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[00:00:00] The Why Curve, with Phil Dobbie and Roger Hearing.
[00:00:04] America has spoken.
[00:00:05] And it said, another Trump presidency, please.
[00:00:08] Most Western leaders have said congratulations through gritted teeth.
[00:00:13] This was not what they wanted or hoped for.
[00:00:15] So how will the outside world cope with Trump 2.0?
[00:00:19] What will it mean for Ukraine, for Israel, international trade?
[00:00:23] Is champagne being uncorked in Moscow?
[00:00:25] Will he reset the world that the US still dominates or just ignore it?
[00:00:30] What can we expect from a second dose of the Donald?
[00:00:33] The Why Curve.
[00:00:36] Well, I wasn't entirely surprised.
[00:00:38] I don't think you were, were you?
[00:00:39] And it is that middle class white and, well, not just white, actually.
[00:00:43] Hispanic, just, you know, anybody who feels like they're hard done by.
[00:00:48] Or vaguely not to the far right.
[00:00:49] Yeah.
[00:00:50] Feeling that they hoped.
[00:00:52] And it was confirmation bias.
[00:00:53] We wanted to believe it.
[00:00:54] Yeah.
[00:00:55] But it wasn't so.
[00:00:57] But there is reality.
[00:00:58] We've got to deal with reality.
[00:00:59] He is there.
[00:01:00] He will be there for four years.
[00:01:02] Yeah.
[00:01:02] Unless he pegs out along the way.
[00:01:04] In which case we've got J.D. Vance, which is, you know, an interesting question in itself
[00:01:07] as to what does he stand for?
[00:01:09] Well, indeed.
[00:01:10] But we've got to deal with it.
[00:01:11] I mean, the outside world has to deal with it.
[00:01:13] It's reality.
[00:01:14] Now, is it going to mean, for example, that, you know, Zelensky, interesting,
[00:01:18] president of Ukraine, actually sent congratulations very early on to Donald Trump?
[00:01:23] Well, because he knows which side his bread is buttered on.
[00:01:25] I mean, he's just trying to toady up to him, isn't he?
[00:01:27] But interestingly, Putin hasn't said anything.
[00:01:30] And there was, you know, apparently a spokesperson said, well, we are at war.
[00:01:34] You know, it's a proxy war with America.
[00:01:36] Why would we be congratulating the president?
[00:01:38] But it's all he's going to stop in an hour.
[00:01:40] Yeah.
[00:01:41] It's going to be stopped.
[00:01:42] Well, he certainly said in a day, didn't he?
[00:01:44] In a day, yeah.
[00:01:44] So that day in January.
[00:01:46] But, yeah, I wonder.
[00:01:48] I mean, of course, there will be a lot of people in America, maybe people listening to
[00:01:51] this podcast even, who are going, well, you know, what are you guys going on about?
[00:01:55] This is the man who's standing up for us.
[00:01:57] We are working class Americans.
[00:02:00] We, you know, we have voted for him because he's going to make our life better.
[00:02:04] And this idea that, you know, this globalism hasn't worked for us.
[00:02:09] Yeah.
[00:02:09] And we need to take back control.
[00:02:11] Yeah, get the tariffs out there.
[00:02:12] Yeah.
[00:02:13] And so they would say this is all a good thing.
[00:02:15] Well, they would.
[00:02:15] But the chaos that may have.
[00:02:17] I mean, the problem with Donald Trump, if he represented an idea like that, if he was
[00:02:21] a coherent ideology, things that you are sure would actually happen, that would be one
[00:02:26] thing.
[00:02:26] But the problem is he isn't.
[00:02:27] Well, he's sort of got one message there, hasn't he?
[00:02:30] Big tariffs force businesses to set up if they want to sell in America, set up in America.
[00:02:36] Don't export to America.
[00:02:38] Problem solved.
[00:02:39] Employ American workers.
[00:02:40] There we are.
[00:02:41] Everyone's happy.
[00:02:42] America is great again.
[00:02:43] But will he actually do that?
[00:02:44] Because, I mean, the sense we had certainly from Trump one was that what he says isn't
[00:02:49] necessarily what he does.
[00:02:50] Yeah.
[00:02:51] And, you know, he will blow with the wind.
[00:02:53] The question is where that wind is coming from and who are the influencers?
[00:02:57] Musk.
[00:02:57] That's the obvious thing.
[00:02:58] Well, yeah, exactly.
[00:02:59] And, yeah, so he's got good backing, hasn't he?
[00:03:02] And he's got total control now.
[00:03:05] So, you know, he can basically do what he wants.
[00:03:08] Yes.
[00:03:09] Oh, yes.
[00:03:09] And he wants to do a lot.
[00:03:10] And there's going to be a lot of problems with that.
[00:03:12] I mean, not only that, you've also got RFK Jr., Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Jr., who at one
[00:03:18] point was standing as a candidate and was then stood down and was embraced by Trump.
[00:03:22] He's someone who denies a lot of what happened during the pandemic and the vaccines.
[00:03:26] And he's now apparently going to have a health role.
[00:03:28] So, heaven help us.
[00:03:29] Let's hope we don't have another pandemic.
[00:03:31] Well, you know, it could be the, yeah, trim down the population of America a little bit
[00:03:36] if that was the case.
[00:03:37] A bit grim.
[00:03:38] Yeah.
[00:03:39] But that's the way.
[00:03:40] No, it's definitely moving in that area.
[00:03:41] I mean, the problem for the outside world is how to wrangle Trump, I suppose, in a sense.
[00:03:48] How to do it in such a way that they don't have the worst fears realized.
[00:03:52] I mean, things, for example, the abandonment of NATO or this kind of thing.
[00:03:56] And that is, I imagine, it's been thought about a lot in the past week.
[00:04:00] Well, you've got to play strong, haven't you, with him?
[00:04:01] I mean, that's the, you know, he likes strength.
[00:04:05] And I'll talk about it in a second.
[00:04:07] I think he likes people who agree with him more than anything.
[00:04:09] Well, yeah, but also, you know, I think he respects strength as well.
[00:04:11] You look at the people who, you know, he likes Putin because Putin is a strong man.
[00:04:17] And so, you know, that's the, so I think if you want to negotiate with him, you've got to play him at his rules.
[00:04:23] And I just watched the movie Apprentice over the last week.
[00:04:25] I'll talk about it when we start talking to our guest today.
[00:04:27] Right.
[00:04:28] But it's quite, I mean, I don't know how accurate it is, but it's quite, I feel like it's telling us, you know, quite a bit about the way he is.
[00:04:36] Well, and why he's the way he is as well.
[00:04:38] But look, let's get our guest on.
[00:04:39] Indeed.
[00:04:40] Paul Whiteleap, Emeritus Professor of Government at the University of Essex.
[00:04:43] He's been on our program before.
[00:04:44] We're going to get a sense from him as to how the world will deal with Trump 2.0.
[00:04:49] And he joins us now.
[00:04:49] So, Paul, yes, this movie, I don't know if you've seen it, The Apprentice, which is not about Donald Trump's days on TV as the host of The Apprentice.
[00:04:58] It's actually about him being really the apprentice to Roy Cohn, who was his defense lawyer in the early days.
[00:05:06] And Cohn had three rules, which then Trump took as the three rules, which are in his book, The Art of the Deal.
[00:05:13] Those rules are, which I think says a lot about Donald Trump.
[00:05:16] Number one, always attack.
[00:05:17] Attack.
[00:05:18] Number two, admit nothing, deny everything.
[00:05:21] And three, always claim a victory even when you lose.
[00:05:25] The last one, of course, he hasn't had to do, which is the point, I suppose.
[00:05:29] Because, Paul, what we're sitting with now is Trump 2.0.
[00:05:34] We know we've got it.
[00:05:35] We've not got it for four years.
[00:05:36] And America is dealing with it in various ways, I suppose.
[00:05:39] But the outside world, I mean, do we take the lessons of that film?
[00:05:43] Is that how everyone should do?
[00:05:45] Because he wants to.
[00:05:45] He's always going on the attack.
[00:05:47] So he's always got to be moving things along, hasn't he?
[00:05:50] And he's got to be changing things a great deal.
[00:05:52] And he's got to feel good about it.
[00:05:54] And he's got to be the center of attention.
[00:05:58] I think in all of the presidents, I think he was number 47.
[00:06:02] He was 45.
[00:06:03] He's now 47.
[00:06:04] Yeah, that's right.
[00:06:05] He's going to be 47.
[00:06:06] All of those over 250 odd years.
[00:06:11] Nobody has been so divergent in what they say as opposed to what they do as Donald Trump.
[00:06:20] So you're saying a lot of what he's saying now about tariffs, about Ukraine, about the UN.
[00:06:25] About Israel.
[00:06:26] About Israel.
[00:06:27] You're thinking that might not come to fruition then?
[00:06:29] You can't assume anything, really.
[00:06:33] I remember Nancy Pelosi, the retired speaker of the House of Representatives, saying in an interview that he was somebody who really was about communication, about being the center of attention.
[00:06:53] And that was it.
[00:06:55] When it came to doing things, the way he ran the White House, and there's been a number of books about this, of course, was so chaotic.
[00:07:04] It was very hard to do anything.
[00:07:06] And the one success Nancy Pelosi said that he had was to pass tax cuts for billionaires.
[00:07:15] He got that through Congress and pretty much everything else he failed.
[00:07:22] He failed in the initiative to bring peace to North Korea, if you remember.
[00:07:29] That was one initiative.
[00:07:31] They failed to abolish Obamacare, which is a promise that he made in 2016.
[00:07:38] And repeatedly, what comes out of the policy sausage machine is different from what he says.
[00:07:45] Now, that doesn't mean to say that you can predict what he is going to do.
[00:07:51] But it does mean that in foreign policy affecting the Europeans, Asia and so on, then he is extremely unpredictable.
[00:08:04] Now, one argument is, well, he's going to give in to Putin in the Ukraine.
[00:08:11] And this may encourage Xi Jinping in China to try to invade Taiwan.
[00:08:21] And a lot of people are worrying about that.
[00:08:23] But there's a lesson from, funnily enough, game theory, which is the mathematical study of conflict and cooperation, which might be relevant here.
[00:08:38] There is one scenario in game theory called a chicken game.
[00:08:43] And it's given that name because it's based on the behavior of adolescents in the United States in the 1950s, showing their prowess by driving their cars at each other at high speed.
[00:08:59] And the first one to swerve is chicken.
[00:09:03] And the game shows that if you behave irrationally and unpredictably, this can act as a deterrent.
[00:09:15] So rather than assuming that Putin, you know, will be cheering and thinking, oh, this is exactly what we want and we're going to defeat Ukraine.
[00:09:29] There may be some concern in the Kremlin about what is he actually going to do?
[00:09:34] That's really interesting because I remember it being said the same about Nixon as well at one point, that that was something what Nixon achieved in his first term anyway.
[00:09:43] Was his unpredictability, I know, is most unpredictably making a deal with China, of course, as he did.
[00:09:50] Yes, that's right. That's a famous example.
[00:09:52] And OK, there's dire warnings from the Trump people and from him about putting tariffs up 50 percent from China, putting tariffs on the rest of the world, including Europe.
[00:10:04] But the economists are pretty much united that that would have two effects.
[00:10:10] One is it would reduce trade quite a lot.
[00:10:15] And in the United States, which has relied on cheap goods from China for a long time, create inflation.
[00:10:23] And arguably one of the key reasons why Kamala Harris lost was because the most important issue was the economy and inflation.
[00:10:35] Yeah.
[00:10:35] And she was well behind in the polling on that issue compared with Trump.
[00:10:40] So he might actually blow up his own assets, so to speak, his leadership on the issue of and trust among the public on the issue of inflation.
[00:10:51] If they start slapping on tariffs of that size.
[00:10:55] And people do like to watch the markets very closely, don't they, to try and gauge the success of a political party.
[00:11:02] Certainly we've seen that in the UK with the budget.
[00:11:06] And if the Fed delays their path of rate cuts because they believe Trump might be inflationary, then that's a bad honeymoon.
[00:11:14] Well, not even a honeymoon because he's not even in the White House yet.
[00:11:16] And we have a Fed meeting this week.
[00:11:18] I don't think anyone's expecting that they won't cut the rates today, this week.
[00:11:22] But they may say, right, we're going to signal that there's going to be far fewer of them in the future.
[00:11:27] That's exactly right.
[00:11:28] And actually, the stock market and markets have been doing rather well in the US, as you may know.
[00:11:34] But it's all influenced quite strongly, especially government borrowing and the bond market,
[00:11:43] by the expectation that the Fed is going to reduce interest rates.
[00:11:48] So we kind of know what, Paul, from what you're saying, the sort of sense that he may not be as he appears to be.
[00:11:54] But if you're in, well, in London, in Paris, in Berlin, in Beijing, in Moscow, and you're trying to gauge what he will do,
[00:12:03] what are your thoughts?
[00:12:04] I mean, if we break it down, first of all, in terms of his relationship with Europe, I suppose,
[00:12:09] and NATO and Ukraine and everything to do with that, what should we expect?
[00:12:15] If you were planning, if you were being asked for advice, what would you say to President Macron or to Keir Starmer about what may happen in that regard?
[00:12:26] I'd say flatter him, invite him in, arrange a parade for him, which they did quite effectively in Paris.
[00:12:35] Yes, famously, the French thing.
[00:12:36] You wanted to stage that, I think, in Pennsylvania Avenue as well.
[00:12:38] That's right. And funnily enough, in the House of Commons, just in parliamentary question time, just now,
[00:12:47] the new leader of the opposition, Kenny Bednock, has suggested that he be given a platform to speak to the House of Commons
[00:12:57] and the House of Lords to Parliament in his next visit over.
[00:13:01] And I think that's a good idea.
[00:13:02] We don't have to listen particularly hard, do we? We just have to, yeah. Just look interested.
[00:13:08] Appeal to his vanity, because this is a narcissist. And appeal to his vanity and flatter him.
[00:13:16] And that would be a very good thing to do.
[00:13:20] I think half of America, if they were listening to you right now, would be saying,
[00:13:24] how dare you talk about our president in that way?
[00:13:27] We voted for him because he's going to save America. He's not just a narcissist.
[00:13:31] He is the man who knows how to guide us to that shining light.
[00:13:37] And how to deal with foreigners.
[00:13:38] Yeah, and make America great again.
[00:13:40] Well, I'm not sure they'd be that insulted by me saying these things,
[00:13:43] because there's a great deal of insults flying around during the campaign on all sides.
[00:13:51] And I'm not sure that that's going to subside, even though he said in his recent, you know,
[00:13:57] his victory speech that he wants to bring America together.
[00:14:01] I don't think that's actually going to happen.
[00:14:03] But you're saying on the international stage, if we all just pander to his ego,
[00:14:07] we can probably stop him doing some of the really nasty stuff.
[00:14:11] But what does...
[00:14:12] But it is unpredictable.
[00:14:14] I'm not predicting this in the sense that I know what's going to happen.
[00:14:19] The risks and the unpredictability of the international system has just gone up by a big margin.
[00:14:28] One thing to do, by the way, when it comes to measuring this,
[00:14:33] is to look at the VIX index in the United States.
[00:14:36] This is the index of...
[00:14:37] The volatility.
[00:14:38] The fear index.
[00:14:39] The fear index for shares, yeah.
[00:14:41] Have a look at that and see what's going to happen to that in the next few days.
[00:14:45] Well, the irony is, isn't it, of course, that, I mean, just while we're talking finance,
[00:14:48] the US dollar is going to do quite well out of this.
[00:14:50] That's part of the Trump trade.
[00:14:52] But, I mean, when there's uncertainty in the world, money moves to the US dollar,
[00:14:56] even though the US might be causing all of that uncertainty.
[00:14:59] And that creates an interesting situation for everybody.
[00:15:01] If we get a very strong US dollar and it's weak everywhere else,
[00:15:06] then, you know, in parts of the world, that in itself could be inflationary.
[00:15:10] And destabilizing.
[00:15:11] And destabilizing, yeah.
[00:15:12] And it may not be true anymore.
[00:15:14] Remember the size of the budget deficit in the United States?
[00:15:19] In all this.
[00:15:20] And neither party took any notice of it.
[00:15:23] It used to be an issue in, you know, in elections in the United States.
[00:15:28] But it's not much of an issue.
[00:15:30] It's like, oh, well, let's just keep going.
[00:15:33] And at some stage, it will come to an end.
[00:15:37] How long have we been saying that for, though, Paul?
[00:15:39] I mean, that's been said for a long, long time.
[00:15:42] And it just keeps on happening, hasn't it?
[00:15:43] It certainly has.
[00:15:44] But the trouble is with that, it can't.
[00:15:47] In fact, there's a famous quote from an economist who said, you know,
[00:15:50] if something can't go on forever, then it will stop.
[00:15:54] And sooner or later, this will happen.
[00:15:57] Well, Trump is smart enough to recognize that actually if he did carry on building up this debt
[00:16:02] while upsetting a lot of the rest of the world,
[00:16:05] the only reason that they get away with that debt currently is because the U.S. is the reserve currency.
[00:16:10] And what is it?
[00:16:10] Sort of like nine out of ten U.S. dollars that are spent are not spent in the United States.
[00:16:15] It's just the global currency.
[00:16:18] If he upsets enough people, there'll be a move away from trading in U.S. dollars.
[00:16:23] And if that happens, then all of a sudden that debt is like the emperor's new clothes.
[00:16:27] That debt becomes immediately apparent.
[00:16:29] And the U.S. is in a whole heap of worry if that happens.
[00:16:32] They've got to.
[00:16:33] Is he smart enough to recognize that?
[00:16:36] Already.
[00:16:36] They need to hang on to that reserve status.
[00:16:38] Already.
[00:16:38] The Chinese are trying to move away from dollars, as you know.
[00:16:42] And the BRICS people generally.
[00:16:43] And they want to make their currency dominant over time.
[00:16:47] And it's part of the bigger strategy of making China strong, making China great again.
[00:16:56] Matt Macca.
[00:16:58] And that's already happening.
[00:17:00] And I wouldn't be surprised if the dollar, actually, the euro does well out of this,
[00:17:08] whereby financial people are thinking, well, let's just switch some of our money into euros.
[00:17:16] That might be eurozone is not doing well in terms of growth.
[00:17:21] But it might be a safer place than the dollar if he really is going to do some of these things.
[00:17:27] Well, except, you know, if he's doing those things, the argument would be if he's successful,
[00:17:32] that would force businesses.
[00:17:34] I mean, the whole reason.
[00:17:35] I mean, he argues in both directions on this.
[00:17:37] But the whole reason for introducing those tariffs is to try and get businesses to set up in America
[00:17:41] rather than export to America and employ American workers.
[00:17:44] But as we said, we don't know that he will do any of these.
[00:17:47] But if he does do that, then that would be strong for U.S. equities and strong for the U.S. dollar,
[00:17:53] you'd assume, because all that money would be flooding into the U.S.
[00:17:55] If he's successful in that.
[00:17:57] You see, the problem with that one is that's not a short-term thing.
[00:18:01] It's going to take a while.
[00:18:02] Well, the chip making company in Taiwan, world's leading one, is building a big factory in Arizona.
[00:18:12] But it's taking a long time to do it.
[00:18:15] And if you want to bring back industries to the U.S., which he certainly does,
[00:18:23] then just as it took a long time for them to move abroad, it'll take a long time for them to come back.
[00:18:29] And in the meantime, financial transactions, financial currency values and so on can operate at lightning speed,
[00:18:38] as we learn to our pain in Britain when Liz Truss crashed the market.
[00:18:43] So, well, also, I mean, it's a – it starts a tariff war as well, which can happen fairly quickly as well.
[00:18:49] Exactly.
[00:18:50] So, his first step, if he says –
[00:18:51] Tit for tat.
[00:18:52] Exactly.
[00:18:52] If he says 20% to Europe, for example, what's the EU going to do?
[00:18:56] They're going to say, well –
[00:18:57] Well, of course, they're not going to sit back and say, okay, we'll accept it.
[00:19:00] And the Chinese in particular have taken a very hard line on this.
[00:19:04] They do believe in tit for tat.
[00:19:08] And the Europeans might also step in and do that as well.
[00:19:14] Well, so what you're looking at is crumbling globalization.
[00:19:20] It's already been easing.
[00:19:23] It's already been weakening in the last couple of years.
[00:19:28] Which is, of course, what he said he wants.
[00:19:30] I mean, a lot of this stuff we've been talking about, we're saying, well, if, if, if.
[00:19:33] And you mentioned about the importance of flattery in dealing with him.
[00:19:36] But isn't it also true that it's the people who have his ear inside the White House, in the Oval Office,
[00:19:42] the people who are advising him, is that where you should look to see how he will conduct foreign policy?
[00:19:48] I mean, we know certain individuals have quite a bit of power and can make a difference to that.
[00:19:55] And, I mean, how should we read that?
[00:19:58] Well, again, I wouldn't overemphasize that.
[00:20:04] You make a good point that people he trusts, for instance, Musk is now king of the hill.
[00:20:11] Well, after having backed him like he did, Musk is going to get lots of contracts and do really well.
[00:20:19] And I think he will listen to Elon Musk.
[00:20:21] But, you know, if you read a number of the books, as I have, about his experiences in the White House between 2016 and 20,
[00:20:32] then the lesson that comes across is that Trump is almost entirely transactional.
[00:20:38] Do something for me and I will do something for you.
[00:20:41] And if you can't do anything for me, I won't do anything for you.
[00:20:44] It's not based on loyalty in the sense of, you know, we'll stick with him through thick and thin.
[00:20:50] It's based on transactions as far as he's concerned.
[00:20:54] That's why there was a revolving door of advisors and experts during the first term of office.
[00:21:01] They were coming and going at such great speed.
[00:21:04] It was difficult to remember, you know, who was doing what.
[00:21:07] But he inherited a lot of people then, didn't he?
[00:21:09] Whereas this time he's got untold power.
[00:21:12] Some of the people we thought were loyalists, he decided after a short period of time they weren't and threw them out.
[00:21:22] So, you know, Bolton, who was an advisor, a very hawkish man, advisor to Trump and earlier on to the Republicans in the White House, George Bush and so on,
[00:21:41] was taken on as an advisor.
[00:21:44] But now they're sworn enemies because he just tossed him out over something.
[00:21:49] He said he was saying the other night he was the longest serving national security advisor, but he was there for, I think, nine months, if that.
[00:21:56] Yeah.
[00:21:57] Extraordinary.
[00:21:58] So this time, though, I mean, he's got a fresh start.
[00:22:02] It looks like he'll have complete control.
[00:22:05] You know, he won't have to negotiate in the Senate.
[00:22:08] So and he can bring in his own people.
[00:22:12] And, you know, so I imagine the next couple of months is going to be a huge turmoil in terms of who's employed in the public service in America.
[00:22:20] So he's going to be amongst his friends.
[00:22:22] I mean, you'd argue that maybe last time he was starting in a position where he had to make do with what he had.
[00:22:27] This time he can he can build what he wants.
[00:22:29] Well, that's certainly true.
[00:22:30] But there's a general point that's evident from people who study the policy process in, you know, across democracies.
[00:22:39] There's a huge amount of inertia in policy.
[00:22:42] And the reason is it's very hard to change it, especially in a system where you've got organized separation of powers.
[00:22:50] Now, OK, he has got a sympathetic Supreme Court and you're right.
[00:22:56] He has already taken the Senate, may take the House.
[00:23:00] So they're all lined up.
[00:23:01] But that said, he has to deal with the states and the big states in terms of power, innovation, growth and so on.
[00:23:15] The big blue states, the California, New Jersey, New York and so on, are sources of great wealth and power.
[00:23:24] And if he gets into a fight with them, then that's going to be difficult.
[00:23:30] OK, he's got loyalist states, especially in the old South.
[00:23:36] But, you know, their clout is limited because their standards of living are significantly below the blue states where all the innovation and so on is.
[00:23:47] Now, the extension of this is Texas, which is an up and coming state doing very well.
[00:23:54] But Texas politics is notoriously, should we say, convoluted.
[00:23:59] So and of course, its current governor doesn't look upon Trump as a friend, a good reason.
[00:24:11] So if you get into a fight with the big rich states, even if, you know, some of them supported you, as we've seen in the election, then that's going to slow the process of policymaking at the federal level.
[00:24:31] Also, by the way, I think a couple of things he won't touch.
[00:24:35] There's going to be no federal legislation on abortion.
[00:24:40] You kicked it back to the states.
[00:24:43] And the argument will be, if people complain about that, either on the left of the issue or on the right, the argument will be, well, look, the states sorted out.
[00:24:52] Well, some of the states voted on that, didn't they?
[00:24:54] And it was a variable thing came out.
[00:24:56] They've done it already, exactly.
[00:24:58] And one way out of this embarrassment of ending up fighting with the individual states is to devolve more things to them.
[00:25:11] And spend his time organising parades and watching TV.
[00:25:16] And going to a big public international forum, which he clearly enjoys doing.
[00:25:20] And going to forums and being, you know, being set of potential.
[00:25:24] And in that case, I mean, some of the things he wants to do, I mean, does he really want them to do?
[00:25:28] If he gets himself into conflict with the states, then he'd probably love that, wouldn't he?
[00:25:34] Because, again, that becomes a power struggle.
[00:25:37] And it doesn't matter who wins or loses, just so long as he's seen as fighting the good fight.
[00:25:41] It sounds like policy is not important to him.
[00:25:44] It's just so long as he's seen fighting.
[00:25:46] He feels good about that.
[00:25:47] How do supporters feel good about that?
[00:25:49] And, you know, we really don't see much achieved.
[00:25:52] Yes, that's quite right.
[00:25:53] And that's the lesson of the 2016 to 20 incumbency.
[00:26:00] A great deal of talk, some of it very wild.
[00:26:03] It's even wilder now.
[00:26:05] But not much.
[00:26:07] Did Spittinson?
[00:26:08] Spitting image put him in a nappy.
[00:26:10] I think they did.
[00:26:10] I don't think it was, well, it was Spittin' image.
[00:26:12] I think a lot of, there was a huge, a huge inflated doll of him that was flown around,
[00:26:17] the giant yellow-orange baby.
[00:26:19] But, Paul, just in terms then, looking at it from the international perspective,
[00:26:22] we know what is on the agenda in terms of what matters to people outside.
[00:26:27] You've said we don't really know what he wants.
[00:26:29] What would you expect?
[00:26:30] Would you expect action on Ukraine in some form or not?
[00:26:34] Well, insofar as there are proposals thought out in a very limited way by the new administration,
[00:26:43] neither of them are acceptable to either side.
[00:26:47] Putin wants the lot.
[00:26:49] And they're talking roughly about, well, if Ukraine concedes, you know, the Crimea,
[00:26:58] then a deal could be done.
[00:27:01] But I doubt it.
[00:27:02] The Ukrainians won't accept it.
[00:27:04] And I don't think Putin will, because he smells the possibility of victory.
[00:27:10] So what would Trump's view be?
[00:27:12] Would he keep the weapons going to Ukraine?
[00:27:14] Because I would have thought Trump's, I would imagine, the man you've described,
[00:27:18] who's not really necessarily looking for answers,
[00:27:20] he'd be there saying to all the rest of the United Nations,
[00:27:24] pay more, buy more American weapons.
[00:27:26] I've won.
[00:27:28] You know, we've got more weapons sold, more money coming from UN member states.
[00:27:34] And we're using all of that for the good of fighting Ukraine.
[00:27:37] Fighting in Ukraine.
[00:27:38] Well, yeah, fighting in Ukraine against Russia.
[00:27:40] And the war is just prolonged.
[00:27:42] The more the war is prolonged, the more money goes into the UN from all these member nations,
[00:27:46] the better it is for US trade.
[00:27:48] Win, win, win.
[00:27:49] Well, that's a convoluted and long chain of causation.
[00:27:56] And the problem with unpredictability is we don't know.
[00:28:01] So the world has just become much more dangerous because of uncertainty about what he's going
[00:28:09] to do in relation to his allies and indeed his opponents.
[00:28:14] And what about Israel?
[00:28:15] I mean, that's the other big issue.
[00:28:17] We've seen Netanyahu move against his own defence minister in the last 48 hours.
[00:28:22] Again, one that Trump said, oh, I can sort that out in some form.
[00:28:26] He even went to Dearborn to talk to American Arabs and Muslims to talk about that.
[00:28:31] Any suggestion that the policy would change on that?
[00:28:34] Well, the policy up to now has involved, you know, during the Biden administration,
[00:28:42] which, of course, will continue till January, is that the Israelis, particularly Netanyahu,
[00:28:49] have humiliated the United States and Biden.
[00:28:52] Now, there's lots of Israelis who do not like Netanyahu.
[00:28:57] And as a lot of people argue, Netanyahu has an interest because he's facing a lot of indictments
[00:29:05] and court cases in keeping the war going and remaining in charge.
[00:29:11] And that's more important to him than anything else.
[00:29:14] And I think this decision to sack his chief military man has caused a lot of dissension inside Israel.
[00:29:24] There's been already, you know, a number of demonstrations about it.
[00:29:29] And it's cutting down his support base to the far right in Israel
[00:29:37] that basically thinks that the war should be continued until the opponents are crushed.
[00:29:43] And would Trump back that?
[00:29:45] Would Trump say, yes, get on with that?
[00:29:47] Well, the difficulty is it means, I think, a never-ending war.
[00:29:55] It's certainly true that the Israelis have the technological advantage in spades, you know, in the fight.
[00:30:03] They've shown this repeatedly.
[00:30:06] But the other side doesn't have to win big battles.
[00:30:11] It just has to keep the war going relentlessly.
[00:30:16] Iran can pour in troops.
[00:30:20] And remember, in the Middle East, there's about 1.5, 1.6 billion Arabs.
[00:30:29] A lot of them with different viewpoints, different religious attachments.
[00:30:33] But nonetheless, that's the numbers.
[00:30:36] And in Israel, there's actually just over 7 million Jews.
[00:30:40] Israeli population is about 10 million, but only about just over 7 million of them are Jews.
[00:30:47] That's a big difference.
[00:30:49] And that means if enough Arabs are enraged and enough young men want to join the cause,
[00:30:57] you can keep the war going.
[00:30:59] You can keep the guerrilla tactics going.
[00:31:04] And so a never-ending war will increasingly become a real problem when he said, you know,
[00:31:13] only a few days before the vote, when Trump said this, oh, I'm going to fix it in a day.
[00:31:19] It's going to look more and more difficult for him to claim it.
[00:31:24] That doesn't matter, does it?
[00:31:25] Because he says these things.
[00:31:27] Yes.
[00:31:27] But by the time you can start to question it, he's already moved on and said 10 other things,
[00:31:32] which are, you know, even more difficult for him to do.
[00:31:35] And so, you know, it's difficult to keep up.
[00:31:38] I mean, he can't be fact-checked because by the time you're trying to check the first fact,
[00:31:43] there's been another 20, which, you know, could equally be proven wrong.
[00:31:46] But ask yourself this.
[00:31:48] What is the relationship between promises that politicians made?
[00:31:52] And this is a general point, not just for the US.
[00:31:54] And delivery.
[00:31:55] And what drives voters?
[00:31:59] You know, I've been doing research for many years about voting in different countries and so on.
[00:32:06] And voters do want delivery.
[00:32:10] So promises are okay, but they want delivery.
[00:32:14] And indeed, you can argue that the reason why Kamala Harris,
[00:32:18] one of the reasons why Kamala Harris, you know, failed was because her boss didn't deliver on inflation control.
[00:32:28] Delivery matters.
[00:32:30] You can't keep the lies going and the promises going without-
[00:32:35] So you actually mean delivery of policy?
[00:32:37] Delivery of policy.
[00:32:38] I thought you meant delivery of things.
[00:32:39] I thought you were talking about the-
[00:32:40] Yes.
[00:32:40] I thought you meant delivery as in how you put across your message, how he stands up as a-
[00:32:45] Delivery in terms of outcomes on the ground.
[00:32:48] Yeah.
[00:32:48] But he won't need to worry about that for four years, particularly if he's got control-
[00:32:51] And then he's gone.
[00:32:52] Of Capitol Hill.
[00:32:55] So, in a way, the delivery is almost irrelevant to him because he can't stay.
[00:32:59] He won't stand again unless he changes the rules, I suppose.
[00:33:02] Unless it all gets passed on to J.D. Vance, which is the next question, actually.
[00:33:05] I mean, what do we know about J.D. Vance?
[00:33:07] Because there is every possibility, isn't there, that at some point in the next four years,
[00:33:10] something might happen to Donald Trump.
[00:33:12] He might lose his mind.
[00:33:13] Might be difficult to spot, but, you know, it's possible.
[00:33:16] Or he might just shuttle off this small coil, in which case we are left with J.D. Vance,
[00:33:20] someone who I think most people know nothing about.
[00:33:22] Well, Vance is interesting because he's a chameleon.
[00:33:25] He wrote a very interesting book about his childhood in-
[00:33:29] Hillbilly Elegy.
[00:33:30] Yes, exactly.
[00:33:31] And he had a very tough childhood.
[00:33:34] Poverty was, you know, rife.
[00:33:36] And he worked his way up from that by being, if you like,
[00:33:44] acceptable to various mentors and supporters.
[00:33:49] He's a chameleon.
[00:33:50] He changes his mind.
[00:33:51] He was saying very, very rude things about Trump back in 2015 and so on.
[00:33:58] And now he's done a 180 degree turn.
[00:34:01] So the idea that, you know, if Trump goes, Vance is going to be worse.
[00:34:10] There is some validity in that because the uncertainties will continue.
[00:34:16] It's not clear at all whether Vance stands for anything other than personal advancement.
[00:34:24] So actually underneath having a set of values which influence your decisions and so on is quite important.
[00:34:33] But I think Vance, from his background and so on, the one thing that he's done, and he's done it very successfully, is to advance his own career.
[00:34:42] And that's what counts with him.
[00:34:44] So he will respond to the incentives that that sort of thing creates.
[00:34:50] So, Paul, when we look at this now, we draw this to a conclusion a bit and say, how far can we say that as a result of the election,
[00:34:59] the world, perhaps in three months' time when Donald Trump takes the oath of office, will become a more dangerous place?
[00:35:08] That things will get, I mean, clearly more uncertain, but will they actually get more dangerous?
[00:35:13] Well, potentially.
[00:35:16] Remember, actually, there's echoes by some writers and they're making an analogy.
[00:35:23] It's not perfect.
[00:35:24] Historical analogies never are with the run up to the First World War.
[00:35:30] If you remember, what you had is power blocks and alliances building up Germany, you know, in alliance with its allies in Austria, the big Austrian Hungarian Empire.
[00:35:47] And on the other side, France and Britain and, of course, Russia.
[00:35:51] And these big sort of coalitions solidified and all it needed was a trigger to set it off.
[00:36:04] And the assassination of a relatively minor aristocrat in the scheme of things, an Austrian aristocrat, set it going.
[00:36:13] And that's the problem.
[00:36:15] We are seeing a big solidification of the other side.
[00:36:23] Russia very close to appearing to be very close to China and being supplied by Iran with weapons to be used in Ukraine.
[00:36:33] North Korea actually providing troops to be used in Ukraine.
[00:36:38] And on the other side, which is the West, much richer, much more powerful, bigger numbers, but divided and uncertain.
[00:36:50] And those are potentially really problematic historically.
[00:36:56] The big picture, if you talk to the international relations people, is that we've had a period of long peace underpinned by the United States as what they call the hegemon, the big country in charge.
[00:37:12] Fundamentally, you don't go up against the US, you'll lose.
[00:37:16] That's fading away.
[00:37:17] And we've now got these big blocks.
[00:37:20] Yes.
[00:37:20] And that's what happened in the run up to the First World War.
[00:37:25] And look what happened.
[00:37:27] And an unstable person at the head of the former hegemon.
[00:37:30] Yeah.
[00:37:31] Is that because no one's quite sure what, including America itself, what it stands for anymore?
[00:37:36] And Europe is now uncertain.
[00:37:40] You know, there's a great deal of anxiety about what's Trump going to do and so on and so forth, which we've been talking about.
[00:37:46] So you've got one block, which has got all the resources and standards of living and so on, but it's very divided.
[00:37:54] And another block that's closing ranks, even though it's a transactional relationship, they're closing ranks because they see these threats and they may see opportunities.
[00:38:07] And the point is that a trigger can set this off when nobody wants it, but you end up with it.
[00:38:14] I see Trump as a bit of the archetype of toxic masculinity in that, you know, he wants to push his agenda or get noticed and makes enemies.
[00:38:25] But I've also noticed, and you know, this has been seen in lots of dramas, but I've seen it in real life as well.
[00:38:30] People who make enemies with people and they go at each other ultimately end up actually being the best of friends.
[00:38:37] And it's seen by the person who is the aggressor as being a ween to actually have won that person over to become friends.
[00:38:45] So I wonder whether we're going to go through that.
[00:38:47] He makes enemies and then he makes friends out of those enemies.
[00:38:50] And he feels good about it because that is another person who loves him and that being loved is all he cares about.
[00:38:55] Well, that was Kim Jong-un, the whole, you know, the little rocket man who then became best friend.
[00:39:00] Yeah. And I wonder whether we're just going to see more of that happening from him.
[00:39:03] Well, there's an interesting story.
[00:39:05] I was talking about the First World War, but after the war started, initially after the assassination,
[00:39:14] the emperor of Austria sent a message to his relative, the king of England, saying,
[00:39:24] this is most unfortunate and we hope that this will all be cleared up in due course
[00:39:30] and we can remain friends in the future.
[00:39:34] And that was a message sent at the last minute.
[00:39:38] Look what happened.
[00:39:40] Yeah.
[00:39:40] Oh, that's nice gloomy.
[00:39:41] A friendship is okay, but, you know, does it peel potatoes, as we say?
[00:39:48] Well, Paul, thank you for taking us through that.
[00:39:51] I can't say I'm coming away with a smile on our faces.
[00:39:54] Or just uncertainty.
[00:39:56] Yeah, I'm explaining what the uncertainty is.
[00:39:58] It may not be that bad.
[00:39:59] We may not have 60% or we actually said 2,000% taffs at one stage.
[00:40:04] He said no car, no Chinese car will be sold in this country.
[00:40:07] We might not get to that.
[00:40:08] You might not betray Ukraine.
[00:40:09] We don't know.
[00:40:09] The UN might be, you know, happily rolling along as he is.
[00:40:13] Even NATO, possibly.
[00:40:14] Yeah, NATO.
[00:40:15] Yeah.
[00:40:16] So it's, where does it all end?
[00:40:17] We don't know.
[00:40:18] But, Paul, thank you for taking us through the uncertainty.
[00:40:22] I suppose that's best we can say.
[00:40:23] You're welcome.
[00:40:24] It's good to talk.
[00:40:24] Thank you very much indeed.
[00:40:25] We'll come back when the First World War restarts.
[00:40:29] Thanks a lot, Paul.
[00:40:30] Well, so treating him like kid gloves seems to be the message, doesn't it?
[00:40:33] Well, it will flatter him, do whatever it takes.
[00:40:35] But ultimately, uncertainty.
[00:40:37] Do you know what we should?
[00:40:37] I was thinking, you know, we'd have to adopt his approach with this podcast.
[00:40:41] I don't think we talk ourselves up enough.
[00:40:43] Really?
[00:40:43] If we actually say, this is the greatest podcast.
[00:40:46] Oh, right.
[00:40:46] I love this podcast.
[00:40:47] Yes.
[00:40:47] Everyone is saying what a good podcast this is.
[00:40:49] Everybody uses it.
[00:40:49] Best one.
[00:40:50] Everyone's listening.
[00:40:51] Yep.
[00:40:51] Then maybe everyone will stop.
[00:40:52] And we wouldn't be exaggerating.
[00:40:53] We wouldn't.
[00:40:54] Well, not much anyway.
[00:40:55] No.
[00:40:55] No more than Donald Trump does.
[00:40:57] Absolutely.
[00:40:57] Yeah.
[00:40:58] So anyway, on the greatest podcast known to man next week.
[00:41:01] We are going to be talking about some of the things that are known to man that are causing
[00:41:05] immense destruction.
[00:41:06] I'm talking about the way that climate change, let's be honest about it, is affecting our
[00:41:12] experiences.
[00:41:13] Exactly.
[00:41:14] Let's take a slightly different angle, though, because in the past we've looked at how
[00:41:16] we mitigate against climate change.
[00:41:18] How do we stop it happening?
[00:41:19] Or try to.
[00:41:21] Or try and slow it down.
[00:41:23] If we assume that we have to give up on that, particularly now that the United States president
[00:41:27] is going to be Donald Trump.
[00:41:29] Yeah, if someone doesn't actually believe in climate change.
[00:41:30] He thinks it's all a hoax.
[00:41:32] Let's just assume that mankind is set on a trail of destruction.
[00:41:37] Yeah.
[00:41:37] How do we deal with that?
[00:41:39] Yeah.
[00:41:39] How do we deal with that?
[00:41:39] I mean, we have to look at what happened in Spain.
[00:41:41] I mean, extraordinary.
[00:41:42] Think about it.
[00:41:43] How many people died?
[00:41:44] Hundreds of people died in a flood.
[00:41:47] And, you know, is it the point of saying, as many people said, they simply were not prepared
[00:41:51] that Europe and the rest of the world is not prepared for the kind of weather events
[00:41:55] we now have to think of as happening routinely.
[00:42:00] So what does the, yeah, so there's questions about how we plan, where we put stuff, how
[00:42:03] much money we put aside for dealing with it.
[00:42:07] And simply say, look, this is going to happen.
[00:42:09] We need to try and build our towns and our bridges and our land.
[00:42:12] A population movement.
[00:42:13] Yes.
[00:42:14] How's the global population going to move?
[00:42:16] Exactly.
[00:42:16] Get ready for it.
[00:42:17] Be prepared for it.
[00:42:18] Because frankly, whatever we do, and we do still need to try and ameliorate it and
[00:42:21] slow it down.
[00:42:22] But we've got to accept it's happening.
[00:42:23] How do we actually deal with the consequences?
[00:42:26] Yeah.
[00:42:26] Well, because for Britain, it could mean rather than light drizzle for the rest of the year,
[00:42:29] it could get slightly heavy drizzle at certain times.
[00:42:31] I suppose it's possible.
[00:42:32] Or, you know.
[00:42:33] We may have more flow.
[00:42:34] I mean, we have seen.
[00:42:35] All kinds of things are possible.
[00:42:36] We have seen.
[00:42:48] It's the best.
[00:42:49] It is the best.
[00:42:50] And it's getting even better.
[00:42:51] You're going to love it next week.
[00:42:52] Thanks for joining us.
[00:42:53] We'll see you then.
[00:42:54] Bye.
[00:42:54] The Y.
[00:42:56] Curve.