Trump - How Crazy Will It Get?

[00:00:00] The Why Curve, with Phil Dobbie and Roger Hearing. Four more years. And the crazy has just begun. A whirlwind of executive orders bringing the troops in to deal with migration, leaving the World Health Organization and freeing the January 6th rioters. And the Gulf of Mexico is now the Gulf of America. And that's just for starters. We know what Trump says, but what will he do? Will what he called the Golden Age change America fundamentally?

[00:00:27] Or will it all be undone in four years' time? The Why Curve. It is America versus the rest of the world, it seems, isn't it? Yeah, well, it feels... I mean, I don't know that it is. I mean, don't forget the far right is on the march in Europe. Is it other parts of the world? I mean, I don't know. In any case, his whole... So is he just an indication of the way the world's going then? I think it's the classic thing of, you know, we kind of go where America goes in every area. And I think that feels... I mean, Britain is... And how long does that last for?

[00:00:57] And what damage does it do? Or is it a good thing? I mean, I see a lot of people who say, you know, in this country as well, who are Trump supporters, simply because he stands for something. And they are sick of woke and he's standing up against all this... Yeah, but he isn't, is he? This is the thing. I mean, it's the classic thing. You know, you see... I know you saw the speech, I'm sure, but it's kind of... Yeah. It's what... It's huckstery, isn't it? It's kind of, you get out there and you say this stuff. I mean, really extreme.

[00:01:25] Things that no other president would say, oh, this is a golden age, you know. But people sort of want to believe it. Yeah. But it's what actually happens that matters. Yeah. All right. Well, let's talk about, you know, what we have. Indeed. And let's go with the man who's guided us through much of this whole electoral period. And that's... We've talked to him a few times. We have. Dr. Thomas Gift, Associate Professor of Political Science at UCL, also founder, founder director of the UCL Center on US Politics. And he joins us once again now.

[00:01:52] So, Thomas, do you think he actually believes what he says? Or is he just playing to the crowd and telling people what they want to hear? Well, some of it is certainly red meat to the base. Donald Trump has promised many, many things throughout the campaign, only some of which he'll actually be able to deliver on. And that's not entirely his fault. It's just a function of how Washington operates. He does have the Senate and the House on his side, but at the same time, he doesn't have

[00:02:19] 60 votes to override the filibuster in the Senate, which means that Democrats can stymie or thwart legislation. And also, there are plenty of Republicans that aren't four square behind the entire MAGA agenda. And even if Donald Trump is coming in with a tremendous amount of popularity right now, he's still going to have to navigate a very delicate balance of the MAGA wing, sort of the more establishment wing, and then the House Freedom Caucus that really wants to rein in spending.

[00:02:46] But, you know, with Donald Trump, he says a lot of untruths. He lies a lot. But as he would say, the more you say it, the more people tend to believe it. Which they clearly do. I mean, you know, it was very interesting. Last time, of course, there was a huge disparity in numbers he said turned up for his inauguration and numbers that actually did. This time, of course, the weather meant that not many could. It doesn't matter, does it? But it doesn't because the enthusiasm was really clear. That's it, isn't it?

[00:03:12] So right at the beginning, he said, I'm going to put America first every day. America is going to be more exceptional than ever before. A new era of national success. Challenges will be annihilated. Those changes start today and very quickly. America's decline is over. I mean, you know, you feel like standing up and singing the Stars and Stripes. Who is going to say no to any of that?

[00:03:39] Well, someone might want to remind Donald Trump that he already won the election. I think that this speech felt more like a campaign rally. His team described the address in advance as one that was going to be focused more on hope and optimism. And the words that you just wrote were more in that tone. But it was somewhat bleak at other points as well. It wasn't quite the American carnage theme that he had in his first inaugural address. But there was still a lot of negativity. There was a lot of lack of graciousness.

[00:04:08] There was a lot of bitterness toward the previous administration. And then there was kind of Trump's trademark ego at one point. He said that he won all seven swing states just in case those in the room didn't know. So this is kind of Donald Trump. I'm not sure I would expect anything different. So what can we expect? I mean, it's sort of stand back. We heard the speech. It was, as you said, very much more like a campaign rally than anything else. But he signed a lot of executive orders. I mean, that's the first thing.

[00:04:36] But what can we expect at least in the first hundred days, which is what you kind of measure a presidency by traditionally? Well, I think first things first. And it is these executive orders. The chief among them was an effort to rein in undocumented immigration. He has promised to carry out the largest deportation in American history. He hasn't given a whole lot of details about how he's actually going to do that. And I think the devil really is in the details there.

[00:05:04] But it's worrying certainly a lot of undocumented immigrants who have been in the United States for quite some time while at the same time, you know, energizing the MAGA base. So I think that that's at the top of the agenda. Trump really hasn't gone full into the tariffs yet, but I am expecting that. I mean, it was really one of his hallmark campaign pledges that he's been talking about basically since day one. This goes back to his first administration, even back to when before he was president.

[00:05:32] Donald Trump has been very ideologically consistent on tariffs. He's promised upwards of 10 to 20 percent tariffs on all imports in the United States, upwards of 60 percent tariffs on imports from China. Even if we don't get there, I think the volatility and the uncertainty could rattle markets. And it's certainly going to be a concern for allies, even including the UK. It already rattled the markets, of course.

[00:05:57] In fact, actually, the first response was the US dollar weakened because there wasn't an immediate announcement of tariffs. So, you know, so there was the markets had already expected it and he didn't do it. But I think that's that's because he's wanting to look at that as part of a broader picture. He talked about overhauling the trade system. So not just tariffs, but also taxes. And now perhaps also, you know, he's overturned the OECD agreement since on top up taxes on US multinationals.

[00:06:26] So he's looking at a bigger picture, but he wants to, you know, he wants to go big on taxing foreign companies. That's for sure. He absolutely does. You know, and this is one issue that he has emphasized. I think the problem is that it's very inflationary. Donald Trump, ironically, won this last election in large part because he promised to bring prices down. But of course, taxing imports in the United States will only lead companies to pass those higher prices on to consumers.

[00:06:55] And that could exacerbate tariffs. So that's why the delay, because, you know, the reality has dawned on him that he's promised to cut inflation. But this is going to have the opposite impact. I think to some extent that may be true. I mean, I think he's trying to get a bargaining position on some of these international trade agreements. It's also the case that he may be kind of walked back from the ledge, so to speak, by some of the more establishment figures within his administration.

[00:07:23] Chief among them, Scott Bessant, who's the secretary of the Treasury. We saw that was really interesting. Wasn't it coming? You think of the names he put in for his cabinet, the cabinet of curiosity, someone described it as. And there was a lot of oddities in there. But as you say, the Treasury secretary looks like a solid anchor. Exactly. And he's going to espouse views that are much different than other elements of the MAGA wing.

[00:07:49] I think that it was important to put someone in there with his kind of background simply because it is reassuring to Wall Street. It's reassuring to investors. And, you know, hopefully that sort of calms the jitters, so to speak, of this new administration coming in. Well, as you say, if that does, you know, if he can square that, because obviously we said there is the problem with inflation countering all this.

[00:08:13] Is there a moment where we talk about reality dawning on him that reality dawns on some of his voters when, you know, overnight they don't find that the price of eggs goes down, when they don't find that their salaries go up? You know, the things that they dreamt of don't happen. And is that the point at which the corner is turned, maybe even within the first hundred days? And when they get rid of all of these foreign nationals, crime doesn't go down. Yes. And they don't have anyone to clean their houses, that kind of stuff. Yeah. No, it's a really good question.

[00:08:40] I mean, what if Trump sort of doesn't succeed on any of his main pledges? How will the MAGA base respond to that? I mean, we can look just time after time in the past that the MAGA base has stayed with Donald Trump. Of course, he's just had this very reliable floor of support of 30 to 35 percent of Americans who are just going to be with him no matter what. But certainly bringing prices down was a hallmark pledge of Donald Trump throughout the campaign. And he's tried to walk that back a little.

[00:09:09] If you listen closely to some of his speeches recently saying, well, you know, this is challenging. Well, you know, this is going to take some time. And he's certainly right about that. I mean, a lot of this is structural. It's related to supply chains. Some of it is a function of massive government spending that the previous administration put forward. But a lot of it sort of is not just confined to the United States. We saw it here in Europe as well. These are kind of broader structural trends.

[00:09:36] And maybe the United States can kind of get inflation down to 2-3 percent, which is typically the target for the Federal Reserve. But even so, that doesn't mean that prices are going to go back to what they look like. No, well, that's the I mean, he makes the mistake, doesn't he, of not thinking before he speaks. So he talked about Trump. Yeah, no, no. Bringing prices down, he said. Well, that never happened. So that's deflation, which actually is a, you know, is a bad thing in itself. He didn't say we're going to stop the growth of prices.

[00:10:05] He talked about bringing prices down. So he's trying to backtrack on that by saying, well, it's hard to bring them down when they've already gone up. Exactly. And, you know, some people would say that these are just technicalities. And Donald Trump is kind of speaking the language that his supporters will resonate with and kind of getting into these details isn't kind of worth it. It's also the case that, you know, many of the challenges surrounding inflation are not under the aegis of the president. I mean, much of this also has to do with Federal Reserve policy.

[00:10:35] Is the chairman going to raise interest rates, cut interest rates? What's that going to look like? Trump has threatened to sort of eliminate the independence of the Federal Reserve, the central bank, which I think would be a huge mistake. And that would certainly rattle markets. But yeah, it's fiscal policy mixed with what the Fed is pursuing. Let's talk about the culture of this new administration, because it's interesting on a much broader scale.

[00:10:58] The economy is clearly a big part of it. But he's talked about what his people have been talking about a complete change of the administration, a weeding out of people who are unsympathetic from the civil service, a very big change in culture, the way people look at things, even the stuff on the gender issue. Is that something that really is going to take root? Because last time, you know, everyone said, well, he didn't expect to win, so he couldn't really do much. This time it does seem to be planned. Are we going to see a real sea change in the way America is doing?

[00:11:28] It's a regime change, isn't it, really? Well, I don't know about a sea change simply because there are just so many vested interests. And when it comes to terminating, for example, career civil servants that runs into collective bargaining agreements or sort of contracts, which are going to be difficult. You know, the Department of Government Efficiency, which is going to be run by Elon Musk, has promised to really clean house. That may be one avenue, but it's only advisory.

[00:11:56] When it comes to the cabinet and other top level officials, though, it's certainly the case that Donald Trump is putting in loyalists. I mean, that has been very, very clear from day one. He perceives that the main mistake he made during his first administration was installing inside the beltway types career civil servants who spent their entire years in Washington. But sort of right down the line, with some exceptions, like we noted with Scott Bessent, these are people who have been hard MAGA. They've been loyal and they've sort of shown their true colors.

[00:12:26] The best man or woman, the best person for the job, you know, jobs must be, I presume he means by law, given based on merit, which would mean if you applied for a job and you believed it was given to a woman because they were trying to get a quota up, you'd be able to sue if you were the best man for the job. It seems to be his thinking. I mean, Donald Trump has been very critical just of DEI policies, diversity, equity, inclusion policies generally.

[00:12:53] And if you listen to the rhetoric from the administration, there's a lot of talk about merit, merit, merit. And so whether this could open up some lawsuits, you know, if individuals feel like they were aggrieved and didn't get the job that they deserve, so to speak. That's sort of beyond my scope. I'm not sure about that. And what about the Justice Department in all this and the attitude towards law?

[00:13:20] I mean, he's used the term lawfare quite a bit, and he clearly is hurting. You tell from the speech about what happened during the four years in which he was pursued by the courts. The weaponization of the Justice Department. And a lot of people have been suggesting that, you know, he's going to turn that around. He kind of hinted that himself. Are we going to see people on the left, people from the last administration, ones who Biden hasn't preemptively pardoned anyway, being pursued legally?

[00:13:47] Are we going to see the Trump administration using the law in that sort of way? Well, it is important to note up front about these Biden pardons, which you just alluded to, which included all of the members of the January 6th, or at least most of the members of the January 6th House Committee. Also include General Mark Milley and Dr. Fauci. Fauci as well, yeah. Exactly. So it's a pretty long list.

[00:14:11] To be honest, I really don't know how much of Trump's threats to carry out a political vendetta, a retribution tour against his adversaries was just campaign rhetoric versus how much he actually intends to follow through. You know, he's installed or has at least appointed at this point, Pam Bondi, who was the former attorney general.

[00:14:33] She's certainly a more moderate choice than who he first went with, which was Matt Gaetz of Florida, who ran into all sorts of problems with the House Ethics Committee investigation. So there's that. There's also the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, which Trump hopes will be led by Kash Patel. Kash Patel is a real Trump loyalist.

[00:14:56] He wrote a book called Government Gangsters and essentially put together a political hit list of, quote unquote, deep state members within the government that he wanted to pursue criminally if he gets into his role. So, you know, I certainly think that it's worth being vigilant of at the very least. And I think that that was sort of some of the thinking of Biden. I think is there anything I mean, if that was the case, is there anything to stop him pursuing that agenda?

[00:15:23] There's really not, especially with the Department of Justice, because the attorney general sits within the executive branch, although it's supposed to have quasi autonomy or independence. Practically, that individual serves at the will of the president because the president can hire and fire individuals in that decision. So, you know, in normal times, you would say that it kind of operates on its own.

[00:15:49] But under Trump, he's been very clear that he views the Justice Department as his Justice Department. In fact, kind of going back to his previous attorney general, Bill Barr, he called him my Bill Barr and my attorney at my Justice Department. Until he fell out with him. Until he fell out with him. Exactly. But we could see that again here. Absolutely.

[00:16:09] So there's so people working in government departments or in the Justice Department who are not supporters of Trump, people who are illegal migrants living in America, perhaps, you know, people who have got a job and they feel, oh, well, actually, it wasn't based on merit. It was based on my, you know, some sort of quota. There's a lot of people who are transgender. Exactly. Anybody who's not male or female. There's a lot of people who will feel a little bit scared right now in America. Yeah, I think that that's right.

[00:16:38] I mean, I guess you could say that elections have consequences and, you know, voters resoundingly did support Trump. But normally people wouldn't feel scared, would they? They'd go, politics isn't going the way I want it to go. But I think I'm wondering whether now people are genuinely feeling as though their life is going to be changed. They may be thrown out of the country or they may lose their job or, you know, or the mob might be out to get them. In some ways, you know, there's a material impact as a result of this. No, I think you're right.

[00:17:06] Those are not unfounded fears. At the same time, it does seem like the Trump resistance is a little bit scaled back compared to what we saw in 2017. Just take over the inauguration. In 2017, there were about half a million protesters that showed up at Trump's inauguration. This time around, it was just one-tenth of that size.

[00:17:28] So it almost seems like sort of the Trump resistance is, if not in retreat, at least putting themselves on pause to try to sort of rethink how they're going to challenge this administration. Because what they've been doing, I think you could say, hasn't been working politically. Yeah. And Thomas, it might be down to fear.

[00:17:44] Yeah. I mean, there was a line in one or two of the papers the last week here saying that a couple of quite senior liberal journalists in Washington had made very under the covers approaches to the British embassy asking about political asylum. I mean, it's extraordinary. Yeah, that's extraordinary. I hadn't seen that story. But of course, you always have a certain segment of the U.S. population saying that they're going to move to Canada or somewhere else if Donald Trump is elected. Very few of them actually do.

[00:18:12] But some individuals, I think quite rightfully, are concerned, right? And they are frightened about what this administration would do if it carries out all of its pledges. So inflation, he said, was caused by two things. One was by massive overspending, he said. Actually, I'm not sure that actually does apply. But anyway, that's his theory. But also energy prices. And so he's declared this national energy emergency. So drill, baby, drill.

[00:18:40] The largest reserves of oil and gas, he says, in America. So we're going to use that for manufacturing. Then after we've used up, put in the biggest reserves ever, we're going to export American energy all over the world. We are going to be a rich nation built on this liquid gold beneath our feet, he said. And obviously, he's going to end the Green New Deal and the electric vehicle mandate. Basically, screw the planet. He seems very determined on this. And I wonder whether he'll get any opposition to that within America.

[00:19:08] I don't think he'll get very much opposition within the Republican Senate and the House. You know, Republicans have really been very adamantly opposed to the Green New Deal. They've been extremely supportive of sort of increasing natural gas exports from the United States. They view it as both economic priority as well as a national security priority as well.

[00:19:36] So I don't think that they're going to run up into too much resistance here. And some of this can also be done just through executive orders. I mean, Trump is going to roll back a lot of regulation, for example, that in the past, the Environmental Protection Agency has advanced to try to curb climate change and other forms of environmental degradation. So I wonder how other countries around the world would feel about buying imports that are being subsidized by cheaper fuel because there's no intention of trying to move to renewable energy.

[00:20:06] I think they'll probably say, thank you very much. We'll take whatever we can get. Or will they say, well, actually, hang on a sec. This is an unfair advantage. We're going to slap a big tariff on you. Ah, tariffs. I think that's, you know, I could see Europe slapping tariffs on America, perhaps even before America gets a chance. Yeah. And then you could get into just a massive trade war. That's going to happen. That's going to happen. That's inevitable. For that reason alone, you know, even if he wasn't, Europe is going to say, hang on a sec.

[00:20:27] We're not going to buy cheap subsidized goods from America because you are not playing by, you know, with the rest of the world in terms of trying to prevent climate change. No, absolutely. I mean, there's certainly a tit for tat here. Trump can't just go around imposing tariffs on the entire rest of the world without him expecting some type of payback. It will be interesting to see what role Elon Musk plays here because, of course, he is CEO of Tesla, electric cars. Who make electric cars. And so on.

[00:20:58] Is he going to have an opinion on this? I mean, sort of in an ulterior universe, Elon Musk is sort of a darling of the political left, right? He's making all these advancements to help the environment. I think some of that he does believe in. And it's going to maybe run up against some of the priorities of the Trump administration. Well, I think that the rift potential between Trump and Elon Musk is considerable, not least because Donald Trump doesn't really like someone else stealing the limelight, does he?

[00:21:28] I mean, that's a big thing. But Elon Musk is going to take America to Mars. That was even a line in Trump's inaugural address yesterday. Right now, they look very, very chummy together. I mean, Elon Musk has spent weeks out at Mar-a-Lago advising on personnel decisions and policy priorities. I still have to think that at some point, two of the biggest egos in the world are going to conflict. They're going to clash, whether that's over policy or whether that's over personality.

[00:21:58] Every advisor from Donald Trump in the past has had a shelf life. And when you're in with Trump, you're at the greatest things since sliced bread. And then when you're out of Trump's favor, he never knew you. And he always thought that you were sort of a broken idiot and so on and so forth. What about looking wider? We sort of get into it with the energy thing better than the trade war. But what about the foreign policy agenda? Because he said, you know, America first in everything. But he has two big items. Even in the Gulf of Mexico. Well, yeah, Gulf of America.

[00:22:27] Come on. But now he's got two major items right there. He's got Ukraine. He's got the Middle East situation. He's already taken credit, of course, for the ceasefire in Gaza. What does he do next with these, do you think? Well, of course, he first needs to resolve making Canada the 51st state and then buying Greenland. I think it tends to be at the top of his priority list before these two wars in the Middle East.

[00:22:56] And what does happen with those wars? Do you think he just pulls out support? Well, I'll say I'm not a US foreign policy expert. So there are better people to talk about than this. Trump said that the war in Ukraine was going to be over in 24 hours. That's another statement that he has sort of since walked back. But I think certainly there's going to be more pressure on Zelensky to agree to some type of deal with Putin. What that looks like, I'm not sure.

[00:23:21] But it probably will entail some type of capitulation, some type of land concession and blocking future accession to NATO for Ukraine. I also think that there's just a sense with kind of war weariness growing within the United States. And there'll be more skeptics, both in the House as well as the Senate, toward this war that some of the money that has been flowing to Kiev will no longer be there.

[00:23:49] With the war in the Middle East, it's really hard to say. Obviously, we have the ceasefire, which is very good news. I mean, Trump, in the days before he was inaugurated, essentially said these hostages need to be released or there's going to be, quote, all hell to pay in the Middle East. So we'll see how long that ceasefire lasts, the details and so on and so forth.

[00:24:10] But I think if it does not persist, that certainly Trump is going to be more likely to give the green light to Netanyahu to really carry out the war as he sees fit in a way that maybe Joe Biden wasn't willing to. Difficult, isn't it? Having seen the pictures from Gaza to imagine what all hell breaking loose would look like. Any different than it already is. What about China, though? Because this was a thing in the first Trump administration that really dominated. And to some extent, I suppose you could put the TikTok issue in that box.

[00:24:39] But how is Trump going to deal with China? Well, it seems like one issue on which all of Washington can agree is taking tough on China rhetoric. I mean, we hear that from Republicans, but we also hear that from Democrats as well. So even if all of the Congress members sort of on Capitol Hill may not be supportive of the tariffs, they're sort of supportive of this tough on China rhetoric. You know, the 60% tariffs that could be massive.

[00:25:06] We saw during the first administration Trump escalate that trade war. I think we can expect more of the same, except with more volatility than we saw under Joe Biden, who kept many of the tariffs in place. When it comes to Taiwan, I think Trump is going to maintain this position of strategic ambiguity. But certainly, as we think sort of pivots east, China is going to become more and more important.

[00:25:32] I wonder who's going to hurt the most, though, on 60% tariffs on China. And you can see that escalating as well, because China will just devalue its currency. He'll get hacked off about that. So he'll raise the tariffs to 100%. That'll probably force the currency down even lower, making China's exports even cheaper. I mean, it's and China possibly doesn't care too much. You know, I mean, OK, they sell a lot of stuff to the United States, but the United States is kind of reliant on a lot of those products as well.

[00:25:59] I mean, for the for tackling inflation and not buying goods from China, that's a bit of an obstacle for that aim. Well, certainly this is going to hurt everyday average Americans, many of whom voted for Trump, probably more so than it will hurt the CCP in China. One thing that China has is the advantage of not being a democratic regime. So it doesn't have to be responsive to elections. And as a result, it can kind of play the long game when it comes to these trade wars, because.

[00:26:27] And it's got a growing market in Asia on its doorstep that it can sell to it. You know, ultimately could just say, well, we just won't sell to America. Oh, absolutely. I totally agree. So, Thomas, I mean, just looking, taking another stand back and thinking the longer term, and I mostly it's impossible to think about. Do you see what's happened as being a we use the word earlier sea change in American politics or in four years time? Will there be? Oh, gosh, we've got vast amounts of inflation. We've got vast amounts of difficulties internationally. Things aren't working at home.

[00:26:56] And then the Democrats come back in and pretty much has happened in 2020. Everything is turned around again. I mean, is that what we're into now? I was just talking about this question with a friend of mine, and I don't know if we came to any sort of resolution. It's hard to read the tea leaves. But my sense is that this next administration, four years that we are in for under Donald Trump, is either going to be successful,

[00:27:19] in which case we could see the installation of almost a permanent Republican majority that might last well beyond Trump, who knows, years, if not a decade or more. But it could completely blow up like we saw the first Trump administration do with January 6th.

[00:27:37] But the one thing that I have learned to do with Donald Trump is not make too many bold predictions because every expert, I think, would have pretty much said after 2021 that Trumpism is on the way out. Trump is dead after the 2022 midterms and a lot of Trump back candidates were unsuccessful. Everyone thought there's no way Trump is going to get the nomination, even for the Republican Party.

[00:28:01] And he surprised everybody and pulled off what has to be the greatest political comeback in modern American political history. So don't discount Donald Trump for sure. And not just in America. I mean, it feels like the world because life's got complicated and solving issues is complicated. So actually having someone coming along and saying, no, none of this is complicated. It's all quite easy. All I need to do is sign these executive orders.

[00:28:30] We're not going to take any prisoners. We are just going to push out things that are in the way. We're just going to push them aside or annihilate it in his words. And, you know, it's very much black and white. We're going to get stuff done. And don't worry about all the complications because it's not really that complicated. That's exactly what people want to hear. And that's what's happening around the world, isn't it? That is what's driving this shift to the right. It's people saying, oh, well, you know, all this left wing stuff.

[00:28:56] I mean, they're far too concerned about the sensitivities of, you know, people of mixed gender, for example. People or, you know, all of these all of these complicating things. They're getting in the way of this black and white, good old black and white world. And, you know, he's promising that to people. And what would delivery look like? What will make them dissatisfied if he just keeps on saying, you know, we're going to push stuff out of the way, just going to keep on doing it.

[00:29:21] Even if he hasn't achieved anything at the end of four years, so long as he's still speaking that language, I suspect he's still going to have a lot of support. I think you're absolutely right. I mean, this is reflective of the populism, as you correctly note, that has swept not only the United States, but Europe as well. There's sort of an anti-expert sentiment, anti-incumbent sentiment, sort of an anti-bureaucracy sentiment. Donald Trump says he's going to come in, clean out the deep state. And a lot of it just has to do with framing.

[00:29:50] I mean, Donald Trump is a tremendously talented politician. I think regardless of what you say about him, the fact that he has achieved what he has achieved politically, he's resonating with the American public in a way that very few others can. He's so iconoclastic. He's so aberrational.

[00:30:11] He is just so unique that I think it'll be interesting to see what happens with Trumpism after Trump, simply because I don't know if anyone can kind of duplicate what he does. Thomas, is there part of you that admires him? I mean, not necessarily agrees with him, but admires him? Yeah, I picked up some admiration in your voice there, Thomas. Well, I did predict, I think, on your podcast, although with plenty of reservations that I thought Donald Trump would win. You did. You absolutely did.

[00:30:38] And I think, you know, that came partially from my time spent in Pennsylvania over the summer where I just saw so many Trump flags and Trump signs. And granted, I was in a conservative area, but it was an enormous amount of enthusiasm. Yeah, I think admire is too strong. Respect is too strong. But certainly recognize, I think, his rare political gifts. And, you know, I've always, for quite some time, when others were saying, well, I think Trumpism is dead. It's on the way out.

[00:31:07] I really did not, simply because there's always this base of support that seems to be with him. And it doesn't matter what he does. Of course, he famously said, I could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue. And if you still get elected. Yeah, and he's right. And does that, I mean, you're an observer, a long-term observer of American politics. Obviously, you're an American. But you look at it. Does it depress you that people take this view that they are prepared to put someone like him into power when it seems to everyone? Half the population. Yeah.

[00:31:38] This is, you know, this is a huckster. This is a fraud. This is someone who is a criminal. Let's face it, a felon. Somehow, people, your people, want him to be president. He's certainly not a role model. And I think that that's sort of the saddest part of all of this. And I think he's cruel. He's sort of gratuitously mean. At the same time, he's funny and can be charming as well.

[00:32:03] So, I can see how a lot of Americans who are sort of have been gutted by deindustrialization and perceived globalization as hurting their prospects for upward mobility. And who think that sort of immigration is diluting a quote unquote distinct American culture. I can see how they would support him.

[00:32:22] I do think, though, that Democrats need to do some introspection about why they weren't able to beat a individual who had been impeached twice, who's a convicted felon, you know, who has done all the things that he has done. How they could not appeal in a way that was more. As you said, he's a great orator, isn't he? I mean, he's a... Well, he's not a great orator. I mean, he's not, you know, he's not Cicero. He's not, you know, he's someone who... Well, he's not. I mean, he just, he can talk, he can play a crowd. Yeah.

[00:32:52] That's the truth of it. Yeah. You can't not listen to him, though, can you? I mean, that's it. You don't turn off out of boredom when he's talking. Well, maybe you do after an hour and a half because he can go on for quite a while. But my favourite, and I wonder whether this is actually a story about what it all stands for ultimately. I was watching the BBC News and I don't know who it was. It was some Trump supporter who was talking about the Bible that would be sworn on. And the Trump supporter said, this Bible, there's only been 500 published and it's published today.

[00:33:21] This is the very Bible. It's a limited edition Bible. And you can get your copy. And he gave the web address on BBC News. It was sort of like an advertorial. All of a sudden, BBC News had turned into one of those tacky overnight advertorials. And I was thinking, yes, here's some. They're all out for what they can make out of it. This man wanted to go on BBC News. He's a salesman. He's a salesman and he's surrounded by salespeople. And I wonder how far that stretches and whether people realise actually they've been sold a pup ultimately. No, I think you're right.

[00:33:49] I mean, that was not the first time that Donald Trump had sold Bibles. Ironically, if you look at the video from yesterday, he actually does not put his hand on the Bible while he's taking the oath. Yes, that was extraordinary, wasn't it? It was. Because that one could have sold for a lot more. Someone said either of them, if he had touched it, one or the other of them would have exploded. Yeah. Donald Trump has sold sneakers. He put out this meme coin, a cryptocurrency that went up, I don't know, tens of billions of dollars.

[00:34:19] I mean, it's hard not to see this administration as sort of being in it for themselves. I mean, Trump, I think, has personally abridged himself, certainly gained a lot out of it. The fact that he won was essentially a get out of jail free card for him for some of those lingering legal problems that he also had. It's extraordinary, isn't it? And just very quickly, just to finish with, I mean, does America find itself marginalised through all of this? I mean, it exports a great deal, two trillion a year, but that's just 2% of the global trade.

[00:34:49] That's the world's reserve currency. Well, yeah. I mean, that might change too if they become too difficult to deal with. U.S. versus the rest of the world. The rest of the world is still bigger than the United States. Well, I think the United States may find itself marginalised. And if it does, it's entirely self-inflicted. At the same time, the United States remains the most powerful economy in the world, has the strongest military globally as well. So I still think that it will project strength.

[00:35:19] Just how it's projecting strength will differ, certainly, with this administration. Trump has promised an America-first agenda that is kind of a belligerent isolationism, much more sceptical of international institutions, working with other Western partners, and so on. But, yeah, I think that it would be very regrettable if the United States does sort of retreat into this much more inward approach, especially now with so many challenges on the horizon geopolitically.

[00:35:46] Well, we will walk the next four years potentially with you at some point, Stoms. I hope so. Great to talk to you. You know you're good to this, Thomas. We're going to be in your life forever. You can't get out of this podcast. Well, and of course… Little did I know when I first committed to this. And you may be seeking political asylum here anyway fairly soon, I imagine. Yeah, that's right. Well, you're coming to the studio. Works perfectly. But thank you so much for being with us. I appreciate it. Thanks, as always, for the invitation to the conversation. Well, you know, one thing Donald Trump did do, he says everyone's got to work from home. That's right. He's pulling all the federal employees back in.

[00:36:15] And, of course, it's wider than that. There's lots of big companies that are pushing this hard now. I mean, lots have been pushing it for a while. And there's been suggestions from certain quite key figures that the whole working from home thing is part of the problem with productivity, at least in Britain. Yeah. Is it? I mean, it's an interesting thing. It's an interesting question, isn't it? Are we, you know, are people at home, you know, working from their sofas or, in some cases, working from the beach somewhere? Is that actually… Not in the UK, surely. No, that's the point. They go elsewhere. They're not even in the UK.

[00:36:45] But they find, you know, the people who can work just with a laptop from anywhere in the world, are they actually working as hard? The whole experiment that came in, of course, big time with COVID. Did it work? Is it working? Is it coming to an end? Oh, is there a be-all and end-all to all of this? I mean, it surely depends on the job, depends on the company, depends on the individual. You'd think. But I don't know. I mean, there's certainly people who are suggesting that actually, you know, much as people say, oh, I work much harder when I'm at home. They're not being observed.

[00:37:10] Some people are saying unless they're being watched by, you know, cameras or, you know, that kind of thing, they can just not do anything much. Yeah. Well, we'll talk about that next week. We will. A lot to dissect that. Are you working from home? Are you working home? I always work from home. This is home. You're sitting in my home right now, sitting in the studio in my home. Yeah, I mean, so for me, it's not a question. He doesn't work at all. I do very little. I'm not that productive. Anyway, join us to work through this next week. OK, see you then. The Y. Curve.