3:31

Roe v. Wade may turn out to be the

3:33

biggest milestone around the Republicans next.

3:35

But the evangelicals are

3:38

quite willing still, it seems, to give

3:40

Trump another go, because

3:42

yeah, he did what he promised.

3:45

And I think the next version of Trump we

3:48

see will be going an awful

3:50

lot further in an awful lot

3:52

more areas. So the

3:54

Bible Belt in Iowa and some of

3:56

the other states in the US is

3:58

a really important constituency. We

4:00

have no equivalent in the UK

4:03

at all. But you know,

4:05

talking about abortion, family values, all

4:07

of those sort of things are

4:09

central. And here you

4:11

have Donald Trump, who's got five children

4:14

from three separate marriages who...

4:17

Yeah, not five children because they're Catholics. Let's just...

4:20

No, no, no, no. Because he got through

4:22

the wives. He got through the wives. I

4:24

mean, I remember being in Israel and Netanyahu

4:26

introduced Donald Trump and Melania, and

4:28

said, Donald Trump and the first wife,

4:30

Melania. No, she was the third wife.

4:32

Could be the first lady, but not

4:34

the first wife. And it was one

4:36

of those hilarious moments. It was a

4:39

complete slip of the tongue by Netanyahu

4:41

introducing Trump in that way. And so

4:43

Trump has somehow managed to corner the

4:45

market in evangelicals. Now, in Iowa, of

4:47

course, he didn't win. There was Ted

4:49

Cruz, who won in 2016. So

4:53

Trump didn't take it then, but it's looking like

4:55

he's going to win by a country mile this

4:57

time around. Even if he was up there. If he was

4:59

up there. And you've got other people like Rhonda Santis visiting

5:01

all 61 counties in Iowa

5:03

to kind of try to shore up

5:05

his position, and Nitti Kaylee moving in

5:07

into second place. But Donald Trump looks

5:10

like he is safe with that vote.

5:12

And it's always been the most incongruous

5:14

partnership ever, you know, that Donald Trump

5:16

turns up at a prayer breakfast and

5:19

doesn't really quite know what

5:22

to do, what to say. But can do

5:24

a good imitation of Jesus. Yeah, exactly. And

5:26

knows exactly how Jesus would vote if Jesus

5:28

had in Illinois, in Illinois and New York

5:31

and everywhere else for that matter. You know,

5:33

and that sort of stuff. Donald Trump is

5:35

the cheeky chappy who gets away with all

5:37

of that and still does. And the group

5:39

that has stayed solid to him are

5:42

the evangelicals. And even those who've

5:44

peeled away from him have found

5:46

hellfire and brimstone coming down on them for

5:48

having done so. And it's not easy because

5:51

there are a few evangelical groups and

5:53

newspapers that have moved away from Trump. And

5:55

they have found themselves absolutely vilified for having

5:57

done that. And it's interesting you talk about the cheeky chappy.

6:00

Trump because yeah you can be kind of

6:03

tongue-in-cheek when he's talking about the

6:05

stuff on the rallies to do with

6:07

polls and how God would vote and all

6:09

the rest of it but actually there's

6:11

a really sinister side that we're

6:13

starting to see all in brackets

6:16

to remember now about

6:18

Trump and that comes from his

6:20

laying out the foundations the groundwork

6:22

for how he would behave in

6:24

office in a second term and

6:27

I think it's really worth us

6:29

spending a bit of time on

6:32

this because there

6:34

are no secrets in

6:36

terms of what he's actually saying

6:38

he's telling us he'll be more

6:40

authoritarian he's reminding us that he

6:43

doesn't believe the last election result

6:45

and wants to in quotation marks stop

6:47

them from doing it again ie

6:49

there is no backing down

6:51

on his claim his erroneous

6:53

claim to have one last time round

6:56

and even further than that he's now

6:58

trying to cast Joe Biden as

7:01

the guy who doesn't believe

7:03

in democracy this is what

7:05

it sounds like when Trump reimagines reality projects

7:07

the things that are leveled at

7:09

him at his opposite

7:12

number firstly about democracy

7:14

we've been waging an all-out

7:17

war in American democracy then about

7:19

corrupt practices so if Crooked Joe

7:21

wants to turn this election into

7:23

a question of which candidate will

7:25

defend our democracy and freedom then

7:27

I say bring it on let's

7:29

go Joe bring it on because

7:32

you are a corrupt person you're

7:34

the most corrupt president in our

7:36

history and by the way the

7:38

most incompetent president in our history

7:40

and then actually inciting

7:42

violence on Election Day so

7:45

the most important part of what's coming up

7:47

is to guard the vote and

7:49

you should go into Detroit and you

7:51

should go into Philadelphia and you should

7:53

go into some of these places Atlanta

7:56

and you should go into some of these places and

7:58

we gotta watch those votes when they come and they're

8:01

being shoved around in

8:03

wheelbarrows and dumped on the floor and

8:05

everyone's saying what's going on? We're like

8:07

a third world nation, a

8:09

third world nation and we can't let it

8:12

happen. I've always thought this about

8:14

Donald Trump that sometimes what he accuses

8:16

other people of is

8:18

when he's describing himself. It

8:20

sounds like he's taking the piss, doesn't it? It's

8:22

bold to the point of

8:24

outrageous. But what he's

8:26

also doing is he's saying that 24,

8:29

if the Democrats win, it's an even

8:32

greater hellscape than the one he envisaged

8:34

in his inauguration speech back in 2017

8:36

when he stood there

8:39

and talked about this kind of American

8:41

nightmare. And it was just all grim

8:43

and dark and black. And he's painting

8:46

it even blacker, the

8:48

America of today and saying that

8:50

he is the only savior of democracy.

8:52

And he's talking about going after the

8:54

Justice Department, anyone who went after him,

8:57

he's going to go after them. He's

8:59

talking about Mark Milley, the former most

9:01

senior military guy, the chairman of the

9:03

Joint Chiefs, that he should probably be

9:06

hanged for what he did.

9:08

And there is retribution, political on the

9:10

agenda for the next election is Donald

9:12

Trump and he's making no bones about

9:14

it and what he's not going to

9:17

do, he's not going to allow himself

9:19

to be trapped by the so-called grown

9:21

ups that were in the White House

9:23

when he moved in after the 2016 election victory.

9:26

All those people are going to be swept

9:29

aside. Donald Trump is going to have like-minded

9:31

people who are going to be pulling the

9:33

strings, who are drawing up the agenda and

9:35

who are going to deliver what Donald Trump

9:38

wants. And it's a much smaller group this

9:40

time around. The group that surrounded him in

9:42

2016 and 2020 was quite

9:44

wide, was quite disparate. This

9:47

time it's a very small group because they

9:49

have all worked out that they actually get

9:51

jobs, they get placements in the White House

9:53

if they can see it through. I

9:56

just want to bring in a piece of writing by

9:58

Jan Werner Muller. He's a

10:01

Princeton professor and

10:03

he has been comparing what Trump

10:05

is saying he's going to do

10:07

with what authoritarian leaders in both

10:10

Hungary and Poland have done when

10:12

they return to power. We're talking

10:14

about Orban and Kaczynski and he

10:16

says they carefully hid their authoritarian

10:19

plans when they were trying to rebid.

10:22

Trump by contrast is broadcasting

10:24

everything in advance and

10:26

he makes the point and I

10:28

think this is really interesting actually

10:30

that they don't need to waste

10:32

political capital on culture wars instead.

10:35

You just get in there and you

10:37

capture state institutions. He says ideally

10:40

on day one the judiciary, the state

10:42

bureaucracy as primary targets. He says once

10:44

you control the judges you can go

10:46

off to the journalists, the teachers, the

10:48

academics and forever wage culture war to

10:50

your heart's content. And actually

10:52

that sounds apocalyptic and it sounds like

10:54

somebody who's a Democrat who might be coming at

10:57

it as if to say, oh it's all going

10:59

to be terrible if Trump gets in. No, this

11:01

is what Trump has already told us

11:03

that he's going to do. He doesn't

11:05

believe in the judiciary. He doesn't believe

11:08

in the kind of decisions that the

11:10

judges are making. He's already called special

11:12

counsel, Jack Smith, part of a witch

11:14

hunt. He's talked about cutting the civil

11:17

service. He's talked about depoliticizing, which doesn't

11:19

really mean de-politicizing. It means politicizing, presumably

11:21

in his own image. And

11:23

I think it's really important. Do

11:25

you remember that line people used to say about Trump,

11:27

take him seriously but not

11:30

literally? I think to

11:32

some extent you actually should

11:34

start taking him quite literally. When

11:37

he says that these are the replacements he's going to

11:39

make, why wouldn't you believe him given what

11:41

you've seen already on January the 6th? Well

11:43

look, anyone who's done US politics

11:45

at A level or done a

11:47

course at university knows the basis

11:49

of the US Constitution is the

11:51

three co-equal branches of government, the

11:53

executive, the legislature and the judiciary.

11:56

Donald Trump has got the judiciary on

11:59

the Supreme Court. He's got a 6-3 majority,

12:01

essentially, as a result of the three conservatives

12:03

he's appointed there. We have seen

12:06

what happens with the legislature when

12:08

they voted, the Republicans in the

12:10

House of Representatives, a majority of

12:13

them voted against certifying Joe Biden's

12:15

victory. Yeah, a majority. To say

12:18

that again. A majority voted against,

12:20

even though there was no evidence,

12:23

even though there had been 60-plus court

12:26

cases and Donald Trump had lost the

12:28

whole bloody lot, they still voted against

12:30

certifying Joe Biden as the legitimate victor

12:32

of the 2020 election. So

12:35

he's got the judiciary, he's got the legislature,

12:37

the executive is going to be packed full

12:39

of people that he has appointed and who

12:41

he knows will do his bidding. It

12:44

is going to be a very different presidency

12:46

in 2024, and

12:48

it is no wonder that in the

12:50

Western world people are worried, anxious,

12:53

what does it mean for Ukraine, what does

12:55

it mean for NATO, but also

12:57

at the same time you have got ambassadors,

12:59

and I know this for a fact, from

13:01

Europe who are trying to cosy back up

13:04

to the Trump campaign because they would be mad

13:06

meat, because they are trying

13:08

to influence this, because they don't

13:11

know what might happen in

13:13

2025 if Donald Trump has got the

13:15

keys back to the White House. Doesn't

13:17

it beg this really important question though?

13:20

I mean, I feel it's the one that we ask

13:23

the whole time, which is how

13:26

is the party, how is the country

13:28

allowing this to happen again, knowing

13:31

what he wants to do

13:33

next? Well, I

13:35

suppose your interview last week with Sean Spicer,

13:38

which I was listening to from the other side of the

13:40

Atlantic, which was a pretty feisty affair, and he was trying

13:43

to say to you, you other

13:45

people, you journalists, people like us,

13:47

are the ones that have corrupted

13:49

political debate and have turned people

13:51

off and polluted the

13:54

body politic. And you think, we're just

13:56

trying to hold people to account in the way

13:58

that journalists have always done. We've got no

14:00

particular agenda on this and we kind of

14:02

broadly speaking believe in the tenets of democracy,

14:04

the rule of law, peaceful transfer of power.

14:07

It was Donald Trump who didn't believe in the

14:09

peaceful transfer of power. It was Donald Trump who

14:11

tried to subvert the election result on January the

14:13

6th with the mob that then invaded. And

14:16

interestingly there was a kind of ruling last

14:18

week which said that Donald Trump can be

14:20

sued for what happened on January the 6th

14:23

which is a huge ruling which we should

14:25

watch in the coming weeks to see whether

14:27

that gets appealed and what happens to that.

14:30

But I think the answer is that

14:32

there is a majority of

14:34

Americans who don't want that. And

14:37

I genuinely believe that if you look at the

14:40

groups that voted for Trump in 2016 but didn't

14:42

vote for him in 2020, I

14:44

still think they'd have the same reservations in 2024. But

14:48

it's Donald Trump against Joe Biden. So

14:50

many people think I don't want

14:53

Trump but even less do I

14:55

want Joe Biden who is so old

14:57

and so enfeebled seemingly and so

15:00

slow and Biden is a drag

15:02

anchor. Yeah and we're going to

15:04

talk about that in a moment after the

15:06

break with Matthew Barzan who used

15:09

to live here was the US

15:11

ambassador to London and we're going

15:13

to be asking about the Democrats'

15:15

communication strategy. Is it Biden?

15:18

Is it their inability to tell a good

15:20

economic story? Or is the

15:23

economic story not actually that good

15:25

for most Americans? The

15:28

News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis

15:30

and John Sople. The

15:35

News Agents USA. Well

15:38

we are joined in the studio by

15:41

Matthew Barzan, the former US ambassador to

15:43

the UK when Barack Obama was president.

15:45

He's currently the chair and publisher of

15:47

Tortoise Media and author of The Power

15:50

of Giving Away Power. Thank

15:52

you all for having me. We want to talk

15:54

a little bit I think about the position

15:56

that Joe Biden finds himself in now which

15:59

is on the one hand. and steaming

16:01

ahead, winning these

16:04

sort of off-year elections, seeing

16:06

the Democrats flourish in places like your

16:08

home state of Kentucky or

16:11

Ohio or Virginia in

16:14

the recent November governor elections and

16:16

all the rest of it. And

16:18

on the other hand, there is this

16:20

narrative that is growing up that Joe

16:23

Biden is bad for America's economy,

16:25

bad for foreign wars, and

16:28

people want to go back to the way it

16:30

used to be, that Donald Trump really managed to

16:32

keep the gas prices low and

16:35

the grocery stores cheap. What

16:37

do you do with that? You

16:39

know, I do think he's had... Well,

16:41

there's so many different parts of your question

16:44

there. I mean, look, I think he

16:47

and his team are doing their best to try

16:49

to get the message out, but what you do

16:51

know better than many is,

16:53

and we often term it the

16:55

echo chamber, which is sort of

16:57

what it sounds like when you're within your own

16:59

tribe's echo chamber.

17:02

But what's also true about an echo chamber

17:04

is that the other team's message doesn't get

17:06

in. And so that

17:08

I think is a challenge for Biden's team,

17:10

trying to get the message out. So

17:12

I think that's hard. And

17:15

I think, you know, he always

17:17

has this great phrase that he said when he was

17:19

vice president, and I think he got it from his

17:21

father, you must have heard it. But he said, please

17:24

don't compare me to the Almighty, compare

17:26

me to the alternative. And

17:28

that was sort of like a jokey laugh line. But it's

17:30

not a joke. I mean, it's really serious. But the trouble

17:32

is, people are. They are.

17:35

And they're saying, actually, the alternative might

17:38

not be so bad. We'll see. We're

17:40

not saying the whole of America, but we're saying that there

17:42

are people who do not credit

17:44

Joe Biden with turning

17:46

the economy around. It's

17:49

true. I mean, I'm reminded it was 10 years

17:51

ago-ish, you know, a few months

17:53

ago that I arrived here in London to serve

17:55

as ambassador. And it was three

17:58

years after the passage. of

18:00

the Affordable Care Act, which was

18:02

called Obamacare first as an insult and then

18:04

it was sort of embraced by the Obama

18:07

administration as, sure, you can call it Obamacare.

18:10

This was an attempt to have

18:12

fewer Americans be one bad medical

18:14

visit from bankruptcy. And

18:17

so that passed and it was very hard to pass. And

18:19

then there was this challenge that the Obama administration had of

18:21

trying to get the word out about it. And

18:23

I remember in Kentucky where you mentioned where I

18:25

live, they would do polls or they would do

18:28

person on the street interviews, the press would do it.

18:31

What do you think of Obamacare? And it's a very conservative state

18:33

and you would get, I don't know, 80% of people saying hate

18:36

it. And then they'd say, well, what

18:38

do you think of Kentucky Connect, which was Obamacare in

18:40

Kentucky? But great, lovely.

18:42

First time I've been able to buy insurance. But

18:45

so if it's a problem of communication that

18:47

Biden is suffering, I mean, he's got to

18:50

use the Teddy Roosevelt phrase, the bully pulpit,

18:52

he can stand there, he can command the

18:54

audience, he can bring the audience in, he

18:56

can get air time whenever he wants it.

18:59

And yet he seems to be failing to

19:01

get that message over. But I

19:03

mean, communication is a two way street. It's not

19:05

like it's a broadcast thing, you say things and

19:08

then people absorb it. And so I think when

19:10

you step back and you look at the, I

19:12

mean, look where we are now, look at the

19:14

new ways that people are having

19:16

discussions, pulling news and analysis into

19:18

their lives. It's changed a

19:21

lot. Well, let's all get in a

19:23

simpler way then, Matthew. Do you think Joe

19:25

Biden is doing a good enough

19:27

job at telling people about

19:29

the achievements of the last three years? Yes.

19:33

But I think the value

19:35

of telling people things is

19:37

greatly misunderstood and overvalued. And

19:40

there's a little gimmick I used to do when I was

19:42

here in the UK, and I would do it with sort

19:44

of six form college age young adults, but you can do

19:46

it with grownups, ask 100 people, hey, quick show of hands,

19:48

how many people here like to lose an argument? And

19:52

nobody raises their hands. And it's like,

19:54

and we put so much effort thinking

19:56

that we are in whoever we might

19:58

be, diplomats, politicians, elected officials. journalists

20:01

trying to win arguments. And

20:03

I think it's really bad math and not the right way

20:05

to think about it because no one likes losing them. So

20:08

you're really not in the argument winning business. So

20:11

President Obama was criticized at not being able to get

20:13

his message out as we talked about around health care.

20:15

He's a gifted communicator.

20:18

But I think he at his most

20:20

powerful it wasn't him telling the American

20:22

people anything. It was him asking people

20:24

what their hopes and fears were, really

20:27

listening to them, and then trying

20:29

to find the overlap of his own hopes and fears

20:31

and what he planned to with their help do about

20:33

it. And that's a different

20:35

way of framing it as a communications

20:38

problem. So when

20:41

you look at the New York Times and they

20:43

have a poll from six swing states, five

20:45

of them showed Donald Trump ahead.

20:48

Only Wisconsin narrowly is Biden ahead.

20:51

Does it cause you heart failure, palpitations, or do you

20:53

think, ah, it's a long way out, who cares? Well,

20:58

in a different time, I might be able

21:00

to say who cares. But I really care.

21:02

And I think anyone, I

21:04

have Republican friends in Kentucky who

21:06

are concerned and who care. And

21:09

the stakes of this one, I mean, I was thinking back,

21:12

I was trying to explain to my children who, the youngest

21:14

one is now 18, so they all get

21:16

to vote. And I was

21:18

telling them about previous campaigns that I was involved

21:20

with. And I think about, I

21:23

mean, I spent so much time and energy

21:25

along with thousands of other people volunteering to

21:27

defeat John McCain. And I'm

21:29

proud of that campaign and then to defeat Mitt

21:31

Romney. The two Obama victories, 2008, 2012. And

21:35

I think, my goodness, I mean, these are

21:37

people who, these are really good people. And you

21:40

just think, and look, I differed with them and said

21:42

that other people on policy and that's great. And that's

21:44

how our two party system works. And then what

21:46

is really different to me is someone

21:48

who does not like or

21:51

respect or feel a sense of responsibility for

21:53

these democratic institutions and the norms,

21:56

not only the rules and the laws, but just the

21:58

norms that cover this. And that really concerns me.

22:02

And it is a long time out. And

22:04

polls aren't elections. And people

22:07

really have to make a decision. They have to

22:09

go into that voting booth and pick between

22:11

whatever those two alternatives are going to be.

22:13

But certainly at this point, even

22:15

that far out, it really looks like it'll be Trump on

22:17

the Republican side and certainly Biden on

22:20

the Democratic side. But I

22:22

think Democrats' worrying is

22:24

one of our love languages. And

22:27

I don't think it is productive.

22:29

So actually, be more bullish about

22:32

the whole race. I

22:34

think so. I mean, go out there.

22:36

Trump is not shy about taking victory laps,

22:38

quite often for things that he hasn't done. So

22:41

do you think the Biden campaign

22:43

or the Democrats as a body should take

22:45

a leaf out of his book and be more

22:47

boastful? No,

22:49

I don't think it's about talking at

22:51

people. I just think it's

22:53

a time for Democrats in Kentucky and Ohio

22:55

and Wisconsin to listen.

23:00

If you have a choice, where it's

23:02

Mickey Haley, as the next president say, or

23:05

it's Trump versus Biden and it's

23:07

a toss up, which way would

23:09

you go? John, you know, this was the game I

23:11

played with John last time I was here. It

23:15

is an unfair game to play. In

23:17

my old job, I'd say, well, I don't

23:19

do hypotheticals. I mean, I was sort of,

23:21

and I want to be careful here, anyone

23:24

other than Trump on the Republican side, and

23:26

I disagree with lots of their policies, I

23:29

think to a person, certainly in

23:31

the case of the previous elected officials who

23:33

are up there, I don't know much about

23:35

Romes Swami, but the other ones I think,

23:37

okay, I really disagree. Someone like DeSantis, someone

23:39

like Nikki Haley, who served in the Trump

23:41

administration, but Democrats are

23:43

used to having people they don't agree with

23:45

in office who still love the country and

23:47

respect the institutions and believe in democracy. And

23:50

we have spirited disagreements. I can live with

23:52

that. But it is

23:54

terrifying to contemplate someone who really wants to

23:57

burn down the house. How decisive,

23:59

how important. is the 2024 election for

24:01

the future of the United States of

24:03

America. Huge. Huge. And

24:05

the trap we fall into, I mean, I've done

24:08

it. I mean, I said that in 2004, when

24:10

I worked on John Kerry's ultimately unsuccessful

24:13

presidential campaign. That's my first foray into

24:15

this. And every time

24:17

you say it, but my goodness, looking

24:20

back, I mean, way more

24:22

consequential today, because any of

24:24

the people who we're talking about in

24:27

those previous ones, like I said, believed

24:30

in the institutions of democracy and disagreed

24:33

big time about domestic and foreign policy. Fine.

24:36

This is so different. So different.

24:39

I mean, I think we have in

24:41

Biden the right person to

24:43

go up against Trump and beat him. And

24:46

I know polls and Democrats are, some of them are

24:48

getting nervous and being on the record or off the

24:50

record nervous about it. I think he's the right guy.

24:53

I think he's done a great job. I

24:55

think not perfect and nor is anyone. And

24:58

he's going to go out there. And if you

25:01

were advising, would you say, let's be open

25:03

about your age because it's an issue for

25:05

a lot of people? Yes.

25:07

And I don't know. I don't know that he

25:09

isn't, but absolutely. I think, I mean, there's a

25:11

great, that great scene in eight miles. Did you guys

25:14

see the Eminem movie, eight miles? Yeah. The

25:16

required viewing. Well, you should rewatch it. It

25:18

is absolutely fabulous. And there's this wonderful scene

25:20

in the famous scene where he is

25:23

having this rap battle and he says all

25:25

the bad stuff about himself before

25:27

the other person can. I mean, bad stuff, but you

25:29

know what I mean? You get it out there early.

25:31

You get it out there and you just own it

25:33

or you, you know, you define the terms of it.

25:35

So I think we don't, our politics right now, right

25:38

and left, red and blue, you

25:40

are not encouraged. Your teams do not want you

25:43

to do that. Just one other thing before you

25:45

go about this 2024 election

25:47

and it being so consequential, just going

25:49

back, putting your old hat back on

25:52

as US ambassador to London. What

25:55

do you think they will be thinking around

25:57

the capitals of Europe about the idea of

25:59

a Trump second time? Well, what

26:01

comes to mind, putting

26:03

my old hat on, is

26:06

I never worried about, even in the

26:08

bumpy patches, about relations between the United

26:11

Kingdom and the United States, or

26:13

and I didn't serve over there, the United States

26:15

and France or Germany or other members

26:18

of the European Union back when all

26:20

of you guys were part of that. And

26:22

I never did just because I thought, well,

26:24

okay, you have a bunch of people with

26:27

differing perspectives, have hard issues

26:29

to deal with, gathering around a table at

26:31

set times, formal and informal, trying to work

26:33

through hard things together and

26:35

doing as best they can and then guess what, a

26:37

whole new batch of hard things for them to work

26:39

on. And what I

26:41

thought was misunderstood about relationships between countries

26:43

is that somehow we did hard

26:46

things together, look at NATO and

26:48

Ukraine, for example, and many others,

26:51

that we did hard things together because we were friends.

26:54

And there's a truth to that, but I think much more

26:56

interesting is we're friends because we did hard things together. And

27:00

that things like trust and respect and

27:02

understanding, which we all

27:04

value and we count on for our

27:06

institutions to run, aren't products. If

27:08

I say, Emily, trust me,

27:11

John, respect me, I have dramatically lowered the

27:14

likelihood that those things will happen. That's

27:17

a paradox of trust, respect and understanding. You

27:19

cannot get them by going for them. They're

27:21

byproducts, not products. So you

27:24

have to do something else to get at

27:26

them. And there's nothing better than spirited disagreement

27:28

and hard work to produce

27:30

those things. So I worry intensely

27:32

10 years ago and today, both

27:35

our countries have the word united in their titles,

27:37

which is absolutely no guarantee that they will be

27:39

united. So I worry about

27:41

division within the United States and division

27:43

within the United Kingdom much more than

27:45

relations between them, which isn't

27:48

a very positive way to end. But that to

27:50

me is the hard work. And what I think

27:52

we need back home is a big dose of

27:54

domestic diplomacy and an understanding that

27:56

trust, respect and understanding in places

27:58

like Kentucky where I live or all across our

28:00

country, the reservoir of trust, respect

28:02

and understanding is depleted and needs

28:05

to be replenished and you do not replenish

28:07

it by trying to win arguments with people. Matthew

28:10

Vassan, great to have you with us. Thank you so much.

28:12

Thank you so much for having me. The

28:15

News Agents USA with Emily Maitless

28:17

and John Sople. The

28:21

News Agents USA. Before

28:27

we go, we should possibly just bring

28:30

you up to date with what has happened to

28:32

poor George Senter. I feel

28:34

sad. Very sad. I'm going

28:36

to miss our favourite fantasist. Yeah, I mean,

28:39

it is extraordinary that a man of so many

28:41

talents, so many

28:43

talents and so many victories

28:46

and so many life tragedies should

28:48

be brought so low. What

28:50

are we talking about? We're talking about

28:52

the guy who lied his way into

28:54

Congress, carried on lying his way through

28:56

Congress and at the age of 35 has

28:59

become only the sixth politician in

29:01

US history to be kicked out

29:03

of the House of Representatives after

29:05

telling a series of lies. But

29:07

he had such a rich life. His

29:10

family had been Holocaust survivors, not

29:13

the winner of the Olympic volleyball

29:15

competition. The

29:18

late night shows have had fun on

29:20

the greatest hits of George Santos. Your

29:26

shoes are fascinating almost every single

29:28

part of your life. George

29:33

Santos is, I'm just a regular

29:35

person, Pierce. I'm

29:42

not a fraud. I'm not a fake. Guess what?

29:45

Rosa Parks

29:47

didn't sit in

29:49

the back and neither am I going to sit in the back.

29:52

Today I rise to honor

29:55

the beginning of Yom Ha'at

29:57

Haqmut, Israel's Independence

29:59

Day. You're a little Jewish.

30:01

Well, I never said I was. Guys,

30:03

I'm Jew-ish. I'm Jew-ish. I actually went

30:05

to school on a volleyball scholarship. I

30:07

put myself through college and got an

30:09

MBA from NYU. Most people

30:12

lie on their resumes. He is

30:14

George Santos, also Anthony Devolder,

30:16

and at least once a

30:18

drag queen named Katara Vavache.

30:21

Were you ever a drag queen in Brazil? In

30:23

Brazil. No, I was not a drag queen

30:25

in Brazil, guys. I was young and I had

30:27

fun at a festival. And

30:31

this is obviously hilarious. And yet,

30:33

I have to say, it does

30:36

beg a certain question. Firstly,

30:38

the man who was a fantasist who

30:40

invented this whole life to try and

30:42

get ahead is now

30:45

having the facts of his life

30:47

made into a movie. They're buying the rights to

30:49

his book, and HBO, the guy who was behind

30:51

VEEP, is now

30:53

turning his life into a movie.

30:56

So somehow, there is a celebration

30:58

of this reality-denying fantasist, which

31:01

kind of brings you back to

31:03

the place that we always start, which is Donald Trump.

31:07

And I suppose the question I'd ask is, how come

31:09

a party can throw out

31:11

one fantasist, but keep hold of

31:14

another and reelect him? The simple

31:16

answer to such a

31:18

good and profound question, because the similarities

31:20

in so many ways are so striking,

31:23

is no one is frightened

31:26

of Santos. Because he's not winning. They

31:28

are frightened of Donald Trump, because he has the

31:31

power still to ruin their

31:33

political lives by priming someone

31:35

against them and the rest of it. And

31:38

so just by force of

31:40

power, they would not dare

31:42

do that to Donald Trump. Yeah. And

31:45

that's why you have a majority of

31:47

members of the House of Representatives on

31:49

the Republican side, voting to not endorse

31:51

Joe Biden's victory when it was clear

31:53

that he had won. Okay. So isn't

31:55

that an ugly truth then,

31:57

that George Santos got found out?

32:00

In other words, he was proved to

32:02

be a loser. You can be a fantasist,

32:04

but you have to carry on winning. Donald

32:07

Trump has been a fantasist, but has

32:09

managed to bring people with him and

32:11

carried on winning, at least as polls

32:13

are to be believed. That's

32:15

the only difference. One does so

32:17

successfully, and one doesn't. One fails. So,

32:20

farewell then, George Santos. Donald

32:23

Trump, you're still here. We'll see

32:25

you next week. Bye-bye. Bye. This

32:29

has been a Global Player original

32:31

podcast and a Persefonica production.