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Americanswers… on 5Live! Will Trump lose his MAGA base over Iran?
00:36:54
And should the US have been better prepared over the Strait of Hormuz?
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- [00:00]
Justin Webb
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK
- [00:07]
Sarah Smith
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Justin Webb
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Mariana Mazzucato
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Matt Chorley
out this is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it.
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Sarah Smith
This guy has Trump derangement syndrome.
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Justin Webb
I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.
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Mariana Mazzucato
Yes. Right, let's get stuck right in with as we know, Justin always likes if we kick off with a showbiz story. So last night was the Oscars and actually the thing that struck me when I thought, I thought when I woke up this morning there'd be lots of clips of people being rude about Donald Trump or whatever. And actually there wasn't really. And I wonder what that tells us.
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Justin Webb
Justin here, I'm broken record again. These people don't matter. And I think that's beginning to get through even to them that they don't matter. And you know, there's no sort of Ricky Gervais at the Golden Globes equivalent at the Oscars and it's all very lame and so there is a bit of politics there and as you say, it's kind of the obvious politics, the sort of establishment politics. Not many jokes made about the Mullers or any kind of difficult subject that they might find difficult. So you know what? Most people, most Americans, I think just raise their eyes to the skies. They're just not that interested in them. And I think that has got through.
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Mariana Mazzucato
So the only thing Jimmy Kimmel said, we hear a lot about coverage at shows like this, but telling a story that could get you killed for telling it is real coverage. As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don't support. Support free speech. I'm not at liberty to say which. Let's just leave it at North Korea and cbs because he was taken. When was that? He was taken off air.
- [03:24]
Matt Chorley
It was all around when, after Charlie Kirk was assassinated and he made a joke and then he got taken off air for a bit and then he came back on and there was this whole big kind of debate about freedom of expression at that time. I think it's interesting, the political point. I know that me and Justin probably have this conversation on repeat like you could. It's. There's a blueprint for it now. But I also wonder if it's almost the other way around how you're describing it. It's not that they think they're not important. I don't think any famous has ever thought that about themselves. But what I do think is that is that they realize that it's not perhaps beneficial to them to talk about politics really that clever. I don't know. But if you're thinking about it from a PR point of view, it's kind of about like how to, for example, what clips are going to get picked up, what are the things, like Matt says, like you wake up in the morning and you think, oh, that went really viral. And you wonder whether celebrities were thinking that more, which is actually like let's not do stuff that makes us open to being then. Then being criticized.
- [04:16]
Mariana Mazzucato
Well, I suppose there's two things in there. So there's. There's an individual in thinking, well, I'm rude about ex politician. Do I alienate their supporters who won't go and see my film. But there's a sort of a bigger thing that we've seen in the media more generally, but in Hollywood too, when they want the American government to wave through mergers, takeovers or whatever else. And actually in a bit like we've seen it with the tech pros, we've talked a lot about the bosses of Meta and X and all of that who've basically sucked up to Trump. That's been happening in the entertainment world as well.
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Sarah Smith
Oh, absolutely. And you look at the battles. In fact, the reason that CBS was getting criticized was that it was part of a takeover which meant that David Ellison ended up putting in a more right wing news editor there in Bari Weiss. And this is happening, this consolidation across the sector where movie studios are being bought up largely by people who are Donald Trump allies. Now, maybe they're not natural bedfellows with Donald Trump, but they've become so because they want approval for these mergers and takeovers. To do that, they've got to be very, very nice to the White House and they will do things like cut. Movie stars are making it difficult for them. You're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars involved in these deals that they need to go through. They're going to get rid of any celebrity who's making trouble for that. And it's all part of the way that a smaller number of people owning all of these massive outlets, consolidating their power and their links with the White House is creating a sort of sense that Donald Trump gets everywhere in terms of allowing these things to happen. And at the same time, you've got the fcc, the body here that controls broadcasters, the chairman of that threatening TV news stations with losing their licenses if he doesn't like the way they're covering the war in Iran. So there is a sense of censorship to a degree kind of starting to creep across the wider media landscape.
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Justin Webb
There is something very Trumpian too, isn't there, about the winner or the big winner in the Oscars, this film, One battle after another, which for people who haven't seen it, is kind of chaotic is the best way to describe it. It's very loud and very brash and it's both serious and unserious, which just strikes me as very Trump, actually. Mariana, when it comes to the kind of sort of the experience you're having, I felt I really enjoyed it, actually. But I think people on the right are walking out of it because they think it's left wing. People on the left are upset because it teases wokeness at various stages. What is it? It's just. It's the modern life.
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Matt Chorley
Yeah. In some ways I actually haven't seen it. But the parallels. There are kind of parallels. When you say the serious, unserious thing between like for example, all of the comms. I mean, think about how we spoke about the memes last week on Americanswers since Then there's been, like, montage shared by the White House of, like, people playing, if you've ever played on a Wii, Nintendo Wii, like, acting like that's the war. It's like that real, like, whoa, hang on, what's going on here? Like, reality feels.
- [07:04]
Justin Webb
That's what this film mirrors. And I mean, anyone who's seen it, I think, I suspect, will agree with me that it's got all the chaos of times in it.
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Mariana Mazzucato
I. I thought exactly the same thing you were watching and I wasn't sure what it was. That's the thing.
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Justin Webb
So I go on, I missed that, Sarah.
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Sarah Smith
It took me a wee while to realize that it was a comedy and rather than something that was deeply serious. So there is that slightly chaotic attitud, but it is good fun. No, it's about. It's campaigning against white supremacy, anti immigration policies. It's very much a sense of, in a kind of post Trump America, the underground fighting back against the kind of things that the left accused the current administration of.
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Justin Webb
And it's also got Sean Penn in it, for goodness sake, who won and didn't turn up.
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Mariana Mazzucato
Doesn't turn up.
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Justin Webb
Yeah. I didn't know that, does he? Because he doesn't like the people.
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Mariana Mazzucato
I'm the same. I don't turn up.
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Justin Webb
When I went the sort of Sean Penn character is both. It struck me immensely unappealing and yet also played in a way that just made you laugh a bit, Sarah. That was the ambivalence for me.
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Mariana Mazzucato
So let's turn to Iran and the straight of Hormuz, which is this critical waterway, which you'll have heard a lot about for global oil shipping, which Iran has made clear is close to its enemies. Trump says it shouldn't just be down to the US to try and deal with it. He says he's speaking to about seven countries, including the uk, about helping to police the straight.
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Justin Webb
We are talking to other countries about working with us for the policing of the straight. Remember, like as an example of medications that NATO countries.
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Sarah Smith
We're always there for NATO.
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Mariana Mazzucato
It's not the greatest quality that. That's him saying. It'll be interesting to see what country wouldn't help us with a very small endeavor. We've had loads of messages on this. So, Janet in Sheffield emails, may I ask you to comment on why America didn't think to secure the straight of Hormuz at the beginning of the war, as clearly everyone else knew this would be a problem. Maybe it's just one of the many things that America didn't think about. John from Beckford on Sea says, I would imagine that before any armed conflict, the Pentagon would get war game, all options and plan accordingly. If this is the case, why did America apparently make no plans to protect the Hormuz Straits?
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Sarah Smith
Sarah, it's baffling, isn't it? I mean, how on earth could they have missed what the most obvious play Iran was going to take in this war was? The best, as I can understand it, trying to decode what various cabinet members and other people have been saying on the TV shows yesterday, all the Sunday shows and in other interviews, is that Donald Trump was convinced the regime would collapse before it got to the point where they could threaten the Strait of Hormuz. So, like within a week or 10 days or something, he was convinced that he would be able to overthrow the regime, but he seems to have completely not calculated was that if you make this an existential battle for Iran's rulers that either the regime is going to completely collapse or they have to throw everything they've got at it. Then of course they will fight to the death and do everything they possibly can to survive, including choking off the Strait of Hormuz and so much of the world's oil supply. It is staggering that this was not accounted for better by the administration or for those people who did put it forward. It was dismissed by Donald Trump, who just a week ago was saying that it was too late for Britain to be offering warships to help because the war had already been won and is now asking for help from the UK and a bunch of other countries as well. But, yeah, baffling. And yet it is where we are.
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Mariana Mazzucato
Justin, is that a sign that they miscalculated the Iranian response, that the obliteration or whatever hyperbole you use that they would inflict on Iran would make this not an issue?
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Justin Webb
I was talking to someone who used to work in the CIA the other day, and his view is exactly to back up what Sarah is saying. He says that he thinks that they thought there was a big chance that the Iranian regime was like the Venezuelan regime, inasmuch as it was full of people who are really interested in stealing money and being thuggish, but not actually ideologically committed to anything very much. And it turns out in Venezuela that's pretty much the case. And the woman they've got now in charge, Darcy Rodriguez, accused of widespread thuggery and theft and all the rest of it herself, but she's now Donald Trump's woman. And it's sort of worked for them, at least for the time being. So this guy was saying to me, I think it's pretty much the same. They thought it would be the same in Iran, that actually people are not ideologically committed, religiously committed in a way that we've all suggested in the past that they might be. And that actually the Iranian regime, whatever the complications and the ethnic makeup and all the rest of it, fundamentally it's full of people. And we do know this because the new leader, if indeed he's still alive, apparently, apparently has a house in London and all over the world. I mean, there has been a. There's no doubt there's been bilking of money. And these are not pleasant people in any way, shape or form, but they may well be more ideologically committed, even lower down the food chain, as it were, than the Americans could manage to imagine.
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Matt Chorley
One of the things that's quite interesting is, I guess, because. And it comes back to this actual gamification of warpoint that we've spoken about a bit. I've also spoken about on my other podcast, Top Comment, which you can listen to. But basically that because they've been so brazen, the Americans, I mean, I'm thinking about this from a social media strategy point of view. Like, Donald Trump's administration have been so brazen in the, like, we're going to own them and it's like a video game and blah, blah, blah. All this kind of stuff then feels like it doesn't quite match up with the bravado that's being projected online, which is then what gives the kind of implication it makes people think, oh, hang on a second, did they actually just miscalculate this? Or they didn't quite get it right. But then I say all of that and actually, you know, people are more likely to remember the funny meme montage of like, people playing Wii Sports than they are, if you're not that into politics, to engage with the very specific thing of this, like, body of water.
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Mariana Mazzucato
I suppose that might change when. Even when fights start coming up.
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Matt Chorley
Exactly.
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Mariana Mazzucato
Well, let's stick with Iran and what Trump says on the future of NATO. He told the Financial Times it would be very bad for the future of NATO if allies didn't help secure the Strait of Hormuz. So we've had this voice note from Kerry from the east of England.
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Matt Chorley
To me, from Trump's comments in the
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Sarah Smith
last 24 hours and in recent months,
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Matt Chorley
it seems like he views NATO as something that the USA is not part of or doesn't have any responsibilities towards that. He views NATO as some European group that the USA magnanimously keeps helping out when they don't actually need to, and how we should all be so grateful. Why does he have this view that the USA isn't part of NATO?
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Sarah Smith
Surely the clue's in the name.
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Matt Chorley
It's NATO, not eto.
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Mariana Mazzucato
Thanks, Justin.
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Justin Webb
Yeah, I think she absolutely gets to the heart of it. He doesn't really regard NATO as involving the us, other than as a bit of a nuisance. And I think the threat is effectively a gun to all of our heads. Because what he seems to me, stripped of all the detail, what he's saying is, if you don't help me out in the Strait of Hormuz, you NATO countries, maybe I won't help you out with Ukraine and maybe I wouldn't help you out in the future if it wasn't just Ukraine and if. If it became more of Western Europe. That's the threat, isn't it? And it seems pretty much as clear a threat as you can see.
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Mariana Mazzucato
And actually, General Sir Nick Carter, former, I think, chief of the Defence Staff, was on the. Was on the Today programme this morning and he was basically saying that NATO is a defensive organisation, was set up so that if one member were attacked, others would come to their rescue. Which is not the same as saying if one member launches an attack, other people have to pile in. And that was, you know, clearly there's two different worldviews there.
- [14:48]
Sarah Smith
Yeah. You can't launch a war of choice, as America and Israel did on Iran, and then expect that your allies are bound to join you even when you didn't talk to them about doing this before you started a war. That's not what NATO was there for. But that doesn't mean that Donald Trump doesn't see it in an entirely transactional way, which is, I need something from you, you better do it, or I will take something from you or refuse to give you something in the future. Because he doesn't necessari believe in the structure of NATO, because he thinks America is so much more powerful that it doesn't need it, that it's geographically removed from a lot of the threats that NATO is defending against, that it's so militarily powerful that it doesn't need the help of allies. Well, unless it comes to the Hormuz Straits, of course. But I'm also fascinated by him saying, if you don't help me out with Iran, I might not help you anymore with Ukraine. Well, when the US started sending weaponry to Ukraine and getting involved in this and strengthening NATO in fact, as a result of the invasion of Ukraine under Joe Biden, they saw it as essential to America's interests that Russia not be able to defeat Ukraine. Whereas Donald Trump obviously sees that has nothing to do with America whatsoever and is solely a European issue. And that tells you quite a lot about his worldview in itself.
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Mariana Mazzucato
We've got a caller on the line. Gavin is in Eastbourne. Hello, Gavin.
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Justin Webb
Hi.
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Mariana Mazzucato
What is your question for?
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Justin Webb
The question is, it's about the uk, US relationship. It seems to me that very few people are prepared to challenge Trump in his actions and his choice of words. Surely we should be honest, polite, but
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Mariana Mazzucato
honest in what we say, calling him
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Justin Webb
out when it's right to do so. Trump is but one president.
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Mariana Mazzucato
The relationship between our countries is surely
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Justin Webb
strong enough to be able to speak truth to power.
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Mariana Mazzucato
The tightrope that Keir Starmer's walking.
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Justin Webb
Yeah, and we've talked about this a lot, haven't we? And you look at the way that Macron deals with Trump, it's much more abrupt and doesn't seem necessarily to damage their relationship. Giorgia Meloni in Italy saying recently she thought the war was illegal, saying it out loud. And Giorgia Meloni, previously at least, quite close to Trump, or very close to Trump, actually. So you can. You don't have to take the line that Keir Starmer has taken. On the other hand, he obviously feels that it has got us various places, not just in terms of trade deals and all the rest of it, but actually more just in our ability potentially to influence the United States. And that's always been the argument, hasn't it, that if you don't hold him close, you won't have any influence at all. I think it's questionable what influence at the moment we are having, but, you know, there's this endless fuss about the special relationship, which I've long believed does not exist. Thank you. To this matter,
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Mariana Mazzucato
how. I mean, we obviously are UK biased of the UK perspective. Sarah, to what extent, if any, does Keir Starmer impinge on the sort of Washington D.C. brain?
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Sarah Smith
A bit in the beginning, and people were really quite fascinated by the sort of bromance that seemed to have sprung up between him and Donald Trump in the very early days. And they were really intrigued by this, what almost looked like a kind of resurgence of the special relationship, because they were such unlikely friends, weren't they? And it does feel as though that is unraveling a bit, not just over Iran, but over some other things as well. Donald Trump's constant criticism of the Chagos Islands deal, for instance, and underpinning it, I think, is that he was keen on Keir Starmer at the beginning because he had recently won a landslide general election and Donald Trump thought he looked like a winner with an absolutely enormous parliamentary majority. Obviously that's not where opinion polls put Keir Starmer these days. And Donald Trump has come to see him as a bit of a loser and is no longer interested necessarily in chumming up to somebody like this and is prepared to be much more rude, but also I think prepared probably to lash out at Britain in policy terms a bit. So, I mean, it is absolutely right, of course, to say this is only one US President and the historic relationship between Britain and America will survive that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that a government or prime minister would survive a few months or years of being badly on the wrong side of Donald Trump because he is so much more vindictive and mercurial and changeable than normal US Presidents.
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Mariana Mazzucato
Just on the point about the MAGA movement's perspective on this, somebody texted in saying really interested to know what Marianne China's imaginary US voters think of this. Are the usual Trump core vote embarrassed. And we've had a voice note from sue in New Jersey about maga.
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Matt Chorley
As a Brit in the States, I
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Sarah Smith
listen to Americas regularly. So grateful for your insights. President Trump has firmly owned the concept of make America great again. In fact, the concept so deeply resonated with a good proportion of Americans that they seem to have co owned the notion. Given this apparent co ownership of the MAGA philosophy and Trump's consistent recent focus away from home, do you think that
- [19:41]
Justin Webb
there's a risk that the ownership of the MAGA concept could detach from Trump?
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Matt Chorley
What would this mean for him and what would he do about it?
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Sarah Smith
Thank you.
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Mariana Mazzucato
No, thank you. Sue in New Jersey. Mariana, what are your imaginary friends saying?
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Matt Chorley
So my imaginary friends are undercover voters. They've got profiles across all the main sites and they are being recommended different content depending on their political beliefs, et cetera. That question's really interesting because yeah, I've obviously been paying quite close attention to the kind of MAGA undercover voter Britney. What I think is interesting is that, that if you look at it kind of rationally, it's like, yeah, actually some of these things we're talking about feel like they are overseas and getting involved in other stuff and not make America great again, but the display of kind of patriotism and victory and we're sticking up for American interests elsewhere that they're projecting on social Media has broadly flown with the kind of MAGA cohort online, the kind of the ones who at least remain loyal to Donald Trump. I would say there is, as I've spoken about before, this kind of splinter group who are the kind of Marjorie Taylor Greene esque type MAGA people online who are actually much more skeptical about this and feel as though they'd be better placed investing their efforts and resources and time elsewhere. But I actually think that, again, it explains a lot of that kind of rage, bait trolley type approach of the admins of saying, look, we're strong, we stick up for America. That's what we're doing. And I think that that kind of thing has sort of worked.
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Justin Webb
Just to drill down on what Sue's question is from New Jersey, she's absolutely right. It is splintering. And it's not splintering, but there are bits of it now that Donald Trump has lost control of. And the classic example of that is a woman called Megyn Kelly who we've had on the show. I mean, she's not exactly one of the kind of extreme, completely out there, sort of loon conspiracy theorists people. She's a mainstream, was a mainstream broadcaster. She's got her own show now, very successful right wing take on life. But she is now having this incredible argument with another guy who's also actually not really out there. A guy, Mark Levin, who used to write for the, used to work for the Reagan administration. I mean, he's not sort of. And he's now having this bitter, weird, vitriolic argument. He's called her lewd and disgusting. She said that he's got a micro penis. I'm not quite sure where that goes. But I mean, this kind of absolute, kind of loony argument, which Sarah will be more aware of than we are here, because she's sort of seen it and it's going on around her all the time. But this kind of sense that the right is now at each other's throats in a way that Donald Trump has lost control of. And on that particular argument, Trump's backed one side, he's backed this guy, Mark Levin, because Levin, who's basically a fan of the war, but all these people like Megyn Kelly, et cetera, are out
- [22:32]
Mariana Mazzucato
there and are untethered now when the movement becomes bigger than the person who, who coined it.
- [22:48]
Justin Webb
Okay, we've come off the air with five live. Live with Matt Chorley. Mariana has had to do other things, so she has left us. But Sarah and I still here and we want to keep talking about this MAGA rift. Because it is really interesting what's going on over Iran. And it is, Sarah, isn't it? Fundamentally, it's not just about fighting wars abroad and whether America should be isolationist or all of that sort of stuff. It's also actually very much, isn't it, about Israel?
- [23:15]
Sarah Smith
Yeah. There was a suspicion that America was being either persuaded or strong armed into this action by Israel. And not all MAGA supporters are quite as 100% behind Israel as traditional old fashioned Republican. And so the idea that the US was not only doing something Donald Trump had promised he wouldn't do, which is starting new foreign wars, but doing so basically at the behest of another country was very, very suspicious. And then every day we heard a new reason from the administration about why they had started this war. Now and then Marco Rubio goes up to Capitol Hill and basically overtly said America had to get involved at this point because they knew that there was going to be Israeli action against Iran, that that would spur Iranian attacks on American bases in the region and American forces. So they had to preemptively go after Iran before they launched those attacks, otherwise they would suffer higher casualties. That's what Marco Rubio said. Now, after that, there was quite a lot of criticism. Donald Trump was asked, did Israel force you into this war? And he snapped back, no. And Marco Rubio sort of tried to roll back those words, but basically for a lot of people, thought he had finally let the cat out of the bag and admitted what this was really about.
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Justin Webb
Let's listen to three of these very big voices in the MAGA movement. So we'll hear Tucker Carlson, then Megyn Kelly, and then Marjorie Taylor Greene. As someone who wants the United States to remain powerful in the world, force for decency and order in the world, but above all wants America to remain prosperous and peaceful at home in the country that we actually live in. It's hard to say this, but the United States didn't make the decision here. Benjamin Netanyahu did.
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Sarah Smith
Look, there are massive divisions over what we've done here and people are going to change their minds over the coming
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Matt Chorley
days and weeks one way or the other.
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Sarah Smith
But my own, my own feeling is no one should have to die for a foreign country. I don't think those Forest Service members
- [25:18]
Matt Chorley
died for the United States. I think they died for Iran or for Israel.
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Justin Webb
I was out there on the front lines for Make America Great Again.
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Sarah Smith
And Make America Great Again was supposed
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Justin Webb
to be America first, not Israel first, not any foreign country first, not any foreign people first. But the American people first.
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Sarah Smith
So the big question is, how much do they represent your regular MAGA voter? And how influential are they with voters? Can these voices who are beloved at sometimes of the MAGA movement and of Donald Trump, when they're praising and supporting him, how influential are they? Donald Trump does say he is maga, not anybody else. He invented it, he embodies it. And MAGA is whatever he says it is. And I do wonder, actually, Justin, even though these are big, important voices within Republican politics, how influential they are with voters when Donald Trump is making his own case quite as forcefully as he is at the moment.
- [26:16]
Justin Webb
Yeah. And to what extent they're going to get wilder and wilder and go, as many people accused Tucker Carlson of going into a place, place that the right feels, the inside right, the normal right, as it were, feels very uncomfortable with, which is open antisemitism. And there is this accusation, isn't there? More than an accusation, Actually, it's a fact, isn't it? Because this exists now in the same world as Nick Fuentes, the open admirer of Hitler, of these other people on the far, far right, who are constantly a presence on the far right, but are now much more being entertained within the kind of, not exactly mainstream, but within the broader MAGA movement. And the classic example was Fuentes himself being given a very soft interview by Tucker Carlson. And now the accusation, I was referring earlier on to that fight that Megyn Kelly has been having with a guy called Mark Levin, the accusation from Levin's supporters is that she also is, is being leeched across now into a world where it's not really just a criticism of Israel or Israel's actions or whether or not the United States is doing the work of another country and shouldn't be. But it actually, they then say, gets mixed into this whole idea that hatred of Jews is acceptable on the right in American politics, as it is, frankly, on the far left. So it's not just one argument, is it? I suppose that's the point, Sarah. It's not just the argument, should we be sending troops abroad and are they being controlled by Israel? It's also this sub argument about racism, in fact or not racism, and people saying, well, that's absolute nonsense. We've got every right to say what we want. And that further fractures all of this in a way that Donald Trump is not finding helpful. And when he says it's all about me, I mean, yes, with the broader electorate, maybe none of this really seeps through. But I do think the fracturing of the MAGA movement is something still that is now big enough and profound enough and bitter enough to have an impact.
- [28:29]
Sarah Smith
It doesn't seem to have made an impact on voters yet who are probably not paying attention to every twist and turn of this. And the left still has a problem with accusations of antisemitism greater than the right. I think after all the student protests over Gaza and ongoing actions, there are about that now. Of course, course, those student activists and MAGA influencers all deny any accusations of antisemitism. And there is an extent in America to which any criticism of Israel is quite quickly labeled antisemitism. And those can be two entirely different things. But if you look at the numbers, Justin, polling does suggest that this war is not popular. It's the first one in living memory that an American president has gone into without more than 50% support for the action because Donald Trump didn't really bother making the case to the people about this. But normally, initially, at the beginning of a conflict, you know, you have an upsurge of patriotism and people are supporting their troops. Not on this occasion yet. Nine out of ten Republicans that identify themselves as being MAGA say they support the war. So actually the section of the electorate who should probably be the most skeptical are the ones who are following Donald Trump into this the most. And I think he maybe does still have a point about he is MAGA and it's whatever he wants. Cuz look at Marjorie Taylor Greene when she fell out with him initially over Iran and then some other issues as well and decided to le Congress. She had a pretty dedicated and loyal following and she had always been known as a MAGA supporter. She wasn't somebody who changed her mind and came to the cause late or anything. She was a true believer. She has not really taken anyone with her. I mean, she stood up to the President on what were very America first kind of issues. She fell out with him and she pretty quickly lost all power and influence as a result.
- [30:12]
Justin Webb
So in that case, and I think you're dead right, but in that case, where does this lead? J.D. vance, the Vice president who we know, I was reminding myself the other day, Sarah, about those leaked. Was it a telegram channel? The leaked chat involving J.D. vance, when the Houthis, the Iranian allies in Yemen were causing difficulties for shipping and there was this discussion, wasn't there, about whether or not the Americans and the Europeans would get involved in suppressing them. And J.D. vance in that conversation, what he thought was a private conversation saying why should we bother as the Europeans problems has nothing to do with us. You do wonder now about him and what he's thinking and what he's making of it all.
- [30:59]
Sarah Smith
Yeah, I mean, you would slightly wonder what he's thinking because he hasn't said it out loud. But we don't have to wonder too much. He was pretty clear before this began that there was no U.S. interest in going to war with Iran. He's on the record having said that before. He has given a couple of interviews, but late on, I mean, it took us quite a while before we even saw him. After this action was launched, he had obviously been forced to go and speak about it. He wasn't critical of the war, but he wasn't particularly supportive about it either. I think he is keeping his powder dry so that all of this really does turn out to be a big vote loser in the end. Not necessarily because it defied MAGA principles, but because it put up the price of petrol, it put up the price of other goods, and caused all sorts of problems for the US that weren't necessary. He may be able to go into the primaries for the 2028 Republican candidacy saying, I didn't support this in a big and wholehearted way, the way that, say, for instance, Marco Rubio has been doing and might turn out to be a vote winner for him. Maybe not. But I think that's part of his game, is he's not out there cheerleading for a war that he clearly doesn't believe in, but that he sees there might be some tactical advantage over the next couple of years of keeping his mouth shut.
- [32:07]
Justin Webb
At the moment, it's gotta succeed, really, isn't it? I mean, that's the thing for Trump. I think you're right. Electorally, none of this really matters and none of this MAGA fuss will matter if he can declare a victory that is roughly convincing to most American people. You could sort of separate that out from whether it is convincing to other people else elsewhere in the world, particularly in Iran, and particularly in the Gulf states as well, which will matter, of course, and now have very much a say and an interest in all of this. But if he can make a convincing case to the American people, that is it politically, isn't it for him. He's not necessarily gone down the road of disaster entirely.
- [32:45]
Sarah Smith
Depends what happens to prices as a result of this, for how long. There is disruption in the international oil markets, of course. I mean, he could declare victory tomorrow pretty much, and say, look, we've obliterated their navy, their air force, their capacity to fire missiles, killed most of the Iranian leaders and say that that was a victory. But as long as there is disruption in the oil markets filtering through, and it will take months for that to correct, after the Straits of Hormuz are finally opened again as well, that's what people will punish him for. They were already concerned that he wasn't doing enough on the cost of living because he was too engaged in foreign affairs. If those then put prices up more, which they're already starting to do at the petrol pump, and he can't do anything about that, he will pay a heavy electoral price. Now, not necessarily among those die hard mag supporters who are behind him on Iran, but every swing voter, every Republican who kind of reluctantly held their nose and voted for Donald Trump because they remembered the economy being better in his first term, they're not gonna stick with him if he started a war of choice and it put their cost of living up.
- [33:44]
Justin Webb
And just to be clear about the immediate political cost, the midterm elections are coming up and specifically we sort of expect, and you would expect anyway, that the House of Representatives will be lost for the Republicans, that the Democrats will once again have a majority there. But are we saying, Sarah, that this is now so perilous for him that he could lose control of the Senate as well? And potentially to the extent that he could face impeachment?
- [34:14]
Sarah Smith
Well, that's what he really fears. And that's why these midterms matter for him much, much more than they do for a normal president halfway through one of their terms, where they often lose votes and lose seats in the midterms. And as you say, if there's a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, which seems really quite likely, they will move articles of impeachment for sure, and he will become the only president in history to have been impeached three times. But that only really, really matters if the Senate then convict you. So you need a majority in the Senate. It is quite hard for the Democrats to win that. The third of the Senate seats that are up are not particularly favorable for them. And there are various circumstances that make that difficult. But if this war is really unpopular, the Republicans have really shot themselves in the foot for elections and the Democrats are able to control the Senate as well, then the consequences for Donald Trump could be disastrous. So he has way more riding on these midterms than presidents normally do.
- [35:09]
Justin Webb
Yeah, I mean, just to be clear about this, we really need Anthony here, don't we, for this. But he would need. You'd need to lose two thirds of the Senate. So in other words, it would be we're talking about a Democratic majority in the Senate, plus a few Republicans who then think the man's finished and he's behaved badly. And actually, aren't I, Mr. Republican Senator, would benefit electorally in the future if I now turn against him? That's what we're talking about, isn't it? So it's not immensely likely at the moment, but it is no longer outside the bounds of possibility. Is that the best way of putting it?
- [35:43]
Sarah Smith
Yeah, I think that's the best way to put it because you're right, it would take 67 senators to vote to convict him and to remove him from office. So that's the ultimate sanction, is that he would actually be chucked out and J.D. vance would become the president until November 2028. That highly unlikely. But of course, control of the Senate for the Democrats also allows them to set off various investigations and do things, as well as blocking all the legislation that Donald Trump would want to get through, also potentially passing legislation that could tie his hands. Because remember, in Congress they've been trying to get this War Powers act passed that would have stopped him from being able to unilaterally declare war on Iran. Now they just don't have the votes to get it through and didn't in time. But you could see a situation where they're able to block all sorts of things he was wanting to do as well. So yeah, I mean, he is playing with fire based basically sending prices in the wrong direction when voters have been pretty clear what they wanted him to concentrate on. And you know, it's short number of months until the first Tuesday in November when they get to have their say.
- [36:42]
Justin Webb
Sarah, you gotta go, you're busy. I gotta go walk the dog. Bye.
- [36:46]
Sarah Smith
Bye, bye.
- [36:54]
Justin Webb
Thank you for answering our call and continuing to send your messages to us. We do read every single one. We love to hear your thoughts, your feedback and questions as well. So please do keep them coming. You can send us an email. It's americastbc.co.uk the WhatsApp is 443-301-239480 and you can get involved in the AmericasT Discord server. The link to that is in the description. And don't forget to subscribe. That way you will never miss an episode. Until next time, bye.
- [37:50]
Mariana Mazzucato
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Sarah Smith
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Mariana Mazzucato
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Sarah Smith
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Mariana Mazzucato
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Sarah Smith
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Mariana Mazzucato
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- [38:47]
Sarah Smith
reggie, I just sold my car online. Let's go, grandpa.
- [38:51]
Justin Webb
Wait, you did?
- [38:52]
Matt Chorley
Yep.
- [38:52]
Sarah Smith
On Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered
- [38:55]
Justin Webb
a few questions, got an offer in minutes.
- [38:57]
Sarah Smith
Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame. You don't say.
- [39:01]
Justin Webb
Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow.
- [39:03]
Sarah Smith
Talk about fast. Wow.
- [39:04]
Mariana Mazzucato
Way to go.
- [39:06]
Sarah Smith
So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it.
- [39:08]
Justin Webb
Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested. Car selling made easy on Vana. Pickup fees may apply.