In this episode, we talk about the latest in the Trump administration and its impact on the way we think about the world, and how it affects us as a nation. We also talk about why we should be concerned about the rise of the right wing in America, and why we shouldn't be either.
00:00:30.920We don't know which one of those is right.
00:00:33.000It seems to me that there isn't any logical reason why the invasion wouldn't be repeated and then the entire world wouldn't find itself right here again.
00:00:41.900It's a story about somebody being put in a police cell because of complaints on a parent's WhatsApp group.
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00:01:54.560Francis, we have been in the U.S. for two weeks.
00:01:59.120Now we're recorded about 16 episodes in 14 days.
00:02:06.040We have had what I like to think is a little bit of a wake-up call when it comes to America.
00:02:11.760Because last time we came here, talking for myself, I was like, I understand everything about this country.
00:02:18.480It turns out I was a little bit wrong.
00:02:20.700Well, I think one of the things that happened with the election of President Trump is that a lot of people projected their own concerns and their own things onto him.
00:02:32.420And, of course, he, like any good politician, like any effective politician, he would have encouraged that.
00:02:38.020So the people who were concerned about runaway wokeness thought that, you know, that's what he's going to deal with.
00:03:12.440Another interesting thing that's happening is we had a lot of conversations with people behind the scenes, not even on camera particularly, about the rise in the impact of the religious aspect of the right.
00:03:31.080And we hosted some conversations on camera in which that was also discussed.
00:03:35.200But I think the main question that a lot of people don't know the answer to is there's quite a lot of stuff that the Trump administration is doing that most people would agree with, like their domestic policies and a lot of things, like dealing with mass illegal immigration, closing the border.
00:03:51.900So tariffs is something that people kind of thought that he would do, maybe not to the same extent.
00:03:56.900But I think the big question is, what is his overall posture towards the world?
00:04:02.600Why is he talking so much about these territories near the United States and what he wants to do about that?
00:04:09.280And also how he's going to deal with Ukraine, how he's going to deal with Israel, how he's going to deal with Iran.
00:04:17.200And this is the real thing that I don't think anyone expected to be the way it has been.
00:04:23.480Because we have seen quite a lot of things coming out of the Trump administration with J.D. Vance, that leaked signal, those leaked signal messages, et cetera, where you go, oh, these people, they really, really, really do not like Europe.
00:04:39.280And the way they talk about Europe is kind of similar in a way to an ex-girlfriend talking about a boyfriend at one point who let her down.
00:04:49.700And it is sneering and it is contemptuous.
00:04:52.380And we saw that in J.D. Vance's tones in those messages on the signal chat, which I found, on the one hand, very dispiriting and actually quite depressing.
00:05:01.960But I also thought it was actually very valuable because people were prevaricating and they weren't sure where Vance stood.
00:05:11.540With those signal messages, you understood loud and clear where J.D. Vance stands when it comes to Europe.
00:05:18.120And I don't think it's just him, by the way.
00:05:19.600I think it's a broader thing within the Trump administration now.
00:05:35.020We've been living under the American nuclear umbrella, not investing in our own defense, not investing in our armed services, running them down to completely ridiculous levels.
00:05:47.260And while at the same time, increasing over time and spending more and more money on welfare.
00:05:54.660And I totally understand the American position.
00:05:58.200The American position is, look, we don't have a huge welfare state.
00:06:09.740And then when you add in net zero on top of it, which, let's be fair, is just glorified deindustrialization and makes countries like Germany and the UK, but particularly Germany, more reliant on Russia for providing things like natural gas, resources like natural gas, which Germany is going to be dependent on.
00:06:29.140So I understand the Americans going, how long you're saying Russia is the enemy, yet you're engaging in free trade with the enemy.
00:06:38.460Well, right. That's one of the arguments people here will make about Ukraine.
00:06:41.780It's like you guys say you want to support Ukraine, but Europe got more money, spent more money on Russian gas, rather, during the course of the war than it gave to the Ukrainians in support.
00:06:52.600So you are telling us we've got to pay for that while you guys deindustrialize, don't produce your own energy.
00:06:59.060Like the UK is, I think, the Chinese owner of the UK's last steel making facilities has just made the decision to shut them down.
00:07:09.080So Britain has four times the industrial energy prices of America.
00:07:13.100We're not able to make our own virgin steel, which is what you need for military use.
00:07:19.420What, why would an ally like that be valuable to the United States?
00:07:25.980I also think that there is a risk that that rhetoric becomes self-fulfilling and Europe and America do end up just kind of going in separate directions.
00:07:36.880I think it would be bad for both countries, actually, for Europe and for America.
00:07:40.800I think it would be disastrous for both.
00:07:42.620We have always been allies for many, many years, and there are good reasons behind that.
00:07:48.260America, look, let's be honest, is the dominant superpower in the world.
00:07:52.480But it doesn't matter how strong or powerful you are.
00:07:54.800There are going to be times where you need your friends, where you need help.
00:07:58.720And by America pursuing this policy almost of isolationism, not to the extent of how some people in the MAGA movement want it, but certainly being very much colder to European friends, you're looking at it and you're thinking to yourself, eventually this is going to come back and bite you on the proverbial.
00:08:21.460Because the rule is you can't do everything on your own.
00:09:32.840Like I say, I think I see the American argument, and I am deeply, deeply frustrated with the British government of the country that we are from, and many, many European countries that have lived...
00:09:48.360Let's be honest, this is cloud cuckoo land.
00:09:50.180You cannot destroy your own industry, your own jobs, for the sake of quote-unquote saving the planet, which we're absolutely not doing.
00:09:58.360And we won't be able to do when China, India, and now the United States are completely just not pursuing those policies at all.
00:10:07.460Those are the three countries that produce the most CO2 in the world, if that's your concern.
00:10:12.940Clearly, this notion that Britain can save the world by leading the way on those issues is ridiculous because no one's following.
00:10:21.460So when we suicide our country in order to reduce our contribution to global carbon emissions from 2% to 1% or even to 0%, but no one follows that, we are not helping anything and we're ruining our own economy, which means that we're not able to project our power, which means we're not a good ally to the United States.
00:10:40.940So I think that will play out, and my understanding of many of the Trump policies is that he's going out to an extreme in order to encourage Europeans to do more, which they're doing.
00:10:53.600And hopefully, you know, the argument we've heard about tariffs is something we haven't mentioned yet, is that the reason Donald Trump is doing this is he actually wants a zero-tariff world, which it isn't.
00:11:04.160And the way to achieve a zero-tariff world is to make people see that when you put tariffs on American stuff, it's not good for America, it's also not good for you, so let's all go to zero.
00:11:12.820We're not there yet. That is still ongoing, right?
00:11:16.380But I think the other thing, and this is important because we talked about this with Joe Rogan on his show, what we also saw from the Signal group chat is the reaction to it from a lot of people in the new media and in the old media.
00:11:32.040Where, look, obviously, the people on the left are going to jump on that as an opportunity to try and criticize the administration.
00:11:41.820But you also see that those of us who have called out the craziness of the woke period that has been ongoing for some time, we, I think, you and I and others, try to be honest and say, look, this was not a good thing.
00:11:58.140Like, if you add a journalist to a Signal group in which plans for U.S. attacks on Yemen are being discussed, that's not a good thing.
00:12:06.100But you also saw that a lot of people are just partisan and they try and pretend it away, claim that this journalist is a bad person, maybe is a bad person, doesn't mean that adding him to his Signal group is a good thing.
00:12:20.900And I think one of the things that you're about to see is a big pivot that I think this space is going to split into those people.
00:18:02.080And they're looking for solutions to those things.
00:18:04.940And I think a lot of people hope that this re-industrializing America agenda, bringing jobs to America is going to work.
00:18:12.340But at this moment in time, a lot of people are in a very difficult situation.
00:18:18.500Well, look, we were in D.C. and we went into a sandwich shop and there was a sign on the counter which said,
00:18:26.160due to the rise of the price in eggs, all sandwiches, which include eggs, have gone up by a dollar.
00:18:31.600And that tells you something very, very profound, which is the steep rise in food prices, but also the fact that there's going to be a lot of people who go in to buy a sandwich, see an increase of a dollar and go, I just can't afford that.
00:18:48.260And what that actually tells you is people are at a breaking point here economically.
00:18:55.340And that is a very, very dangerous place to be in for the average American because unlike, and we've said it, you've said it yourself, they don't have the safety net of welfare that we have in Europe.
00:19:08.120So to have a hand-to-mouth existence in America and then thinking to yourself, you know what, maybe I'm not going to be able to make health insurance this month.
00:19:19.440What happens if you don't make health insurance and then all of a sudden you come down with something?
00:19:50.700So there's a lot of people in this country who strike by month after month after month.
00:19:59.060And if Trump wants to make America better, that's the most important thing for me is to make America better for those people.
00:20:06.980Because that's the vast majority of Americans.
00:20:09.780And I, whether, whatever my personal view on, forget about President Trump, it doesn't matter which side of the political debate you're on.
00:20:16.880I think that's by far and away the biggest issue.
00:20:19.080And I really hope that the current administration succeeds in making more, giving more Americans access to the American dream.
00:20:26.500Because, you know, I thought Charlemagne, who we had on the show, made this point very well.
00:20:32.100And Andrew Schultz talked about this as well when we interviewed him, which is the reason that you're seeing support for like that Luigi guy who killed a health care company, health insurance company executive,
00:20:44.160and other movements of that kind, is that a hell of a lot of people don't have the hope that their American dream is supposed to provide to them.
00:20:54.720And this reflects not only in the price of food and groceries and other things, but it's also about your ability to buy somewhere to live.
00:21:02.680It applies to your ability to have kids and provide a life for them.
00:21:16.180And we haven't talked about the immigration situation and the deportation thing, because I think on both of those things,
00:21:24.180what you're likely to find is that the solution is right and necessary.
00:21:29.020But when you move this quickly, mistakes are going to get made.
00:21:32.620Things are going to get, you know, things that shouldn't really be cut are going to get cut.
00:21:38.040People who shouldn't be deported are going to get deported.
00:21:41.060And this does seem to be some of that going on.
00:21:43.440Yeah, and I think the problem is, is when there are people, not of course all people, but there will be ideologues on both sides.
00:21:51.420And once ideology becomes the most important thing in a policy, that's when things start to go awry.
00:21:59.300Because when you start thinking to yourself, actually, what is right and what is practical?
00:22:03.520And there's going to be mistakes made.
00:22:04.920But on both sides of the political spectrum, there are a lot of people who like punishing those people that they see
00:22:12.800as being in the wrong, those people as being immoral, those people as, let's say as well, as being inferior.
00:22:19.400And it is their job to go and get a little bit of justice.
00:22:25.040And I think one of the things that we're starting to see on the right with certain aspects and certain people is there is a little bit of a desire for vengeance and justice.
00:22:36.700And I find myself personally very uncomfortable with that.
00:22:41.560Look, I think I'm, you and I joke about this all the time, you are more high empathy than I am.
00:23:10.060I don't particularly care if they end up in a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
00:23:14.920Legally, there may be issues with that.
00:23:16.520And that should go through the proper process.
00:23:19.380But my concern is that in attempting to deal with those issues, it's very, very important that there is due process.
00:23:26.880And we have seen one or two instances.
00:23:28.920And it's hard to know what you believe based on what's going on, what's being reported of people who are not fitting of that description being deported to a country they've never even been to and being stuck in a prison with the worst criminals in the world.
00:23:43.180And likewise with those, look, I'm on record of saying this and I will say it again.
00:23:48.320Again, reducing the size of government is a massive, massive priority for every Western country.
00:23:56.820And I'm not just talking about eliminating waste and fraud, which needs to be done.
00:24:01.320And I hope to God that happens and it happens quickly.
00:24:05.000And I think part of the reason they're doing it quickly, it's the only way to do it, because otherwise the machine and the blob is going to swallow you up.
00:24:11.700But in that process, you're also potentially going to cause issues.
00:24:14.920And so all of these things have to be done quickly and carefully.
00:24:19.480And that's very, very difficult to do.
00:28:08.420But I do also think, I think if you're objective about this, if you're not partisan, you have to recognize that when you're rounding up hundreds and hundreds of people, it is not unlikely that one or two people are going to get caught up in it.
00:28:20.960Who are not supposed to be there, right?
00:28:25.420And so what you'd hope is that there is a process for making sure that the people to whom this happens have access to due process, they can appeal, etc.
00:28:36.920The problem is, you know, as we talked about with the signal story, when a government does things that it shouldn't do, the incentive structure is not likely to encourage them to admit that and correct.
00:28:47.240The incentive structure is to pretend it didn't happen to cover it up, etc.
00:28:51.540So I just, look, I really hope that in dealing with illegal immigration, the U.S. administration, and also if we ever get to that point in our country, I hope it gets dealt with quickly.
00:29:06.300I don't massively care about, you know, we joke all the time about there was a guy who couldn't be deported from the U.K.
00:29:13.320because his kid likes chicken nuggets, all of this stuff.
00:29:17.240I don't give a shit about any of that.
00:29:18.640If you come to a country illegally and commit crime, I don't massively care about making sure you're okay in every way.
00:29:26.200Like, if you get deported and you end up in prison, good.
00:29:42.480And also, America is going to have to have a discussion about we've seen case after case.
00:29:48.960And again, I don't know what to think of them because I don't know about the veracity of the reporting.
00:29:54.600But we hear about these people who attended a protest, pro-Palestine protest, or, you know, who organized protests, and they've been deported.
00:30:04.760On the one hand, that makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable.
00:30:16.080If you took part and attended and organized a protest which threatened, intimidated people, damaged public property, defacing public property, all the rest of it, I'm not particularly cool with that.
00:30:30.740And I understand why that particular government would want you out of the country.
00:30:36.120But America needs to have a very frank conversation about what is acceptable.
00:30:43.260What is it that is acceptable for people, for non-U.S. citizens to do when they have a visa in this country?
00:30:51.460Now, look, here's where I'll say something that I think is a very complicated issue.
00:30:56.400My understanding, I don't know the law very well.
00:31:01.360And my understanding is it's very complicated.
00:31:03.980However, you and I, I think, are always going to err on the side of people being allowed to speak their mind and not be punished for it.
00:31:11.260And so from that perspective, I think deporting people who express their lawful opinion in public, even if it's a protest, I think is totally wrong.
00:31:19.020On the other hand, and this is not about the specific incident.
00:31:22.380So just to be clear, I think people who say things that people don't like shouldn't be deported from the country.
00:31:27.760Just as a matter of principle, I'm not talking about these specific cases because I don't know the details exactly.
00:31:33.220You know, the claim is they were pro-Hamas or whatever.
00:31:38.100But if they are pro-Hamas, I think that needs to be established in court as opposed to someone just saying it and then these people being removed.
00:31:44.460On the other hand, it's not even on the other hand, that is said, and I don't take back any of that.
00:31:52.680But you and I are visitors to the United States.
00:31:56.000Would you go to a protest to protest about stuff in this country as a visitor?
00:32:06.220And I think the reason for that is, is there's a fundamental recognition that there's a difference between a citizen, between being a citizen of a country and being a visitor there or having a visa to come there.
00:32:16.440And, you know, we've got a conversation that will come out in a while with Barry Strauss, who's one of our favorite historians, talking about the collapse of the Roman Empire and how he sees parallels in the modern world.
00:32:28.300And one of the things he mentioned is once you erode the concept of citizenship and the privileges and the duties that come with that, that's when you're going down a very dangerous path.
00:32:48.880I'm just saying as a matter of principle.
00:32:50.320I think it's perfectly fine for a distinction to be made between citizens and non-citizens.
00:32:59.040And I think actually that distinction needs to be made stronger and wider.
00:33:04.280And I think we need to say that in order for us to have a cohesive society, you gain lots of rights and duties when you become a citizen of the country.
00:33:15.040And until you are, you may not be subject to all the exact same rules.
00:33:19.880And I say that as someone who was for a very long time in that position in Britain as a first generation immigrant and someone who visits the United States.
00:33:27.820I don't feel entitled to act like a dick in America because this isn't my country.
00:33:34.980And when we talk about American politics and policy and things that happen here, I think we both always try to do it from a place of understanding that this isn't our country and we have a respect for it.
00:33:45.580And there's certain things we don't understand about it.
00:33:47.640And I think if setting aside the legalistic arguments and setting aside the fact that we already said people who just express their opinion, in our view, should not be removed from a country.
00:33:59.200But Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, makes the point that if you told us when you made your visa applications, and you and I both know that the process for getting an American visa is quite involved.
00:34:21.500I think that if you – what he's saying is if you told us that this is what you would do on your visa application, we never would have let you into the country.
00:34:33.020And I think that distinction is also important.
00:34:37.160I think we have to, as a culture in Britain certainly, and I would argue in America as well as an outsider, make the distinction very clear between people who are here as visitors and people who have taken on the opportunity and also the burden of citizenship.
00:34:53.640And when you take on the duties and burdens of citizenship, that comes with an expanded set of rights.
00:34:59.580I don't think it is in the interest of our country or the interest of America to welcome lots of people from other countries so that they can then start basically slagging off this country.
00:35:09.820I don't really see how that is appropriate.
00:35:14.740And so what I'm saying is I think we really have to dial in on this idea that we can't just let loads of people in who don't like our society.
00:35:27.820And to the extent that these people are demonstrating elements of that, and I don't know if they are.
00:36:13.240Because whilst you've got this grey area, the reality is it is unfair on people who are getting deported because they didn't know the rules.
00:36:23.900And if the rules didn't exist or they weren't made clear and all of a sudden you get your door kicked down and off you go, you can quite rightly say, hey, all I did was organize help to organize a few protests.
00:36:36.740That was never explained to me because if it was, I wouldn't have done it.
00:36:41.240So, again, it comes down to being clear because if the rules are clearly expressed, then if you break them, that's on you.
00:36:54.220But if there are no rules or they're particularly muddy, I mean, people have a right to then criticize.
00:37:01.680And, by the way, I'm not talking about, you know, things like defacing public property, intimidatory protests, all of that.
00:37:13.440But we need to have this conversation because if we don't have it, we're going to continue being in this grey area and that is not good for anybody.
00:37:21.980It's not good for the citizens and it's not good for the people who come here on short-term or long-term visas because they don't understand the rules, particularly with young people.
00:37:31.680Who, as we all know, are far more impetuous, they're far more likely to think their decisions through, who are far more likely to get involved in activism and politics because that's what you do.
00:39:10.580And I think the reason that these things are happening in America in this way is that, frankly, a lot of people in the West are saying, look, we are welcoming of immigrants.
00:39:20.320But if you come in our house, you have to make yourself a valuable contributor.
00:39:39.000And of course, the one thing that as we sit here, we're at the end of March.
00:39:44.260So it's been two and a half months or close to it since the new administration has come in, is some of the promises around Ukraine and Israel have yet to materialize.
00:39:58.200So Donald Trump said he would end the Ukraine war on day one.
00:41:05.420We were still going to be on very friendly terms.
00:41:07.960It was going to be America first, but he was still going to be an Anglophile.
00:41:11.440He was still going to want to broadly work with us.
00:41:15.640I think what has happened and the way you've seen them talk about Ukraine and their attitude and things like the minerals deal, I think that that has shown you that Ukraine is not their priority.
00:41:30.620And you have to accept that as as awful as it is for Europeans who understand because of the closer proximity to the war and to the Ukrainian people, the horrendous suffering that is going on there.
00:42:07.520Well, and I think that that is that is going to be a tragic mistake.
00:42:11.100And I don't say that because I support Ukraine or anything like that.
00:42:15.560I say that because if the deal is not made in a way that is capable of being held permanently, in a way that Russia is prevented and disincentivized from invading again, then it will invade again.
00:42:31.480And if that happens, we are going to be back here again, but in a worse place.
00:42:37.500And not only that, I think that if if if the Trump administration is perceived by other countries to effectively have sold Ukraine down the river, what you're going to end up with is every country that fears Russia or any other big, powerful country will will have a very obvious incentive to pursue nuclear weapons.
00:42:59.120I think that's inevitable. And I have to say, we interviewed our friend, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, in who I think you're very anti Putin from our previous conversations with him.
00:43:09.400But what I heard from him did not persuade me that the White House is pursuing a policy that will ensure permanent long term peace in Ukraine.
00:43:16.720That's not what I heard. And that is just not what I heard.
00:43:19.820And then we listened to Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, on Tucker Carlson's show.
00:43:28.940And when I watched that, look, I don't know, maybe he seems like a very nice man.
00:43:32.220He seems like a lovely man who thinks the best of everyone, who's trying to ratchet down the rhetoric, make sure that the conversations can be had.
00:43:39.720But I have to say, based on that conversation, he doesn't have the first clue about this conflict.
00:43:47.880He has no idea what's going on. He couldn't name the regions that he was talking about in Ukraine.
00:43:53.520He completely misunderstands the reason for Russia's invasion.
00:43:56.840He completely misunderstands almost every aspect of why that conflict is going on.
00:44:01.420And he's going to be up against people in the in the Putin government who have spent decades training for this moment.
00:44:12.680And this is the thing, you know, he talks about how President Putin was very nice to him.
00:44:16.860And I'm sure he was. But you've got to understand something.
00:44:21.400You may hate Vladimir Putin. You may love Vladimir Putin. It doesn't really matter.
00:44:26.420You have to understand who the man is. He has been in charge of Russia for the last 26 years.
00:44:31.420And prior to that, he was a KGB man and still is. There's no such thing as an ex-KGB man.
00:44:38.020In other words, he has spent his entire life training to deceive, to manipulate, to take advantage, to expose and to wield every tool in that toolbox to achieve the best possible outcome for him.
00:44:53.920And he's up against a guy who doesn't know the geography of the area that he's talking about.
00:45:02.220And my worry is, in their desire to end this as quickly as possible, and with that sort of approach, they're going to get, as we say in Britain, get taken to the cleaners.
00:45:13.920And if that happens, that is not just going to be a bad thing for Ukraine.
00:45:19.340It's going to be a bad thing for the world.
00:45:21.300And I'm very, very concerned that that's where this is going.
00:45:25.780Look, the stopping of the massacre of both Ukrainian and Russian young men and increasingly old men in Ukraine is an idea that everyone should be behind.
00:45:40.820Neither side is really winning, although Russia is edging forward.
00:45:43.180But if this doesn't end in a way that ensures long-term security, this is just going to get deferred until another time when Vladimir Putin comes back for more.
00:46:34.920China is the thing that it's worried about.
00:46:37.440So the last thing it wants to do is antagonize Russia, because then Russia will seek to become allies with China.
00:46:44.320And it's far more beneficial for the U.S. to ally with Russia, thereby strengthening their alliance so that they become less vulnerable to the Chinese.
00:46:59.180And I'm not sufficiently educated about that issue to really comment.
00:47:03.440The one thing that came into my mind as you were talking is I remember when I was on tour with Jordan Peterson last year here in America.
00:47:09.020In one of the Q&A sessions, I think a guy asked, you know, my wife talks so much, you know, I can't handle hours and hours of talking to my wife.
00:47:21.640It's causing a strain in our relationship.
00:47:35.800If you try and run away from things that you don't like, but you don't address the root of the problem, you end up causing more problems down the line.
00:47:45.320And that's my concern about this particular shift in policy.
00:47:48.480And that's why I said, you know, what Seb said in our interview didn't reassure me because he was like, well, as long as Donald Trump's president, everything is going to be fine.
00:47:55.980Even if we accept that that's true, that is not a long term solution.
00:47:59.700And even if J.D. Vance has two terms after President Trump, which we don't have any guarantee of at this point, we don't know that that's a long term solution either.
00:48:09.620Nor, by the way, do we know who the next president of Russia is going to be.
00:48:13.840So ultimately, unless there is a Korean style demilitarized zone with a peacekeeping force of some kind on that border, it seems to me that there isn't any logical reason why the invasion wouldn't be repeated.
00:48:28.360And then the entire world wouldn't find itself right here again, except in that time, Russia's had a chance to recover, is in a stronger position, maybe has a different leader.
00:48:39.100Maybe the Western world is led by different people who are willing to let things happen or are too weak to prevent them.
00:48:44.720So, yeah, I'm glad the efforts are being made to secure peace in Ukraine.
00:49:05.080It's why Europe needs to step up. And it's why Europe, quite frankly, needs to get its head out of its ass and realize that a lot of these policies that it's been pursuing are, quite frankly, they're not just self-harm.
00:49:17.280It's self-destruction. You're obliterating your own economy.
00:49:21.380You are weakening not only your economy, but your ability to defend itself.
00:49:25.960Because we've been living in this Francis Fukuyama, you know, the end of history, man.
00:49:31.000We're like, you know, we've got beyond war. It's all cool now because we're trading and, you know, you've got a McDonald's.
00:49:37.500I've got a McDonald's. That's great, isn't it?
00:49:40.380Yeah. But a few years ago, we woke up and we smoked the coffee and we realized that world is over.
00:49:45.760So what are you going to do? You're going to carry on with your delusion and just like hanging out and being like, oh, this is all right.
00:49:52.240This is fine. Or are you actually going to realize that the world has changed and we need to change with it?
00:49:58.600The one thing for balance that I think we can be very positive about, or at least it seems like at the moment, is what's happening in the Middle East.
00:50:05.640Because what you see, the current White House understands very well that the conflicts, not just in Israel and Gaza, but elsewhere in the Middle East, are about one thing, which is Islamists versus everybody else.
00:50:17.340And so what I see them doing is they're attempting to align the moderate Arab governments with Israel against those forces, because the Arab rulers of those countries who are Muslims, they don't want anything to do with Islamists because Islamists are a direct threat to them.
00:50:37.680Because Islamists don't believe in nation states. They want a caliphate. They want to remove those people who lead those countries and replace them with one big caliphate.
00:50:46.040And of course, we all know that that is being funded and encouraged by Iran.
00:50:51.220So Donald Trump was able to make quite a bit of progress in his first term, and it looks like they are very clear headed about what's happening in the Middle East and are moving in the right direction.
00:51:02.460Gaza aside, you know, that's obviously a big mess. And, you know, we hope that that ends because it's terrible what's happening there.
00:51:10.280But I think I'm much more hopeful about their plan for the Middle East.
00:51:14.180Yes. And when we were talking to Sebastian Gorka, he made it, he was saying, look, there's things that we can't talk about, but we are going to be tackling that head on.
00:51:26.280And that's what Iran needs. Iran needs to be tackled head on because for too long, and we saw that with Biden, with giving a huge amount of money to Iran.
00:51:38.080A huge amount of money, which to me, I didn't understand the first thing about why they would do that.
00:51:46.640God bless him. But it has been allowed to continue now.
00:51:50.860You cannot have a nation funding terrorist groups whose explicit aim is to destabilize other countries and not just Israel, by the way, but Lebanon as well.
00:52:06.140And, you know, in other countries, every country in every country, you simply can't have it.
00:52:10.980So you're facing with two options. Either you kind of basically rely on Israel to hold it together, which it can't do, because eventually, like October the 7th, something will happen, something will get through.
00:52:25.460Or you realize that the only way to do this is by tackling the problem.
00:52:29.960And that's it. So, like you, I am more hopeful on the situation with Iran, which I didn't think I'd be saying.
00:52:40.120I thought it'd be the other way around, if I'm being honest.
00:53:19.760Because what it does is that has a very significant impact on the populace of your country.
00:53:25.740I have actually been shocked when in Austin I've gone to parties and people have been saying things like, you know, Zelensky's a dictator and, you know, Putin, all he's doing is trying to reclaim what's rightfully his.
00:53:38.680That's quite a mainstream position in large swathes of this country.
00:53:45.020And I think part of it is, like you say, the rhetoric, part of it is also, and I think Charlemagne made this point, and it made a lot of sense to me, which is people begin to care.
00:55:37.000Because you go out of London and you go to some of these provincial towns and cities, which have had the literal hearts ripped out of them.
00:55:43.300And the people, it's completely, it's heartbreak.
00:56:19.440We always had really, really great manufacturing in the UK and we just let it go because we were living in this world of going, we don't need it.
00:56:29.880But just like with all delusions, there comes a point.
00:56:33.300You either wake up and you live in the real world or you continue to live in the delusion until the real world wakes you up.
00:56:40.000Well, the real world is about to wake Britain up because we're headed for bankruptcy.
00:57:08.980We have to look after our people today and our children and our grandchildren who are going to be paying these debts off for the next 60 years.
00:58:28.700There's a story about somebody being put in a police cell because of complaints on a parent's WhatsApp group because of complaints they made about a teacher.
00:59:07.960Obviously, we've got a Labour government who I'm sure are going to do everything in their power to sort that out.
00:59:13.620But even the Labour government, I mean, if you look at the economics of it, the Labour government is making massive cuts.
00:59:20.600They're not big enough for what we need, but they're still making cuts because everyone knows we're in a completely unsustainable situation.
00:59:27.360So that wake-up call, and if we don't, look, and this is what's going to happen.
00:59:31.940This much I can tell you with some confidence.
00:59:35.140Either we heed to that wake-up call now or things are going to get worse until there's a wake-up call we simply cannot ignore.
01:00:25.700Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.
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01:00:43.060Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.
01:00:50.480Now through June 7, 2026, at the Princess of Wales Theatre.